Photoshop Image Restoration and Retouching

One of the skills I've developed is the ability to restore old photographs back to their former glory. Picture retouching and colour enhancement can transform photos from simple snaps into works of art.
Whether you have an old family photograph or an historical image that is badly faded, damaged, torn or generally mistreated over the years it can be digitally restored to somewhere near it original state (or completely in some cases!).
Please see below a selection of the images that I have restored along with original images and a description of what needed doing to restore them.

1920's Infant Class 1920's Infant Class
1920's Infant Class
Restoration Type : Grade 1

Major restoration project!
Fixed fading, scratches, stains, folds and tears. I even had to add children from other old photographs found on the internet to replace the children that were either missing or were too damaged to restore!
The client was amazed and very pleased with the result.

  • 3 Children in the 1920's - London East End
    Restoration Type : Grade 2

    Old Family Photograph
    (Left to Right - Uncle Charlie, My Mother, Aunty Gladys)
    Fixed fading, stains, scratches, folds and tears.

1920's Infant Class 1920's Infant Class
South Downs- Two Girls
Restoration Type : Grade 2
Retouch Type : Grade 1

Photograph had fold marks and scratches that needed fixing - Sharpening - Opened up the Shadow detail - Finally Complete Colourisation

G.J. Worssams - 1945 G.J. Worssams - 1945
G.J. Worssams - Company Photo - 1945
Restoration Type : Grade 1

Another major restoration project
Fixed dust, scratches, stains, pen mark, paint, folds and tears. This photograph was rather badly beaten up. It took a 3 to 4 hours to clean this image up. Finally, I added a new sky and some contrast and sharpness to the image to make the members of the photograph 'pop out' a bit more.

  • Mother, Father and Daughter 1950's
    Restoration Type : Grade 3
    Retouch Type : Grade 3

    Two From Three
    Client never had a formal photograph of her Mother and Father. She asked me to remove herself from the Photo to just have them standing proudly together. At the same time I exposed some of the shadow detail, sharpned the image and removed all the scratches.

Brecon Beast Rider - Normal Background Brecon Beast Rider - Blurred Background
Bluring Background
Retouch Type : Grade 3

I was asked by a client to blur the background of a rider taking part in 2012 Brecon Beast Endurance event. This is a good way of isolating the subject matter from distracting elements in the background.
Here you can see the diference between the original image and the retouched image as transitions.

1920's Infant Class 1920's Infant Class
1950's Damaged Image of Toddler
Restoration Type : Grade 3

Easy restoration project!
Although this photo was torn in half it was not that hard to restore. The biggest problem was to digitally remove all the staining that the sellotape had deposited over the past 40 years.

1960s toddler in Garden 1960s toddler in Garden 1960s toddler in Garden
1960's Damaged Image of Me
Restoration Type : Grade 1

Me as a child holding a toy gun!
This was a badly damaged photograph of me in the backgarden of a newly built house in Crawley, Sussex. The garden still looked like a building site. The photo had many tears, creases and folds. The trickiest part of this restortation was to rebuilding of parts of the wall.

1940s Portrait of a Man - before 1940s Portrait of a Man - after
1940's Discoloured Photograph
Restoration Type : Grade 2

1940s Portrait of a Man
Badly stained and discoloured by 60 years of dampness, smoke and partial neglect. This photograph was originally a hand coloured black and white image.