In the last few days, due to the death of an old family friend, the memories have awakened and a search for old photographs has begun to review the moments spent together with this unfortunately disappeared person. The goal was to scan the paper photos, those that came out after the development of the film, to save them on the computer in digital format and publish them on Facebook in order to create a commemorative web page of the missing friend.
When you want to digitize old photos and bring them from paper to your computer, a problem can be to find photos damaged by time, dirty, dusty, stained or scratched .
Even if only a miracle (or a talented artist) can repair a photograph in poor condition (like the one above), if the problem is only dust, scratches and dirt there are digital photo editing methods to correct the images in really effective way.
A professional photo editing program such as Photoshop is not necessarily necessary because you can easily use free software such as Gimp or Pain.net .
1) In Photoshop and also in Gimp and Paint.net there is a very effective correction tool to eliminate the smudges of old photos and delete elements such as scratches or stains.
The tool is that of Cloning, that is of that process that replicates the selected image on a part of the photo.
Use the mouse to paint the part of the image selected as sample on the photo.
In Photoshop, you must hold down the Alt key to select a sample area, and then paint it over the damaged area with the left mouse button.
In GIMP and Paint.NET the selection key is CTRL instead.
To access the cloning tool just press a button on the keyboard and precisely:
- Photoshop: press the S key to activate cloning, select the sample by pressing the left mouse button with Alt pressed and then paint the damaged part;
- GIMP: C key, sample collection with Ctrl + Click and then scratches and stains are covered with the normal mouse;
- Paint.NET: L key, sample with Ctrl + Click .
2) One of the simplest solutions to fix a dirty or scratched photograph is to copy the good part of the image on the ruined spaces.
It is therefore necessary to select a part of the photo, copy and paste it covering the spots.
This is especially useful for covering large areas of scratches and dust or even when unwanted objects appear on the photo.
In all three main photo editing programs you can copy and paste by pressing Ctrl + C and then Ctrl + V.
Obviously you have to select parts of very small photos, work with the high zoom and then use tools such as rubber or cloning to blend the glued area to the rest of the image.
To activate the selection of areas you can use the shortcut keys:
Photoshop: M key for selection, L for lasso;
GIMP: R for the selection and F for the lasso;
Paint.NET: S to switch between them.
3) Correcting large sections in a photograph with the eraser and drawing tools is perhaps the most difficult photo editing mode or, at least, the one that requires more patience.
In fact, it is necessary to repaint the lost or damaged areas .
In all three programs, you can use the Eraser tool to erase parts of photos and use the Brush to paint.
Photoshop: E button for the eraser, B button for the brush;
GIMP: combination of Shift + E keys for the eraser and P for the brush;
Paint.NET: E button for the eraser, B button for the brush.
In Photoshop and Gimp, which are actually more powerful than the smaller Paint.net, two other tools can be used: the Healing Brush and the Healing Brush on the fly that really work wonders.
These are tools for restoring an image, correcting imperfections with the mouse that acts almost automatically.
Without therefore using cloning, you can paint with the corrective brush and eliminate imperfections and stains.
In Photoshop: With the J key you can enable the corrective brush; the sample is always extracted with Alt + Click ;
In GIMP: H key for the corrective Tool and, Ctrl + Click to select the sample.
4) The " Color Picker " or " Eyedropper " is available in all three programs and must be used in tandem with the brush to paint similar colors.
In Photoshop it is activated with the I key;
In Gimp with the O key;
In Paint.net with the K key.
5) Smudge and blur are GIMP and Photoshop tools that allow you to cover stains, blend and soften the scratched and damaged parts of photographs scanned with the scanner.
Photoshop uses the R key to switch between smudge and blur.
In GIMP the combination of Shift + U keys to blur while the U activates the smudge.
Of course, for photos that are not too damaged or if you want to go faster, there are free programs that are simpler and affordable for everyone such as Windows Live Photo and Picasa that provide automatic corrections .
Anyone wishing to make fast photo editing corrections without any manual procedure can instead use one of the web applications to improve the photos .
