With picture scanning service providers becoming more popular each year, more and more people are dusting off their old picture albums and considering whether to digitize them.
The problem is, often, at least part of the pictures have suffered tears, cracks, or other types of wear, which doesn’t make them worth digitizing, at least in their current condition.
The good news is that whether you want to use a digitization service or scan the photos yourself, there are ways how you can repair them and maximize the quality of the digitized pictures that you want to produce.
Let’s explore some of the most effective photo restoration and retouching steps that you should follow if you want to achieve the best results.
Get All the Pieces Together
Before you get started on your photo restoration process, you will need to make sure that you’ve got all the pieces of the picture that you’ll be working with.
If you have pictures that have been torn, you’ll need to find the pieces that are missing because, without them, it will be impossible to recover parts of the image.
Once you have all the pieces and put them together, you can start on the next part of the process, which is gluing the pieces so that they can withstand the scanning process.
Glue the Pieces Together
By now, you should have all the pieces ready to be glued together. But you may be asking – what type of glue should you use?
Well, you can’t just use any glue you find your cabinet – many types of adhesives aren’t suitable to use on pictures, as they can further damage the photograph and ruin it beyond the point of restoration.
Luckily, there are quite a few brands of adhesive products that are designed specifically for gluing pictures, which will not cause damage and will hold the picture together for the scanning process.
Once you have the right glue, put the pieces together and trying to fit them as perfectly as possible, so that there are no irregularities or gaps.
Scan the Pictures
Next, you’ll need to scan the photos and get them on your computer, where you’ll be able to use photo editing and retouching software to correct the imperfections.
Now, you could scan the photos yourself, but make sure that you use a good enough printer that’s able to capture the details of the photograph in high definition and excellent overall quality.
Many people opt for getting professional assistance with the scanning process, but it is possible to do it yourself if you’re willing to invest the time and effort.
Open the Image in Photo Editing Software
At this point, you should have your pictures glued, scanned, and ready to be retouched, but to do that, you’ll need specialized software such as Inpaint, although there are plenty of other options as well, so make sure to do your research and find the right choice for your needs.
Once you have the software installed, find the image file on your computer and open it through the software, where you will be able to work on the image and improve its quality.
Select the Imperfections
Although an image editing tool should be able to do part of the work automatically, you will still need to identify and mark the biggest tears and cracks in the picture so that the software can do its job.
Usually, this is done with a tool called a “magic wand”, which allows you to mark areas of the photos with the imperfections, and then guides the software solution based on the surrounding colors, helping it restore the missing bits and pieces and make them look natural.
Run the Process
Once you’ve taken the time to select all of the imperfections, you can run the software and allow it to adjust the image according to its own metrics.
However, keep in mind that most of the software tools that are available to entry-level consumers won’t have the advanced features that are necessary, so while it should be able to tackle the simpler issues, there’s no guarantee that it will fix everything.
You may have to tweak the software yourself or run it multiple times if you want to achieve results that will be at least somewhat satisfactory, although some people have made repairs using this method and were happy with the results.
Consider the Alternative: Professional Services
In this article, we went through the complete process that you’d need to go through if you want to repair your photographs that have been torn or have cracked.
However, even though the process could work, you should think about whether you want to risk damaging or ruining your photographs that may contain precious memories of images of your loved ones.
Since it’s likely that you aren’t a photography professional, you can’t be sure that you won’t make costly mistakes when trying to prepare the photograph for scanning, so it’s always a good idea to at least consult professional scanning and restoration services providers before moving forward.
What’s more, if you opt for professional services, you would also know that your photographs are being processed using the most advanced software tools available that can tackle issues far more serious than the consumer-grade tools that you would have to use otherwise.
The experts working at these types of companies have years of experience in restoring old and damaged photos, so they know how to effectively approach different issues and choose restoration tools that are the safest and most likely to produce a good result.
And since photo restoration is becoming more popular every year, getting your old photos digitized and restored is now more accessible than ever, and the prices have become much more affordable than what they were before.
Because of that, you may want to consider that the time and effort you spend on this project may not be worth it, especially since there’s no guarantee that the results you achieve would be worth it.
Author Bio:-
Brandon Harris is the owner of Smooth Photo Scanning Services, one of the leading photo scanning service providers in New Jersey, providing slide scanning services, negative scanning services, conversion of CDs and VHS tapes to DVDs, and more. Prior to that, Brandon owned and operated a small bakery. Other than working to grow and improve his business, he enjoys spending time with his wife, daughter, and family.
Discover more from Life and Tech Shots Magazine
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
