- Scan image (use 300-600 ppi) See directions near scanner in front of room.
- Open in Photoshop
- Crop & Straighten image
- Duplicate Background layer (ctrl + j) and rename it 'retouch'
- If the image is black & white it may be helpful to use the B&W adjustment layer to removes color cast when retouching. You can add toning (like sepia) back later.
- Make exposure adjustments (look at histogram to get a good range of tones)
- Zoom in and start working on the image using retouching tools. (healing brush, spot healing brush, clone stamp, patch tool)
- Sometimes you need to try different tools to get it right.
- Also changing settings for the same tool might help (size, normal vs content aware vs proximity match) often helps.
- Zoom out and turn layer on and off to see 'before' vs 'after'.
- Add any color back using adjustment layers OR 'colorize' your image.
- Yay- hopefully it looks beautiful!
Resources:
Old Picture, New Life - Photo restoration basics - tutsplus
How to restore a Heavily Damaged Image - tutsplus
Colorize a photograph - youtube
Colorize a photograph - gizmodo
You can also use google to search specific techniques or problems that may apply to your image.
Go to Image/Adjust/Desaturate and then to turn it into a negative use Image/Adjust/Invert and to lower the contrast Image/Adjust/Levels. Now adjust the Output with the bottom sliders from 0 to 255 to about 24 to 200. At this point you could print the negative and use it, but for most printers the image needs to be denser than this.
On the left of the window is a Toolbox and at the bottom the Foreground and Background colors, a mouseover will tell you which is which. Click on the foreground color and in the window that comes up you will see on the right C.M.Y.K. change these to C=0, M=50, Y=50, K=0 this will produce a nice orange color in the Foreground box. This color adjustment can be made using anything from 0-40-40-0 through to 0-70-70-0 conduct your own experiments with these settings.
The next step is to go to Edit/Fill, another window will open, in the Mode box choose Color and OK and the image will change to an orange color. The last step, if you want to print the negative in contact with the emulsion is to reverse the image, go to Image/Rotate Canvas/Flip Horizontal and you are finished.