How to Restore an Old Photo in Photoshop in 6 Steps

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Today we walk around with thousands of photos of our loved ones in the palm of our hands. When our loved ones are gone, we have plenty of mementos to remember them by.

But in the not-so-distant past, photos were a rare thing. And the photos you have of your grandparents, if any, have been ravaged by time.

Hey there, I’m Cara! Part of why I love photography is the moments and memories that you can capture and preserve. Unfortunately, many of our old family photographs are not stored digitally anywhere and the paper has been damaged.

So here’s how to restore an old photo in Photoshop and bring new life to that memory.

Step 1: Upload Your Image

If your image is not already in digital form, digitizing it is your first step. You can do this easily with a regular office scanner.

If you don’t have access to one, you can download a compatible app for your phone and turn it into a portable scanner. Just take a picture with your phone and voila!

Once you get your photo in digital form, open it in Photoshop.

Step 2: Crop and Adjust

Often when you’re scanning in an old photo, you end up with bits around the edges that you don’t need. Or perhaps there are severely damaged parts of the photograph that aren’t necessary to the composition.

You can trim off these edges easily with the crop tool. Press C on the keyboard or choose the Crop tool from the toolbar on the left.

A box will appear around the photo. Click and drag the handles to crop the photo as needed. If the photo needs to be straightened, you can click and drag the corners left or right to rotate the image.

Step 3: Copy the Image

With the image properly positioned, press Ctrl + J or Command + J to duplicate the layer. Or you can go to Layer in the menu bar and choose Duplicate Layer.

This will create a copy of the original image that you can refer back to as you work. Be sure to turn off the layer’s visibility so you can see your changes as you make them. To do that, press the eye icon on the left side of the layer.

Step 4: Start with the Major Stuff

Start with repairing any major rips, tears, or missing pieces of the image. You can do this by copying parts of the image and pasting them over the missing parts. This works well for damage to the background.

To copy a section, grab the Lasso tool and draw around the area you want to copy.

Press Ctrl + J or Command + J to copy the section to a new layer. Press Ctrl + T or Command + T to activate the Transform tool.

Click and drag to cover the damaged section. The color may not be quite right, so you’ll need to blend.

With the patch layer selected, press the Layer Mask button at the bottom of the Layers panel.

Press B on the keyboard or choose the Brush tool from the toolbar on the left.

Set the foreground color to black. If white is on top, press the 90-degree arrows to switch them.

Go up to the Options bar and press the little arrow next to the brush settings. Choose an appropriate size and bring the Hardness down for better blending.

Now, paint around the edges to blend the color.

Another option is to use the Clone Stamp tool. This allows you to copy pixels from other parts of the image and paste them over the damaged area.

Press S on the keyboard or choose the Clone Stamp tool from the toolbar on the left.

Hold the Alt or Option key while clicking on the area of the photo you would like to copy. I recommend bringing the Flow down to help with blending. You can find this option in the Options bar.

Then paint over the damaged area to fill it in. Learn more about using the Clone Stamp tool here.

Step 5: Reduce Dust Speckles

After repairing the major damages, it’s time to work on the smaller stuff. We’ll begin with a filter applied to the entire image, then clean up whatever is left over by hand.

So go to Filter in the Options bar, hover over Noise and choose Dust and Scratches from the menu that opens.

In the dialog box, you have the option of changing the Radius and the Threshold. As you bring the radius up, more specks disappear, but the image becomes softer.

Bring the threshold up to help keep the image sharp, while still removing impurities. But if you take the threshold too high, the added sharpness brings back the artifacts you’re trying to remove.

Every image will be different so play with the sliders to find what works for your image. Here are my values.

Now let’s see what the filter does for us.

The filter smoothes some of the speckles, but we still have some to contend with. So let’s clean them up with the Spot Healing Brush tool. Press J on the keyboard or choose the tool from the toolbar on the left.

Now, this is the fun part! Click on blemishes in the image and watch them disappear!

To remove this crease, click on one end of the crease, then hold Shift and click on the other end. The spot healing brush will create a straight line between your two points and magically remove the crease. Learn more about using the spot healing brush here.

The tool does really well as you can see here, but it gets fuzzy in some areas like the lines on his jacket.

To fix that, you can jump over and use the Clone Stamp tool to repair that line.

Go over the whole image and remove bits as needed. You can get as detailed as you like and the more time you spend with it, the cleaner the final result will be. However, keep in mind that it doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s still an old photograph and the vintage look isn’t always bad.

Step 6: Color Correction

Old photographs often have an undesirable yellowish tint to them. This is easy to get rid of with a black-and-white adjustment layer.

