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New user needs help on shading old family photo please!!


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Dear forum members, just acquired Affinity Photo after learning enough skills to master Affinity Publisher. Photo is an amazing piece of kit, but as a complete novice, can anybody send me details on how to touch up an old family photo please? The photo is in pretty poor condition, but is the only one I have. The main problem is the shading on one side, which is very light and I would love to make it a bit better. What is the best way to do it please? Thank you and best wishes, Mark.

William Arthur Roberts.jpg

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Welcome to the forums @Mark Potts,

To properly restore that photo requires several techniques to be used. I learned from Simon Foster, @drippy cat on these forums. He has several tutorials offered for sale on Udemy. They are real reasonably priced for the amount of time he puts into them. The once course where just one section of it is around 2 hrs of video with downloadable resources, he goes through restoring an old photo. The example he uses is in much, much worse shape then yours. Check it out, right now it costs around $18 (US).

The full course (includes other subjects too) is titled Little Box of Tricks

Affinity Photo 2.3..; Affinity Designer 2.3..; Affinity Publisher 2.3..; Affinity2 Beta versions. Affinity Photo,Designer 1.10.6.1605 Win10 Home Version:21H2, Build: 19044.1766: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s);32GB Ram, Nvidia GTX 3070, 3-Internal HDD (1 Crucial MX5000 1TB, 1-Crucial MX5000 500GB, 1-WD 1 TB), 4 External HDD

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Your Welcome Mark.

Affinity Photo 2.3..; Affinity Designer 2.3..; Affinity Publisher 2.3..; Affinity2 Beta versions. Affinity Photo,Designer 1.10.6.1605 Win10 Home Version:21H2, Build: 19044.1766: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-5820K CPU @ 3.30GHz, 3301 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 12 Logical Processor(s);32GB Ram, Nvidia GTX 3070, 3-Internal HDD (1 Crucial MX5000 1TB, 1-Crucial MX5000 500GB, 1-WD 1 TB), 4 External HDD

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This can quickly be done with an adjustment layer + a masked area. In this rough sample the used adjustment influences the Levels, specifically the Blacks, within the masked area, drawn as a gradient "white to transparent". To get more accuracy by a non-straight, irregular masking shape you wouldn't use the gradient but the paintbrush tool, with a reduced hardness value to set its soft brush edge.

993097104_maskedleveladjustment.jpg.971873e2c1002f9a20b1f3183e7df8e1.jpg

WilliamArthurRoberts_mask-leveladjust.afphoto

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1 only

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I had attached the .aphoto in my recent post. There you can experience the mask with a soft edge done by a gradient you still may edit.
Or upload your .aphoto to the forum for a check.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1 only

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