A friend of mine, Jean-Claude Langer, asked me to restore a cherished old B & W photo he had of his father. The picture (photo #1), as you can see, was in bad shape with some; missing pieces, unseemly folds, fading and staining. The image was taken in Paris about 1931 and Jean-Claude asked me to restore it, but at the same time keep the old feeling it has.

When I do photo restorations for pixlfixl customers, certain issues consistently come up related to seeing the newly restored images. All the photos I work on are damaged to varying degrees and have sometimes been this way for quite a long time. Because of this, customers sometimes get used to and attached to the poor condition of their images. Many have never seen the photos in their original pristine condition, so when they see them restored they’re frequently very surprised. It’s sort of like the first time you saw a picture of one your parents when they were a child. It’s a bit disconcerting at first, but then it makes sense.

What follows is an explanation of what I actually did to restore Jean-Claude’s photograph. The first thing I do whenever I’m given a photo that’s faded over time, is I desaturate it (take the color out). I do this because I’ve found in practically all cases that fading, due to age, leads to uneven discoloration. Desaturating the tones brings everything into the same color space. At the end of the restoration process I’ll add an overall color tone (usually a variety of sepia), if it’s requested. Photo #2 shows what the original image looks like after it’s been desaturated.

My next task is to restore the tonal range of the image. Old B & W photos fade over time because the silver emulsion that makes up the image is susceptible to chemicals in the air as well as the effects of exposure to light. Fading makes the dark values lose their richness (they get lighter) and the light values get muddy.  Luckily I can reverse this in Photoshop and do it with a great amount of control.  The two ways I like to do this are to use the “image-> adjustment-> levels” or “image-> adjustment-> curve” tools. The trick is to restore the darkest shadow tones, the brightest highlight tones and set the intermediate grey values where they look best. Photo #3 shows the result of using the curve tool to do this. You see an immediate improvement during this step. An essential part of doing this effectively is having your monitor calibrated correctly, and viewing your image with a look-up that will show you what your image will look like when it’s printed on a specific paper. In Photoshop you set this up with “view-> proof set-up”  and “view-> proof colors“. I can’t emphasize enough the importance that what you see on your monitor accurately shows you what it will look like when printed. Without doing this, you can end up wasting a lot of time and paper when printing.

After balancing the tones I’m now ready to clean the image up. I remove the folds, tears, add the missing pieces and clean up the sky using the “healing brush” and “clone-stamp” tools. This is the most time-consuming part of the process and requires a lot of attention to detail. I make sure that when I clone in the grass I don’t have any noticeable repeating patterns and that I respect the depth of field that happens on the grass plane. Another interesting restoration question is how much one should do to to make the image look better. Where does one stop? For this photo Jean-Claude gave clear direction beforehand that he wanted the little bush removed that was just to the left of his Dad’s hair. After seeing the restoration preview proof on-line (photo #4), Jean-Claude also decided that he wanted the wood debris in the grass on the left side removed and the buildings under/behind the Eiffel Tower to be darker. These requests were easily accomplished and I think they make the image cleaner and stronger (photo #5). I’m of the opinion that doing whatever you can to help the image be more effective is alright, as long as it’s in the spirit of what you believe was the original intent of the photographer. This is a very subjective area (of course) and open to whatever interpretation you may assume.

Photo #6 is the final restoration. The warm color tone was added back, in order to give the image a feeling of age.

Here’s what Jean-Claude had to say after seeing the restoration,

Drew,

I want to thank you for giving me the precious opportunity of a renewed dialog with my dad, André, thru the time machine device that is a restored photograph. I was most impressed with your respect of the integrity of the original, and your impeccable technical ability to achieve it. You were also most gracious in complying with my added request for changes, as we both agreed that it was for the better.

All in all, a great experience.

Merci,

Jean-Claude

This handsome portrait of Merchant Marine Captain Costas Tripolitis was taken in South Africa in the late 50’s or early 60’s. His son Nicholas, sent it to pixlfixl to have it colored. People who submit their photos for colorizing are asked to select the colors they want. The more specific, the better. Nicholas told me about the color of his father’s eyes and was particular about the colors he desired for the backdrop and the table covering. He also sent helpful reference materials for the colors of the insignia on the hat. I’m delighted when given plenty of color information – it makes the job a lot easier.
 

Since people are curious about how I do the hand-coloring, I thought I’d break this one down and explain each of the steps in the process. Here goes…

1. I started by scanning (at 600 dpi) the original photo that was mailed in. I needed this high resolution, because I was asked to enlarge the image by 20%, so that it could be printed at an 8″ x 10″ size.

2. The image is 50 years old and it’s already showing signs of fading. One of the ways to correct this kind of tonal deterioration is to use either the levels or curve adjustment functions in Photoshop. With either of these tools you can restore the original values to what they might have looked like when the photo was newly printed. 

3. I always de-saturate the colors, even if it looks like it’s B&W. Sometimes I’ll do this before I adjust the tonal values, but this time I did it after. You can see that image #2 has a green cast to it which is gone in photo #3.

4. Before I get started doing anything with color I always set my “proof set-up” under “view” (this is in Photoshop) and make sure that, “proof colors” is turned on. The reason I mention this, is that I always want to be viewing the colors on my monitor as closely to how they’ll look when printed on the paper that the customer has selected. I print on two different surface papers, one has a matte finish (my favorite) and the other is a semi-gloss. The semi-gloss replicates the feel of the older fiber based photographic papers. Back to image #4. You can see here that I painted the blue parts of his uniform first. I create a layer for each color, so that I’ll have the ability to control the color fine tuning that I do later on. I set the layer mode to, “color”. This allows the color to mix in naturally with the tones of the underlying B & W photo. I also use the layer “opacity” slider to adjust a level mix of the color that looks right. Because I control the final value, saturation and hue of each color by using the “adjust hue/saturation” function, I’m not that concerned with painting with the exact color I’ll end up using. As long as it’s in the ballpark, I’ll be fine.

5. Here I’ve added all the gold color to his uniform and hat. Something else I like to do, after the paint is complete for each layer, is blur the paint slightly. I find that the soft edges allow the paint to blend more naturally.
 

6. Next I apply the skin tone, being careful around the eyes and ears.

7. Then I give the lips a bit of a pinkish hue.

8. Some blue for the eyes. Often I lighten the white parts of the eyes as well as the specular reflection that sometimes appears in the irises. I find this gives the eyes a more lively feeling.

9. Here I’ve combined many layers to add the colors of his medals and the insignia decorating his hat. Each of these colors would have their own layer in my Photoshop file.

10. Similarly, I’ve combined what would have been separate layers of the seat cover, the table fabric and the wall behind him.
  
After using this method of applying color, I’m now ready to show my customer an on-line preview image (#12) for their approval. It’s at this point that the customer can comment on the colors that she/he described before getting started. Words are rarely sufficient to describe colors, so I expect there to be some changes needed. In this case, Nicholas showed the preview proof to his mother and she requested that the skin values be more saturated, and the blue in the eyes be more blue/grey, like she remembered them. These revisions were made and they approved picture #13.

The beauty of working this way is that if there are; colors that have to be changed, saturation levels that need to be adjusted or colors lightened or darkened, I can easily make them because each color is controlled separately.