Photo Restoration Software

[JamesSwanson]

Hello everybody!
Recently I found an old album of my great-grandmother from the beginning of the last century, but the photos there faded and cracked.
I want to scan them and fix them.
Please tell me the software for these purposes.

[DAD]

Hello James,

Affinity Photo is good for photo editing. 

Best greetings 

Anke

[John Rostron]

Hello @JamesSwanson and welcome to the forums.

I use VueScan for scanning my old photos. It can save the images as 16-bit tiffs. I would recommend scanning in colour, then using Afinity Photo for post-processing and retouching.

Photo can convert your image to black-and-white (greyscale). It can also enhance the contrast. It is better to leave any sharpening or clarity adjustments to near the end.

Use the dust and scratch removal tool for small imperfections.

Use the clone tool or the inpainting brush for larger imperfections.

I would suggest you try it out and, if you run into trouble, post your image here for us to see.

John

[Old Bruce]

8 hours ago, JamesSwanson said:

Hello everybody!
Recently I found an old album of my great-grandmother from the beginning of the last century, but the photos there faded and cracked.
I want to scan them and fix them.
Please tell me the software for these purposes.

Just a couple of cents worth of advice:

Old pictures need care when scanning. The light from the scanner can cause fading so choose a real boring photo (one you won't worry about potentially losing) to do your testing with. Once you have the right idea about how to scan you can then go through all the old photos and archive them.

[Granddaddy]

Affinity Photo should do what you want. The learning curve is steep if you have not done photo editing before. It's among the most complex things anyone ever does on a computer, so don't be easily discouraged.

Obviously Affinity Photo's competitors will also do the job. They might even be easier to use at first glance. Some even have automated features (that I've found don't work satisfactorily despite advertising hype).

However, if you strive to be a serious craftsman then Affinity Photo's emphasis on non-destructive editing is an enormous help in this kind of work. You can repair physical damage on the photo without making physical changes to the pixels of the scan. If you make an error, nothing is lost except time and nothing is ruined.

See my simple example at
https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/77763-recovering-memories-gifting-friends/

If you have not done much scanning, read Wayne Fulton's classic work "A Few Scanning Tips"
https://www.scantips.com

including this page about old photos
https://www.scantips.com/restore.html

I also use VueScan for scanning photos as it gives more control than the software that came with my scanner. It includes some photo restoration functions that are best applied during scanning rather than later in an editor. If you are not satisfied with your scans, then you might give it a try.
https://www.hamrick.com

Again, the learning curve can be steep. Restoration is a combination of technical and artistic skills informed by experience. 

 

 

 

[Vidi]

I use IrfanView

https://www.irfanview.com/

Can handle 16bit Scans. And Batch-Scanning and it is free. 

After that Affinity Photo

And i do my scan in tif.

 

Addition:

You can Scan in 16bit/48bit 

IrfanView can handle this

But only save in 8/24 bit

[JamesSwanson]

Thank you all, people) 
Sorry, I've been afk about month
It was very kind advices) 
I tried Vividpix and it's really nice tool) 
Paid about 50 bucks but it worth the money

https://vivid-pix.com/

[Danzel]

Well, I think there are no easy answers because "easier" software is often just easier because it has fewer vital functions and actually makes the process of both restoring and learning slower and less productive. I know it has been a year, but still, I think you can find a lot of useful information about how to do it in this article about how photo restoration work.

They use mainly 2 tools to make restore their photos:
1. Photoshop or its free analog called Photopea
2. Gimp

If you don’t want to use any of these Photolab can be an option, but I don’t this it will be as good as PS or Photopea

I'd stay with a free tool that can be acessed from the browser, rather than paying $20 per month per Adobe Creative Cloud

Edited December 26, 2022 by Danzel

[Komatös]

Gravedigger

[Komatös]

@R C-R

Why are you confused? The last entry was a year ago (for this the gravedigger). 😉

And the OP has found a solution. 
 

[R C-R]

Just now, Komatös said:

Why are you confused?

Because in English usage, a gravedigger is a person who digs graves. I do not think that applies to the last poster, either literally or figuratively. That person is not trying to bury anything, just add a comment some might find useful or interesting.

[Komatös]

In German, one speaks of a gravedigger when someone "digs up" an old posting.

[Old Bruce]

2 minutes ago, Komatös said:

In German, one speaks of a gravedigger when someone "digs up" an old posting.

In English we would perhaps use the term Necro from the greek for corpse. A la Dr. Frankenstein.

[R C-R]

3 minutes ago, Komatös said:

In German, one speaks of a gravedigger when someone "digs up" an old posting.

Pretty much the opposite in English usage. "Grave robber" might be more apt, I think....

[Andy05]

16 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

In English we would perhaps use the term Necro from the greek for corpse. A la Dr. Frankenstein.

Agreed, I've seen "necromancing" as term for replying to long dead threads in several fora.

[v_kyr]

• εκταφή από το νεκροταφείο
• exhumation from the cemetery