Please help a very, very new guy

[Oranta]

Hi,

I am new to this to a point where I am embarrassed to say how new.  I restore vintage metal and wooden products that have labels, decals, etc that I want to replace the old or missing ones that are from late 1800's to the late 1950's.  Is there a tutorial or information that someone can direct me to that could help me in reproducing the image so I can apply them to decals or labels?   Some of these labels are on a curved object and would taking photos of sections and trying to piece them together work?  Again, flying blind here and any direction would be so much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Pat

 

[IanSG]

Googling "photo restoration affinity photo" produces lots of results that should be useful.  From my own limited experience of restoring photos I'd say that the levels adjustment, contrast, sharpening, and shadows and highlights were the most useful, but I wasn't working with colour.   As for scanning curved surfaces....  Maybe a hand held scanner would work, but I've never used one, much less tried what you want to do.

[Dan C]

Hi Oranta,

Welcome to the forums

13 hours ago, Oranta said:

Some of these labels are on a curved object and would taking photos of sections and trying to piece them together work?

You could try creating a panorama of the multiple shots, but the results may be less than desirable due to the curve of the object. IanSG's suggestion of a handheld scanner could certainly work better.

The following threads may help give you some direction when it comes to restoring -

 

[John Rostron]

4 hours ago, Dan C said:

You could try creating a panorama of the multiple shots, but the results may be less than desirable due to the curve of the object. IanSG's suggestion of a handheld scanner could certainly work better.

If you want to go the panorama route, then my advice would be to:

1. First fix your subject to some form of turntable;
2. Take a series of shots in portrait orientation, rotating your subject just a few degrees (no more than 10°) between shots;
3. Crop each image so that your images overlap by about a third on each side. Clip canvas after each crop;
4. Save all these images;
5. Load your images into a New Panorama Stack and take it from there.

Good luck.

John