Step-by-Step Guide

Restore an old photograph with Photoshop

Weather, time, and humans have left a mark on many old family photos and important historical
images. This tutorial shows you how to use Adobe Photoshop to restore an old photograph to
its former glory: using tools to fix missing pieces, remove dust and blemishes, and apply finishing
touches to your cherished images.

Figure 1 Before and after states of a complete photograph restoration

Some initial considerations. Its important to select the best possible image as your source material. If you are
scanning a negative or a print, choose the maximum resolution, bit depth, and color space your scanner will
support: 600 pixels per inch, 16-bit to 24-bit depth, and RGB Color is a good standard. The goal is to capture the
widest range of tonal values and information as possible in a scanned image. As you work, remember to prioritize
your image correction process. Its very easy to spend a lot of time fine tuning an image with diminishing returns.
Figure 1 demonstrates an extensive photo restortion, however, in this tutorial you will not be dealing with such
significant damage.
Lets take a look at how the different tools in Photoshop can be combined to restore an old photo. This isnt an
exhaustive list, but rather provides insight into how a range of tools can be used together in a typical old photo
restoration workflow. In this document, you restore an old photograph using a range of Photoshop tools to
perform the following steps:
Restore a missing area of an image
Repair dust spots, stains and creases
Correct saturation, tone, contrast and sharpness

Restore missing area of an image

Old images may have missing pieces; corners of photographs tend to be fragile and prone to breaking off
(Figure 1). Its easy to replace a missing area of an image using the Content-Aware Fill option.

Patching a large area of an image:

1. In Adobe Photoshop, open an old photograph
you want to restore.

Magic Wand tool

Crop tool

2. Choose Layer > Duplicate Layer to create a copy,

and type a name in the dialog box.
A duplicate layer allows you to edit an image in a
non-destructive way and to maintain the original
image in an untouched state in case you want to
go back to it at another time.
3. Choose the Crop Tool from the toolbox (Figure 2),
and then click the Straighten button in the Crop
menu bar at the top of the screen.
When you scan an image, rarely is it square. The
Crop Tool Straighten option allows you to set any
key horizontal or vertical element as a reference
edge.
4. In the image, drag the Straighten tool across a
horizontal or vertical line (Figure 3).
When the mouse is released, the image snaps
square according to the line, and the cropping
marquee resizes to fit the new image format
(Figure 4).

Figure 2 Crop tool

Figure 3 Straighten tool

Cropping handles

Figure 4 Cropping marquee

Restore an old photograph with Photoshop Step-by-Step Guide

5. You may want to remove the border around an

image. Adjust the cropping marquee by placing
the pointer inside the bounding box and moving
it, or by dragging a handle to scale the crop area
(Figure 5).
6. Click the checkmark in the Crop menu bar to
commit the current crop.
7. Choose the Magic Wand tool from the toolbox. If
hidden, access it by clicking the Quick Selection
tool.
The Magic Wand tool lets you select a consistently
colored area without having to trace its outline.
For example, clicking in the corner of Figure 4
selects the whole of the missing area.

Figure 5 Cropping marquee

8. Choose Select > Modify > Expand.

Expanding the selection slightly into a damaged
area will give better results allowing you to
remove all of the creases and torn edges.
9. In the Expand Selection dialog box, set the
expansion size to suit the edge to be modified.
Here it is set to 10 pixels to include cracks and
tears (Figure 6) but your number may vary
depending on Magic Wand Tolerance setting and
degree of damage.
The selection area expands to include all of the
damaged area (Figure 7).
10. Choose Edit > Fill to open the Fill dialog box.
11. From the Use menu, select Content-Aware
(Figure 8).
With Content-Aware selected, Photoshop
analyses the surrounding pixels and seamlessly
fills in the missing area based on similar image
content nearby.

Figure 6 Expand Selection dialog box

Figure 7 Expanded selection

Use menu

12. Click OK to close the Fill dialog box.

The missing area is filled in with a suitable
replacement texture.
Figure 8 Fill dialog box

Restore an old photograph with Photoshop Step-by-Step Guide

Repair dust spots, stains and creases

There are many kinds of damage that can affect an old image; most are easily corrected using Photoshop. The
Dust and Scratches filter helps remove many small blemishes by smoothing out dissimilar pixels. You can use the
Clone Stamp Tool, Patch Tool, or Spot Healing Brush Tool to manually fix damage such as stains and cracks. Filter
and tool choice depends on the degree and type of damage. Use the Content Aware option where available to
help analyze the pixels around a blemish to build textures and blend edges.

Figure 9 Repairing dust spots, stains and creases, before and after

Using the damage repair tools:

1. Choose Filter > Noise > Dust & Scratches. The
Dust & Scratches dialog box opens (Figure 10).
2. Adjust the preview zoom ratio until the area
containing dust and scratches is visible.

Figure 10 Dust & Scratches dialog box

Restore an old photograph with Photoshop Step-by-Step Guide

3. Drag the Threshold slider left to 0 to turn off the

value so that all pixels in the image can be
examined. The Threshold value determines how
dissimilar the pixels should be before they are
eliminated.

Hardness

Content-Aware

4. Drag the Radius slider left or right. The Radius

value determines the size of the area searched for
dissimilar pixels. Increasing the radius blurs the
image. Use the smallest value that eliminates dust
and scratches.
5. Slowly increase the Threshold setting by either
entering a number or by dragging the slider. You
are looking for the highest value that eliminates
the dust and scratches, but not so high that
blemishes return.

