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Project 3: Restoring Life to Heirloom Images
Skills and Tools: Levels Adjustment Layer
There is nothing more important to a family than its history. History is found in many ways, places, and formats. For example, you may have historical documents that relate to who you are, or you might have physical artifacts from your ancestors. However, nothing strikes an emotional cord more than a photograph. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words. Yet even while an image freezes a moment in time, the actual photograph is traveling through time and unfortunately, Father Time can do major damage to a photographic image. Fortunately for us we have Photoshop. Adobe Photoshop is your time machine for restoring old images. While there are many methods for restoring an old grayscale image, one of the most consistently successful methods is through the use of a Levels Adjustment layer.
The Project
In this project you'll take an old image, and through the use of Photoshop's amazing Adjustment layers, restore the image. It's not that difficult, and the final results are awesome.
The Process
Open the file three_girls_start.psd in Photoshop, and then save it as my_three_girls.psd .Important:
Always scan old grayscale images as RGB, not Grayscale. Most old images begin taking on a color as they age, such as: brown, sepia, or yellow. Although you will want to remove that color, it is information that Photoshop can use to correct the image.
Click the Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer button (half-moon icon), and then click Levels .The Levels dialog box represents the brightness values of the pixels within the image. The data is called a Histogram, and is similar to a bar chart.
Click the RGB Channel selector, and then click the Red channel.
Drag the black input slider to just below the visible rise of the histogram (that's where black has moved to after all those years).
Drag the white input slider to just below the visible rise of the histogram (that's where white has moved to after all those years).
Once you have established the position of black and white, increase the input value of the white slider by 4, and decrease the value of the black slider by 4.The value of 4 is an average, and based on the image; however, backing down both sliders, you help keep the light and dark areas of the image from blowing out (going pure white or black).
Click the RGB Channel selector, click the Green channel, and then repeat steps 4 thru 6.
Click the RGB Channel selector, click the Blue channel, and then repeat steps 4 thru 6.
If the image still appears a bit to dark or light, return the RGB Channel selection to the RGB option, then drag the middle gray slider to correspondingly lighten or darken the image in the mid-tones.
Click OK .
Click the Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer button (half-moon icon), located at the bottom of the Layers palette, and then click Hue & Saturation .
Drag the Saturation slider to the far left.
Click OK .This has the effect of removing any unwanted colorcasts from the image.[View full size image]
The Results
[View full size image]
Finish: Compare your completed project file with the image in three_girls_fnl.psd .
Tweaking the Image
Like all adjustments in Photoshop, nothing is perfect, and no two images are ever adjusted in exactly the same way. Your results will depend on the physical information left within the scanned image. However, with a bit of practice, and knowing exactly how to move the Levels Input sliders, you will achieve fairly consistent results.Good to Know:
The brightness levels of a pixel range from 0 (black) to 255 (white), when you move the input sliders, you're redefining where black and white are within the active image. As an image ages the original values of black and white shift. The purpose of Levels is to reestablish those positions. Once that's completed, Levels can approximate the positions of all the other remaining pixels, and balance the image.
