This happy photo of my customer’s grandparents had become mildew damaged, mostly on the right side. I knew I could restore it because much of the damage was on the background and the dress, and it would not be impossible to smooth the rest of it from the grandmother’s face. I zoomed in very close to to work on the areas that needed to have fine detail and allowed the work to be less specific in areas like the background. It was a slow process but I was able to involve the texture of the dress in undamaged areas in replacing areas of cloth which were mildewed.

The end result was new 8×10 prints that I had ordered and sent to my customer to use as gifts. By focusing most of my effort on areas like the face that had to be flawless, and using good data from other areas of the photo to repair the more generic areas like cloth, I was able to restore this photo with only minimal use of Photoshop filters to give it an even grain in the end.

This small photo had faded a great deal and needed to be restored as well as reprinted to new dimensions of 5×7. The first thing that I adjusted was the contrast – and that, of course, brings out all sorts of imperfection details that need to be fixed.

The result is a good example of what one can expect when a photo is as faded, and so much information lost as this one had. I was able to create a good reproductive image of the couple to be reprinted, without all of the cracks, dings and other flaws. The photo can never be as sharp as the original, again, but as long as that is understood, it is a good way to preserve a treasured family photo in digital format and it will print well for reproductions, too.

I used elements from the background to fill in the places where I removed people, and extended building, ground and grass elements. Then I separated him from the background and blurred the background a bit to make it more out of focus, eliminating any signs that changes had taken place. I enlarged and color-adjusted him along the way.

Her response when I sent the final photo? Magic!

After I got past the initial puzzle of how the drummer was staying upright without a tow rope, in a day and age where Photoshop was non existent, I started by cleaning up some minor degradation and spotting. Then I adjusted the contrast in places that were dark but still needed color, like the flag’s stripes. The client provided some input into the colors to use, and I chose others that seemed appropriate. After a number of revisions, the new version looked like it had been tinted the way it was done by hand in the old days of photography – using Photoshop. This is the final result:

The party theme was to be a birthday ball for a princess. I sent my client to iStockphoto to choose the perfect castle background scene, and got my instructions on what other elements I might include, and the wording to go on to the card. The final invitation will printed as the cover of a booklet, and I also provided this image without the words in 5×7 and 8×10 sizes so Aria’s mom could have it printed and framed.

And here is the final invitation. I removed her from the existing background, placed her into this castle scene and added the embellishments like flower crown, lilies, butterfly and sparkles. My client loved it even more than she expected she would, which always makes me happy!

I also did some retouching on their faces and eyes, and added shadows so they’d seem to be more realistically leaning into each other. This is the final result, the two kids together in one shot.

This is the original photo:

This is the result: