Do you HAVE to be using the latest version of Photoshop if you want to do photo restoration properly?

It's a valid question, no doubt about it. And it's one that gets asked a lot, but to answer it we need to know why this particular question is being asked. It's not because there is some doubt about the ability of Photoshop CS3 to do the job required. Let me assure you - it's MORE than up to the task.

Personally, I feel it nearly always comes down to cost. Photoshop CS3 costs about $650 and if you are approaching photo restoration as a potential or actual hobby, then that's a sum of money that is going to make many people stop and think, "do I really need to spend that much?". I realize that I've asked another question without answering the first one yet. Hang in there.

If you're a professional - in other words, if you regularly restore old photographs for money - it's a no-brainer. Stop asking questions and just buy it already! You won't regret it. Even if you never use all of the tools available to you, the smooth and peerless work flow will pay for the purchase many times over. If you were a professional carpenter would you use a hammer or a nail gun? Right! If your tools allow you to work faster then you can do more and earn more.

If you have Photoshop CS2 or some other relatively recent version do you need to upgrade? Well, no ... probably not. Sure there are some cool new tools in there that would make life easier. Any time the selection tools are added to my ears prick up. Why? Because getting your selections right is half the job of restoration a lot of the time.

Non-destructive editing took long enough to make its way into this software. And if you do any work for clients who like to tinker with an image AFTER you've sent them a proof, these features will be well used.

If money is tight, then wait until CS4 or CS5 comes out. It won't cost you any more to upgrade later instead. Plus the value of yearly updates to core software like Photoshop is reducing. Gone are the days of revolutionary new features (anyone remember Photoshop before Layers?). Most of the upgrades are just enhancements to existing features, rather than something completely new.

I still believe that Photoshop Elements is a worthy alternative to the full Photoshop. A hundred bucks shouldn't break the bank. But as soon as you begin to find the toolset limiting, you should upgrade to the CS version. Adobe offers a discount if you already own Elements.

Don't forget that you can download a 30 day trial and see for yourself the fantastic work flow and toolset that I'm raving about.

So, back to the question. Do you HAVE to be using the latest Photoshop CS for photo restoration? In my opinion, no you don't, but there are plenty of reasons why you should!

Is Photoshop PS3 worth the upgrade for photo restoration?

Photoshop CS3 is here at last and has some exciting new features, but is there enough to upgrade for if you use Photoshop for photo restoration?

The workflow features have been improved through the streamlining of palettes and self-sdjusting docks, but the workflow and interface in CS2 wasn't exactly clunky or intrusive to begin with.

Adobe Bridge has been improved too ... big deal. Most people I know don't use it anyway. I find it useful, but not essential. Adobe say it is now faster, and yeah, it was kind of sluggish, but the improvements don't sound exactly mind blowing!

One new feature that is really worth a closer look, and should have made it into Photoshop a long time ago in my opinion, is non-destructive smart filters. Up until now you could only apply image adjustments (eg. levels, brightness/contrast, invert, etc.) non-destructively. With CS3 you can now apply filters, say a gaussian blur, to an image or a layer with the option of coming back later and adjusting the blur settings or removing it completely. Whether this feature will be limited to certain colour modes or a limited number of the available filters remains to be seem.

I am delighted to see a feature I have desired for ages, and that is rotated/scaled cloning. I've lost track of the number of times I've cursed it's absence. Wait and see, give it a year and you won't be able to live without it!

The Healing Brush tools have been improved too, which is more good news for photo restorers. Changes to the Channel Mixer and extended options for creating black & white images from colour will have obvious uses too.

I reserve judgement on whether it's worth the upgrade. At the moment, I have the feeling that it is, but I will post a more detailed review as soon as I get my copy.

-Mark.

Photo Restoration...it's not just about fixing things!

I have just been to a 100th birthday party for my wife's grandmother. She's an amazing woman, full of stories and anecdotes dating back to around the First World War. I had restored and coloured a photo of her for her 99th birthday that was originally taken on her 21st birthday, but I wanted to do something more to mark this landmark age for her 100th.

I eventually put together a souvenir booklet, wrote some background text for it and included a collection of restored photos that spanned her life. I got a number of copies digitally printed and was pleased with the results, given that I wasn't able to invest the time in it that I had wanted to. We handed out copies to all of the guests, some of them took an extra copy to send to relatives who couldn't make it. It went down very well, all in all.

As a result I got talking to someone at the party who had brought some very old photos with her. One of them was of my wife's great grandparents of whom we didn't think any photos existed. Of course I was thrilled with this 'find'. Much less thrilled to see how the photo had been treated...

The photograph had been removed from an album (where it had spent the best part of 100 years safe from harm) and was now residing in a cheap hole-punched plastic wallet, the kind you might find in a stationery shop. The photo was very faded and someone had aparently offered to "fix" it. Except that photo restoration wasn't what this person had in mind. Oh, no. Colur photocopying with some deft adjustment of the brightness controls was what this person had in mind! Needless to say, what was returned was a bigger, darker photocopy of a faded photograph.

Good intentions aside, the photograph ended up suffering more damage in the previous week than in the 100 years before that. Removed from the safely of its album it had curled around on itself to form a tube, and closing the lid of a photocopier on it (to flatten it out again) had caused it to crack down the middle, almost splitting it in two. At least I got the opportunity to do a full digital photo restoration on it before any more damage was done.

There is more to photo restoration than "fixing" old photos. For anyone interested in this activity, learning the right way to handle old photographs goes without saying. But we also have a responsibility to educate others in the treatment of these delecate scraps of paper, so that some of them may last another 100 years, waiting their turn for restoration.

New Photoshop Elements Provides Easy Editing and High Impact Options to Showcase and Share Photos

Adobe's No. 1 Selling Consumer Photo Editing Software Offers Fun, Creative Possibilities for Consumers to Showcase and Share Photos in Engaging Ways

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Sept. 12, 2006 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 5.0 software, a major upgrade to the No. 1 selling consumer photo editing software*. Available for Windows®, Photoshop Elements offers new and more flexible ways for consumers to organize files, edit images with ease and share photos in engaging and innovative ways. Adobe Photoshop Elements allows for quick, one-click fixes to photos with the option of exploring more sophisticated editing techniques.

*Source: The NPD Group (April 2002 to April 2006) based on units sold.

In addition, Adobe today announced Adobe Premiere® Elements 3.0 software, a complete home video editing solution (see separate press release). Also available together in a single retail package, Adobe Photoshop Elements plus Adobe Premiere Elements delivers unique integrated functionality that provides consumers with the ability to do more with their photos and home videos.

“Digital photography has changed the way people capture moments and memories and today's digital cameras and even camera phones have the potential to deliver some extraordinary results,” said John Loiacono, senior vice president of Creative Solutions Business Unit at Adobe. “Adobe Photoshop Elements gives customers the creative freedom to get more out of their digital camera, with the sophisticated and accessible editing features that the Photoshop name is famed for. The result is superior images that can be shared with family and friends in new, exciting, high impact ways - on the Web or in printed formats.”

Showcase and Share Photos in Entertaining Ways
Photoshop Elements software makes it easy to share photos with themed and customizable layouts, multi-page document options for albums and scrapbooks and over 100 framing choices. With drag-and-drop simplicity, photos can be moved and resized within these flexible layouts. The new Map View allows consumers to drag photos to any location tied to an online satellite map to relive memories based on locations where photos were taken.

Adobe Photoshop Services are easily accessible from within the application and offer new and fun ways to share photos. An interactive Adobe Flash® based photo gallery service, called Adobe Photoshop Showcase, allows photos to be shared for free, or upgraded to an extended sharing service via a Web site. These online galleries can take the form of a virtual scrapbook with flipping pages, a winter scene with falling snow or a spinning photo carousel. Photos can easily be sent directly to CEIVA digital photo frames, shared via SmugMug online albums or turned into real postage at PhotoStamps.com (U.S. only). One-click printing also makes it simple to order Kodak prints and using Photoshop Elements new photo layout functionality makes creating and ordering photobooks a more personalized experience.

Experience Superior Editing
Innovative editing functions give consumers new ways to tackle common photo edits. The new black-and-white conversion tool adds a dramatic and elegant look to photos, instantly converting color originals to a variety of rich black-and-white photo styles with deep contrast. The new Adjust Color Curves controls allow consumers to achieve the perfect exposure for every image. Photoshop Elements also allows consumers to easily correct camera lens distortion.

Adobe Offers Complete Line of Products for Every Level
Adobe offers a complete family of Photoshop products that meet the needs of a diverse spectrum of digital photographers: the free Photoshop Album Starter Edition software for the novice digital camera user; Photoshop Elements for the digital photography enthusiast; and Photoshop CS2 software for the professional or the most demanding amateur photographer.

