I was given a picture in bad condition having passed through several decades, so I have to restore it.
- I have to repair the parts with scratch, tears, stained areas, and restore the lower part (on the left) that is missing. I can slightly modify the image to reconstitute the missing area, its historical value being reserved for its owner who wants an entire photo.
To work on this picture, I use photoshop with the help of a Wacom tablet.
- The first phase consists of performing a high-definition scan in Tiff format at 1200 dpi, in order to obtain a file of optimal quality and a comfort of work.
I open the photo in photoshop, then i realize my retouches on multiple layers according to the areas of the images and the types of corrections applied. The advantage of using layers is to perform non-destructive retouching.
- Retouching layers with mask will be used by zones:
– Faces
– Clothing
– Background
– First plan
- Correction layers will be used on curves and desaturation of the image.
The reconstruction of the missing area is obtained by copying (of a sufficient size) the right side of the photo. I apply a horizontal symmetry, I adjust its position and apply a mask of fusion. I use a brush with soft edges smoothly and realize the transition between the two elements. I repeat the operation 3 times with blocks of smaller sizes to fill the remaining voids.
The final processing of the image with the Topaz labs BW plugin is also performed on a layer, in order to be able to modulate the opacity and the intensity of the correction obtained.