Click the Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers panel. It looks like a half-filled circle. Choose Black & White from the list.

You can also play with the contrast to create a nice separation between the shadows and highlights. Choose the Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer and bring the contrast slider up.

Ready to see how we did?

Pretty nifty!

Got any old photos you’re now itching to restore? Get to it! It’s a lot of fun and so rewarding to see the final result. Interested in other fun techniques in Photoshop? Check out how to get rid of watermarks here.

How to Restore Old Photos Using Photoshop

Restore Old Photos using Adobe Photoshop Photoshop is a great tool to enhance digital images. Using Adobe Photoshop, we can also repair or restore old or damaged photographs.

Usually we noticed that in old photos the blacks become washed out, the whites go to grey and Colors fade too. However, all is not lost. Today it is possible to restore an image pretty accurately using a few simple clicks in Adobe Photoshop. You can use any version of the software. You can purchase the latest edition of the Adobe Photoshop here.

Steps to Restore Old Photos Using Adobe Photoshop:

First of all, digitize the old photo, using a scanner. Once the old photo is scanned, you can open the newly scanned digital image in Photoshop. Then create a second copy of the image for backup purpose, using the Duplicate Layer shortcut (Control J)

After that, Crop the image to remove the area that you don’t want. Crop tool is found by simply clicking C inside Photoshop.

Press ENTER, Photoshop will crop out the rest of the image, leaving the area you want. Now we begin to patch the areas that need to be fixed. For this, we will use the Clone Stamp Tool. Before this you can check our detailed article on Clone Stamp Tool Select the Clone Stamp tool from the tool bar on the left side of the screen. It looks like the old ink stamp.

from the tool bar on the left side of the screen. It looks like the old ink stamp. Then set the brush size and hardness. Try with a small size like 50pixels, and you can increase or decrease the size depending on the need.

Put the cursor in the area where we want to duplicate the pixels.

Select the source area, Press the Alt key and move the cursor to the location where we want to take pixels from source area. Click the mouse in that location.

key and move the cursor to the location where we want to take pixels from source area. Click the mouse in that location. Release the Alt key & move the mouse to the area where you want to do the cloning.

Click the mouse button and paint in the target location by dragging the mouse left and right.

This will give you a cloned area. Once this is done, we can then move on to fix the damaged spots in the image. Use the Patch Tool (looks like a small patch with threads coming out) to clean up the damaged spots in the old image. Click on the Spot Healing Brush icon to find the Patch tool hidden in the same group

Select the Patch Tool(short cut key Shift J)

Select Source (underneath the taskbar).

Use the cursor to circle the damaged spot and create a selection.

Drag the selection to a clean spot that is closest in color and appearance to the damaged spot we trying to repair. Once this is done we can now move on to retouch the image. Use the Healing Brush Tool (looks like a band-aid) to retouch the large area. This tool is fantastic to fix small spots & blemishes. Click on the Healing Brush icon on the toolbox (short cut key Shift J)

Set brush size(in pixels) using a drop-down menu in the upper right corner. You can start by 10px or 15px in the beginning and may increase or decrease as per the requirement.

Select the Sampled option.

Press Alt-click somewhere on the image to define a sampling point.

Paint with the Healing Brush Tool on the damaged area. Once done we can move on to remove other imperfections to give final touch to the image. Use Spot Healing Brush Tool to remove other blemishes & imperfection of an image. This tool does not require the sampled area to retouch. It automatically samples from around the retouched area. Click on the Spot Healing Brush icon on the toolbox (short cut key Shift J)

Set the brush size using a drop-down menu in the upper right corner.

Set brush size (in pixels) using a drop-down menu in the upper right corner. You can start by 10px or 15px in the beginning and may increase or decrease as desired.

Choose Type: Content-Aware or Proximity Match to create a larger or more precise selection.

Click on the spot we want to fix by dragging over imperfections in a larger area of an image.

Restore Old Photos using Adobe Photoshop

Watch this Step by Step video to View How an Old Photo is Restored:

I hope you like the video and the technique. If you want more useful tips and videos on Adobe Photoshop, simply like this video, and like the Intellisoft Page on Facebook . We will keep sending you the videos as we record them.

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Thanks.

Cheers,

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Founder & Principal Trainer at Intellisoft Training Pte Ltd.

We are an Authorized Training Organization by the SkillsFuture Singapore (Currently SSG. Formerly WDA).

How to Restore Old Photos

Many of us have piles of photo albums filled with old family photos just waiting to be restored. While restoring old photos used to be a very time-consuming process, nowadays photo editing programs make it relatively easy. Restoring old photos can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it.