Pricing and Availability
Adobe's digital imaging and digital video products will be available in October 2006 at www.adobe.com and other major electronics and online retailers including Amazon.com, Best Buy, Comp USA, Circuit City, Fry's, Staples, and Office Depot. Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 for Windows is available for an estimated street price of US $99.99. Adobe Photoshop Elements 4.0 for Macintosh also is available for an estimated street price of US $89.99. Adobe Photoshop Elements 5.0 plus Adobe Premiere Elements 3.0 for Windows is available as a bundle in the United States and Canada at an estimated street price of US $149.99. Information about the other language versions, as well as pricing, upgrade, and support policies for other countries is available on www.adobe.com/products/photoshopelwin/ . For more information, customers can call 1-800-492-3623.

About Adobe Systems Incorporated
Adobe revolutionizes how the world engages with ideas and information - anytime, anywhere and through any medium. For more information, visit www.adobe.com

Using a copy stand to capture old photos for restoring

Sometimes it's simply not possible to use a scanner to capture your old photos for the purposes of restoring them.

There are quite a number of reasons for this. The photos may be too brittle to press flat, may be printed on a textured surface that causes artifacts in the scanned image, or your photos may be in and album or frame from which you do not wish to (or are unable to) remove them. If you are in any of these situations then using a camera to capture the photo for restoring is the only option.

Getting the best possible digital original before beginning the restoration process should always be your top priority. You will get a much better end result if you give yourself as little to fix in Photoshop as possible. For this reason the use of a copy stand is always preferable to hand-holding your camera.

The benefits of a good copy stand are:

• The camera is heald steady to eliminate camera shake


• The camera can be positioned accurately and parallel to the photo to be copied


• Focusing is easier


• Lighting from the side removes the effect of textured paper


• Capturing photos larger than your scanner is made possible

And if you don't wish to splash out and buy one, you could always have a go at building your own copy stand.

-Mark.

Photo Restoration Tutorial: Cleaning Old Photos

So much can be done these days in Photoshop and other image editing packages to digitally "clean" and restore old photos, but there are still times when you will want to remove some grime or an unfortunate fingerprint from your photograph before you scan it. This is especially true if the dirt obscures facial details, which can be tricky to retouch at the best of times.

However, cleaning old photos is not something to be entered into lightly. Many old photos are just not suitable for cleaning - they may be too brittle, the emulsion may be unstable, or the dirt may have become embeded in the surface of the photo -and digital photo restoration is the only solution remaining.

If you wish to attempt to clean an old photo you are restoring, the Photographic Emulsion Cleaner PEC-12 comes highly recommended, and is probably the ONLY archival cleaner available. It is trusted by photographers, labs, museums and publishers around the world for cleaning old photos.

PEC-12 removes grease pencil, adhesive residue, finger oils, ball-point pen, fungus, smoke & soot damage, laser separation oil and most permanent inks. Containing no water (very important), PEC-12 dries instantly with no emulsion swelling and leaves no residue.

Tips for cleaning old photos:

• Only attempt cleaning on photos that are otherwise in good condition


• Test clean a small area of a similar photo that has no value to you


• Clean a small area at a time


• Do not press or rub the surface of the photo


• If the cleaning appears to be causing further damage to the surface, stop immediately


• NEVER use water to clean an old photo


• If you are using PEC-12 make sure you follow the manufacturers instruction regarding handling, ventilation, etc.


• Finally - There's always the chance that cleaning will cause damage to your old photo, so attempt it at your own risk. If you're not confident enough to have a go, contact a professional photo cleaner for an opinion.

You can get full technical information on PEC-12 from Photographic Solutions

-Mark.

Vibrant New Photo Restoration Community

The recently launched forums on the OPR Workshop website is no ordinary community of digital artists. These are talented photo restorers with a purpose, and they've rapidly turned their message board into a vibrant and informative venue for their volunteers.

Operation Photo Rescue was formed in 2005 around the idea of providing voluntary photo restoration services to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Many of these people not only lost their homes in the flooding that Katrina caused, but their cherished family photos were also severely water damaged. Many thousands of wedding photos, baby photos, genealogy photos, and more were virtually destroyed. Sentimentality prevented people from throwing the photos away, even though they feared they were unsaveable.

Over the last year, however, the network of OPR volunteers has grown at an astonishing rate, and they have proved time and again that even the most severely damaged photos can often be restored to their original, or better than original condition. Reading the stories of the owners' reactions when their newly restored photos are returned to them is reward enough for this tireless army of photo restoration volunteers.

The new OPRWorkshop forum is a place where OPR volunteers can showcase their photo restoration work, get advice, assistance and feedback, and interact with other OPR volunteers across the globe. An indespensibe resource.

-Mark.