Figure 11 Dust & Scratches dialog box

6. Click OK to close the Dust & Scratches dialog box.

7. Choose the Spot Healing Brush tool from the
toolbox. If hidden, click either the Healing Brush
tool, Patch tool, or Red Eye tool to show the
hidden tools and make your selection.
8. Choose a brush size in the options bar. Set a brush
size no larger than the area you want to fix and set
Hardness to high (Figure 11).
9. Choose the Content-Aware Type option in the
options bar.
This option compares nearby image content to
seamlessly fill the selection, realistically
maintaining key details such as shadows and
object edges.

Figure 12 Click-drag the Spot Healing tool to smooth

imperfections

10. Click the spots you want to repair. For larger

areas, click and drag to smooth over
imperfections such as cracks and stains (Figure
12).

Restore an old photograph with Photoshop Step-by-Step Guide

Correct saturation, tone, contrast and sharpness

Once you are happy with the repairs you have made to your old photograph, consider finishing touches such as
adjusting saturation, tone, contrast, and sharpness. Use Adjustment layers to apply adjustments to a photograph
without permanently changing the original image.

Figure 13 Correcting saturation, tone, contrast, and sharpness before and after

Making adjustments to an image:

1. In the Adjustments panel, click the Hue/Saturation
button to create a new adjustment layer (Figure
14).

Hue/Saturation

Brightness/Contrast

Adjustment
layer

Figure 14 Creating an adjustment layer

Restore an old photograph with Photoshop Step-by-Step Guide

2. In the Hue/Saturation panel (Figure 15), drag the

Saturation slider to the left to remove all colors
and render in grayscale.
Hue slider

3. (Optional) Depending on the mood you want to

achieve, you can leave the image in black and
white, or add a sepia-colored treatment. Sepia is a
warm, reddish-brown color associated with
monochrome photographs of the 19th and early
20th centuries. To add a sepia tone to the image,
click the Colorize option in the Hue/Saturation
panel and use the Hue slider to set the reddishbrown color.
4. Click the Brightness/Contrast icon in the
Adjustments panel.
The Brightness/Contrast adjustment lets you
make simple adjustments to tonal range. Moving
the brightness slider to the right increases tonal
values and expands image highlights, to the left
decreases values and expands shadows. The
contrast slider expands or shrinks the overall
range of tonal values. The goal is to achieve a
range of tones between the lightest and the
darkest areas of an image, without losing detail at
either end.
5. Choose Filter > Sharpen > Unsharp Mask. Make
sure the Preview option is selected (Figure 16).
The amount of sharpening required for an image
varies according to the size, image quality
produced by the source or scanner you use. The
Unsharp Mask sharpens an image by increasing
contrast along the edges in an image by the
amount and radius you specify. Take care not to
over do it; oversharpening an image produces an
unappealing halo effect around the edges.

Saturation
slider
Colorize
option

Figure 15 Hue/Saturation panel

Figure 16 Unsharp Mask dialog box

6. Drag the Radius slider to determine the number

of pixels surrounding the edge pixels that affect
the sharpening. The greater the radius value, the
wider the edge effects.
The Radius value varies according to the subject
matter, the size of the final reproduction, and the
output method. For high-resolution images, a
Radius value between 1 and 2 is usually
recommended. A lower value sharpens only the
edge pixels, whereas a higher value sharpens a
wider band of pixels.
Restore an old photograph with Photoshop Step-by-Step Guide

7. Drag the Amount slider to determine how much

to increase the contrast of pixels. For highresolution printed images, an amount between
150% and 200% is usually recommended.
8. Drag the Threshold slider to determine how
different the sharpened pixels must be from the
surrounding area before they are considered edge
pixels and sharpened by the filter. For instance, a
threshold of 4 affects all pixels that have tonal
values that differ by a value of 4 or more, on a
scale of 0 to 255. So, if adjacent pixels have tonal
values of 128 and 129, they are not affected. The
default Threshold value (0) sharpens all pixels in
the image.

Saving your restored photograph

Now that youve restored your old photograph in Photoshop, you can save the PSD file to preserve the layers and
continue making changes in the future. Once you have a final version youre happy with, save a copy in whichever
format you want. For example, you can create a TIFF file for print, or a Web-optimized JPEG format.
To learn more techniques for restoring your old photographs, visit http://tv.adobe.com/watch/understandingadobe-photoshop-cs6/restore-a-damaged-photo/.

asdasdf
Tool

Description

Dust and Scratches

filter

Reduce small blemishes by changing dissimilar pixels. To achieve a balance between sharpening the image and
hiding defects, try various combinations of Radius and Threshold settings, or apply the filter to selected areas in
the image.

Clone Stamp tool

Set a sampling point and paint one part of an image over another part of the same image. Also useful for
duplicating objects or removing a defect in an image.

Healing Brush tool

Set a sampling point and paint one part of an image to correct imperfections. Also matches the texture, lighting,
transparency, and shading of the sampled pixels to the pixels being healed. The repaired pixels blend seamlessly
into the rest of the image. Works best for large areas or when control over the source sampling is needed.

Spot Healing Brush Similar to Healing Brush: removes blemishes and other imperfections automatically, without needing to specify a
tool
sampling point. Works best for small areas of correction.
Patch tool

Repair a selected area with pixels from another area or a pattern while matching the texture, lighting, and
shading of the sampled pixels to the source pixels.

Content-Aware
Move tool

Recompose images without complex layering or slow, precise selections. Extend mode convincingly expands or
contracts objects such as hair, trees, or buildings. Move mode lets you place objects in different locations (most
effectively when the background remains similar).

Red Eye tool

Remove red eye in flash photos of people or animals.

Table 1 Photoshop retouching tools and common uses

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