Completely colorizing and restoring old photos can take a lot of time. But if you’re simply interested in restoring contrast and removing dust and scratches, look no further. Using a post-processing program such as Photoshop or Luminar, you can quickly and easily restore old photos.

From print to digital

The first step to restoring photos is digitizing the prints. This can be done in a number of ways. If you have a scanner, you can simply scan the photographs into your computer and turn them into JPEG images. If not, smartphones now make the process even easier. To digitize most old photographs, you can use a scanning app and your device’s camera to literally take a picture of the print and turn it into a digital image.

Two useful applications for this are PhotoScan and Unfade. To use them, try to brush off as much dust from your print as you can and lay it flat on a table. Try to choose a spot that has diffused lighting, such as next to a north-facing window. Follow the instructions in the app to digitize your image. You can then transfer the file to your computer for restoration.

Sometimes, smartphone scanners don’t offer the highest resolution. For better quality, use a flatbed scanner set to 600ppi or higher. Save the file in TIFF format instead of JPEG. TIFF files are lossless and won’t degrade in quality as you edit and save the photograph during the restoration process.

Some scanning software will try to automatically edit the tone and contrast when you scan the print. While this isn’t a foolproof method, using these automatic adjustments may save you time later. If you have the option, give it a try!

Restoring old photos in Luminar

Cropping and straightening

The first step to photo restoration is to make basic adjustments such as cropping and straightening. This old photograph doesn’t need a lot of these adjustments, but you can see that there’s a small border of white on both the left and right. The image was also taken at a bit of an angle, but it can easily be straightened in Luminar.

Open the image and click on the Tools dropdown at the top of the screen. I used Free Transform to straighten the image and Crop to get rid of the edges.

Adjusting tone and contrast

Old black and white photographs will likely need a fair amount of exposure and contrast adjustments. This image isn’t too bad, but it’s lacking in contrast and has a bit of a color cast. Many old images have been yellowed with age, and this will need to be adjusted as well. Photos fade over time, but luckily it’s easy to add contrast back into an image.

Once the photo is cropped and straightened in Luminar, you can try to use a couple of Essential Looks to get a good starting point. I started with Haze Removal, which automatically added some more depth and contrast. However, there’s still a sepia cast. If you prefer, you can keep it. If not, it’s easy to convert the image to black and white.

On top of the Haze Removal Look, I added Classic B&W. At this point, the tones in the image are much better, but it’s still lacking in clarity. On the right-hand toolbar, I adjusted both the Clarity and Details sliders to bring out more detail. As you adjust these sliders, more noise will appear. This is all down to personal preference: some people don’t mind natural film grain, but some may not want to sharpen the image enough to bring it out.

If the photo were in color, you’d have to decide whether to fix the exposure first or correct the color. Start with whichever is in the worst shape. The Tone filter works great for luminance corrections, as does the Curves filter.

Most color photos are faded and have a cast, usually magenta. Start with the Remove Color Cast filter to pull the colors into line. You might also want to activate the Channel Mixer, which gives you precise control over these types of adjustments.

People expect a bit of fading with older photographs, so you don’t need to be too heavy-handed at this point. Use the Before / After curtain to check your work as you edit.

Fixing damaged areas

Chances are good that parts of the print are damaged. Stains, creases, and spots are the most common culprits. An easy way to fix these is to take advantage of the Erase and Clone & Stamp tools in Luminar. The Clone & Stamp tool allows you to use a specific area of the image as a source. The Erase tool is useful when you’re working with an old photograph with a white or black background. For most old images, the Clone & Stamp tool will be your best bet. You can choose the option that works best for you.

Keep in mind that not every imperfection needs to cloned out. Start with the most distracting offenders, then decide from there. This image has a lot of dust and scratches, and I could easily spend a couple of hours cloning parts of the image to get rid of them all. The dust in the background isn’t too much of a bother, but the dust and scratches on the child’s suit are a bit distracting.

I’ve chosen to use the Clone & Stamp tool to get rid of some of the more distracting scratches. This tool allows you to choose the Size, Softness, and Opacity of the Clone brush. I’ve chosen a small size so I can work on small details and kept the Softness and Opacity at 100%.

The Clone & Stamp tool allows you to choose a source, which will then be copied and pasted onto another area of the image. To fix the suit, I chose to use parts of the suit without dust or scratches as the source and pasted them onto the areas that were scratched. You can use the [ and ] keys to easily adjust the size of your tool.

This same tool can be used to remove the other small amounts of dust throughout the rest of the photograph, or you can finish your photo retouching work at this point.

