Just about everyone has boxes and albums of old photos with scratches, dust spots, and faded colors that are in desperate need of repair. It doesn’t really matter if these damaged prints are from the old days of shooting film, or “heirloom” images of your family, ancestors, or friends. In any case, all precious memories deserve a new lease on life.
This video from the popular Digital Photo Mentor YouTube channel explains everything you need to know for restoring the original luster to old photographs that have seen better days. Best yet, the techniques described only require a basic understanding of image-editing methods and no prior restoration skills are needed.
Canadian pro Darlene Hildebrandt says she’s “dedicated to helping beginner and intermediate photographers improve their work with simple in-camera and post-processing tutorials.” So follow along as she guides you through her straightforward process of restoring all those cherished photos you have awaiting attention.
Hildebrandt covers a lot of ground in this step-by-step guide to help you transform neglected photos into vibrant beautiful images that you’ll be proud to share with family and friends. You learn how to address common challenges like fading color and unbalanced exposure with confidence and precision.
Fixing scratches, tears, and other imperfections are also part of this step-by-step guide and you’ll see how easy it is to leverage the Generative Fill tool to reconstruct missing parts of a photo. Photoshop’s Neural Filters can also play a big roll during a rehabilitation project and Hildebrandt demonstrates when and how to use these tools for this and other image-editing tasks.
By following along and diving into the art of photo restoration you’ll ensure that your treasured old photos are brought back to life in stunning detail. Then take a look at Hildebrandt’s instructional YouTube channel where there’s much more to learn for photographers of all skill levels.
We also suggest checking out the tutorial we featured recently from another accomplished pro who demonstrates everything you need to know for unlocking the power of Photoshop’s new Adjustment Brush tool.
Dodging and Burning is a powerful post-processing technique that enables you to selectively brighten and darken specific areas within the frame without affecting the image as a whole. Today you’ll learn the best way to get the job done while avoiding three common mistakes that can spoil the edit in a hurry.
Photographer Andrea Livieri is an Italian pro specializing in landscape and travel imagery. He’s also an adept instructor who has spent the past decade helping others sharpen their photography skills. By following his step-by-step Dodge and Burn advice you’ll be able to imbue photos with “extra dimensionality and oomph.”
Livieri notes that many of photographers stumble with this technique, and thereby end up with unrealistic-looking results. The good news is that it’s just as easy to do things properly as it is to make the three “critical” errors that you’ll see how to fix and avoid. Livieri also explains why global adjustments rarely produce optimum results.
The localized adjustments you’ll learn today, on the other hand, are narrowly applied just where they’re needed to add contrast, balance out tones, and correct highlights that are too dark, shadows that are too bright, and everything else in between. Much of this involves perfecting exposure, but colors can also be improved during the Dodge and Burn process.
So what are the three specific mistakes people make when employing these techniques? One is failing to consider the direction and intensity of light, another is ignoring unwanted color shifts, and the third is a noticeable loss of local contrast. We’ll let Livieri illustrate how these errors affect your images and walk you through a simple and effective solution for each.
Livieri explains the necessary Lightroom tools and all the appropriate settings for quickly mastering these various tasks. We’re pretty sure that and by the time you’re done watching this video you’ll want to add Dodging and Burning to your Lightroom bag of tricks.
And don’t miss a tutorial we featured earlier with another accomplished who demonstrates how to capture outdoor photographs with greater impact by paying attention to textures when composing a scene.
