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Post by jennyandernie on Oct 4, 2006 11:08:13 GMT -5
One of Jenny's passions is the restoration of old photos; not only family photos but any interesting old photos she can get her hands on. The more they are damaged the more she enjoys doing them. Here are a few that she has done. This is a photograph of Ernies grandparents, his mother and uncle taken around 1916. The photo was sent to Ernies grandfather by his grandmother while he was serving in the trenches. This next one is the boy in the previous photo taken during the second world war. He was killed in 1942 and Ernie was named after him. Here is a shot of a group of German soldiers taken during WW1 This photo is restored from a glass slide. We think it was taken in Ireland. Here is a restored old studio portrait. This is a restored copy of two of Jennys uncles taken during WW1. Unfortunatley the one sitting in the chair didn't survive. The last one is of an old Victorian preacher. I wouldn't like to be caught by him doing anything wrong on a Sunday.
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Oct 4, 2006 13:27:01 GMT -5
Very nice restorations, Jenny.
Restoring old photos is an interest we share. Trouble with me is I'm never satisfied, and When I look at some of my earlier attempts I think how much I could improve them if I did it again now. Sometimes I do, when I've got the time.
I did post some of mine over a year ago, but they've been overtaken and consigned to limbo along with a lot of other old postings to save space.
If I'm doing a restoration now I usually 'save as' before merging the layers and file it on CD, so if I ever want to go back and try it again I don't have to start from scratch.
It's a fascinating side of photography, but VERY time consuming!
Good work!
Note to Randy: Some time ago there was some talk of a selected archive section. Was there any progress on this?
PeterW
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Post by John Parry on Oct 4, 2006 14:46:19 GMT -5
Superb Jenny!
One question - were the German soldiers prisoners? If so, I'd be quite happy to play football with them!
Regards - John
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Post by nikonbob on Oct 4, 2006 14:54:15 GMT -5
Another great aspect to photography. I have to agree that the learning curve is steep but the rewards are worth it as you have so well shown.
Bob
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Post by kiev4a on Oct 4, 2006 15:38:10 GMT -5
Excellent work, Jenny
In my job I spend considerable time restoring badly faded and/or damaged historical photos for use in books. I really enjoy the challenge.
It's interesting to compare old photos that were published in books maybe 30 or 40 years ago and the same photos in new books since Photoshop was invented. The "new" old photos are usually better than the "old" old photos.
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Post by herron on Oct 4, 2006 16:14:42 GMT -5
...and to that end...it would be neat to see at least one of the "before" pictures. It's always fascinating to see how much effort went into these restorations. Nice work, Jenny.
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Post by jennyandernie on Oct 4, 2006 17:18:16 GMT -5
As requested.....................here are the original scans of two of the photographs I restored. Jenny
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Post by kamera on Oct 12, 2006 13:18:02 GMT -5
Beautiful restorations of memories!!!
Last fall, after the passing of my parents and 109 year old maternal grandmother, my brother-in-law and I undertook redoing a number of family albums.
And a lot of necessary restoration was needed. Various family members wanted copies of this pic and that pic, and since commercial restoration is kind of expensive is why we took the project on, dividing the work between us. Well...we are still working on it, but have managed to redo a number of photos.
Yes...it is a tedious, time-consuming task but will be worthwhile for our families and future generations.
Work that is finished so far, and those pics that do not need redone are sent to my brother for assembling of the albums...probably 5 different albums...a task in itself for him. He did manage to obtain from some supplier albums that are vintage-looking which should nicely compliment the pics.
Ron Head Kalamazoo, MI
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Oct 12, 2006 17:21:29 GMT -5
Hi Jenny,
Just been back to have a longer look at the before and after examples of your restored photos. As well as showing skilful use of the clone tool you have very good control of density and contrast.
I took the liberty of copying your two pictures of the German soldiers on to my desktop and then opening them side by side in PS to compare them. I’m particularly impressed and interested in the way you brought out the details in the faces and uniforms without loosing any of the highlight detail there or in other parts of the picture. Did you use the Levels histogram for this part of the work, or curves? Or did you work on different parts of the picture in different layers and then merge them?
If I’m restoring an old B&W or sepia picture I scan in at a fairly high resolution, usually about 1200 dpi in RGB instead of greyscale. I know it shouldn’t make any difference on a B&W monochrome picture, but I find I can get subtle differences in tone range using the three channels separately in different layers before merging them. Sometimes I’ve even converted to Lab Color on another layer and worked on the separate channels there. Last thing I do is desaturate and then reduce the dpi to give the owners both a print and a reasonably sized file on CD so they can print out any more copies they want. Some of their computers and printers take about an hour to handle a 200 megabyte file.
Have you, or has anyone else, tried this? As far as I can see, theory says that monochrome is monochrome – full stop. So if you’ve tried it did you also find it made a difference, or is it all in my mind?
When friends hear that you can restore old photos I find there’s a danger of being flooded out with them. I don’t mind trying to restore and maybe improve old box camera snapshots, and I’ve sometimes used selective blurring and lightening to get a nice ‘moronic word’, OK artificial differential focus. But one thing I’m not keen on taking on is restoring a picture printed on semi-matt textured paper. I’ve done it twice as a favour, and getting rid of the paper texture took more time than anything else. I used a combination of Gaussian blur, Neat Image and Unsharp Mask. The owners were pleased with the results, but I wasn’t 100% satisfied. I’m completely self-taught, so maybe there’s another technique I should know about?
Another thing I find difficult is trying to bring colour saturation back to old faded colour prints. I have seen some superb examples of this, but I’ve got a loooong way to go to get even near them.
Sorry if I’ve bored those of you that don’t try any restoration of old photos, but if you don’t, I feel you’re missing out.
PeterW
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Post by jennyandernie on Oct 13, 2006 10:43:11 GMT -5
I follow the same route you do for most of the photos I restore. Scanning at a high resolution, and I agree that RGB does give a subtle difference (especially with B/W negs). I use what ever photoshop tool I think will do the job and I alway work in layers. One photoshop technique that can make a difference is Duotones; it can really give depth and contrast to a photo without losing detail. For anyone who has never used this technique you have to convert the mode to grayscale, then convert the mode to Duotones and experiment a bit with the various options. To save the final result as a jpeg you have to convert the mode back to RGB. Below is a sample of a finished restoration of a photo of my aunt with and without Duotones. Jenny.
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Post by John Parry on Oct 13, 2006 11:48:16 GMT -5
Seems a nice, if slightly scary lady. Must have won some sort of prize for that outfit. Good manipulation anyway.
Regards - john
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PeterW
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Post by PeterW on Oct 13, 2006 13:33:36 GMT -5
Thanks, Jenny.
Duotones is something I haven't tried. But I certainly will.
PeterW
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Post by lulalake on Oct 15, 2006 18:18:56 GMT -5
I follow the same route you do for most of the photos I restore. Scanning at a high resolution, and I agree that RGB does give a subtle difference (especially with B/W negs). I use what ever photoshop tool I think will do the job and I alway work in layers. One photoshop technique that can make a difference is Duotones; it can really give depth and contrast to a photo without losing detail. For anyone who has never used this technique you have to convert the mode to grayscale, then convert the mode to Duotones and experiment a bit with the various options. To save the final result as a jpeg you have to convert the mode back to RGB. Below is a sample of a finished restoration of a photo of my aunt with and without Duotones. Jenny.
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Reiska
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Post by Reiska on Nov 3, 2006 9:20:17 GMT -5
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Reiska
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Post by Reiska on Nov 3, 2006 9:31:18 GMT -5
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