Exporting and sharing the final image

Chances are that if you’ve gone to the trouble to scan a picture, you’ll probably want to save the work you’ve done to it. In Luminar, go to File > Save to preserve all of your edits.

Layers, masks, and filter settings will be saved as a .lmnr file that can be reopened with a simple double-click, allowing you to pick up right where you left off.

At this point, you’re probably ready to send a JPEG version of the restored photo to friends and family, post it on social media, and, if you wish, make new prints. To do so from within Luminar, you have two options.

The first is File > Share. All of the usual suspects are here, including Mail, Facebook, Messages, Twitter, and more. Luminar will process the restored picture, then make it available to the application you’ve selected.

The second method is using the Export command (File > Export). In this dialog, you’ll have five options to prepare the restored photo exactly how you want: Sharpen, Resize, Color Space, Format, and Quality. Once you’ve made your selections, click the Save button to prepare the export and save it. You can output in a variety of formats to suit any use case.

With just your smartphone and Luminar, you can preserve important images from your family history and make them available for your whole family and for generations to come. If you’re ready to learn how to restore old photos, buy Luminar now!

If you can’t restore your old family photos on your own, buy a Damaged Photo Restoration Package and experts will give your faded photos the second life.

How to restore old photos in Photoshop

Restoring old photos in Photoshop is very similar to restoring them in Luminar. First, I used the Crop tool to get rid of the excess white edges.

Using duplicate layers

It’s a shame to get to the end of your restoration process only to realize that you’ve mistakenly cloned part of your image. If you don’t use multiple layers, you’ll have to start all over. An easy way to avoid this problem is by using duplicate layers. This basically places a copy of your photograph on top of the original. You can duplicate the layer for every step of the process and label them accordingly. You may have a “dust and scratches” layer, a “color tone” layer, and a “contrast” layer, among others.

If you end up with too many layers and you know you’re happy with the edits you’ve made so far, you can always merge layers. Simply click on a layer and hold down the Shift or Control key to choose the other layers you’re finished working with. Then right-click and choose Merge Layers.

Adjusting tone and contrast

Photoshop offers a few automatic adjustments under the Image dropdown, such as Auto Tone, Auto Contrast, and Auto Color. You can try all of these automatic adjustments until you find one that works for your particular image. For this image, I found that Auto Contrast boosted the contrast without affecting the color too much.

The image still has a bit of a sepia tone to it, so I’ll convert it to black and white. Image > Adjustments > Black & White is a quick and easy way to convert your image.

The final result has a bit of depth and contrast without being too punchy. At this point in the restoration process, you may choose to adjust the Brightness, Contrast, Levels, Exposure, or Curves to adjust the highlights, shadows, and tones. These options are all found under Image > Adjustments.

Fixing damaged areas

Again, you can use the Clone Stamp tool to fix creases, dust, scratches, and other distracting marks. I’ve used the Clone Stamp tool to remove the marks on the child’s suit, but the same process can be used for the rest of the dust in the image as well. This is easiest to do if you zoom in on the part of the image you’re editing and use a small brush for better control. Just like in Luminar, the size of the brush can be adjusted using the bracket keys.

At this point, the restoration can be finished. If you’re restoring old photos in color, there will be more work to do. There are many different ways of adjusting color tone in Photoshop, but start with Auto Tone or Auto Color and work from there. You can locate more elaborate color adjustments under Image > Adjustments > Channel Mixer.

Is your image too grainy? Are there a lot of small specks of dust that simply won’t go away? While it’s a long, manual process to fully get rid of small dust marks, there’s a quick way of reducing noise in a photograph. This can be found under Filter > Noise > Reduce Noise. If your image is very low quality, this filter will remove a lot of the clarity, however. It works best if you’ve scanned the photograph at a high ppi. Simply adjust the pixel radius and threshold rates until you reach your desired result. The higher you pull the sliders, the more detail you’ll lose. The trick is choosing just enough to smooth out unwanted noise without losing too much detail.

Exporting and sharing the final image

File > Save As will allow you to save the final restored picture to your computer. I recommended saving the image as both a Photoshop (.psd) file and a JPEG image. Saving it as a .psd file will allow you to open up all of your layers in case you need to make any tweaks in the future. Once you save the restored photo to your computer, you can then email it, share it on social media, or print it!

Whether you’re restoring old photos in Luminar or Photoshop, the process is simple after you master a few tools. The more you practice, the better your restorations will become. Restored photos make a wonderful gift for family members that they’ll cherish for years to come. If you’re ready to learn how to restore photos, you can download a free trial of Luminar before deciding to purchase!