Author’s Intro: Leah is a blogger and photography enthusiast. She loves writing photography and photo restoration blogs. She is keen in updating herself with advanced photo enhancement, restoration and editing methods. She at present blogs for wowapic, a picture restoration services website.
Weddings are a once-in-a-life time occasion where so much of effort is put into the details like location, food, dress, guest list and so on. But what really remains after the day is over, is the fine memories of the occasion which are imprinted in our minds. Memories can fade away but anything captured as photographs will not fade away. The beautiful moments captured in the photorgaphs serve as the medium for cherishing the memories for a time to come. Hence, capturing the beautiful moments of that wonderful day by a good photographer is as important as any other aspect of the wedding and so is also the digitization and restoration of old photographs. Restoration of wedding photographs old or new is an art.
Why is wedding photo restoration an art?
It is a process which requires great skill, experience, expertise and hard work. Lot of care has to be taken, first with the selection of the photos and then the stages that follow.
- High quality and high resolution scan has to be taken of the original photographs.
- Once the scanned images are taken, you need to export them into professional digital photo editing software. Then the repair work begins.
- If the images are too old, then the first thing that is done is the removal of spots and scratches. The more difficult tasks are replication of missing sections damaged due to mild dew and water. After ressurecting the photographs, color corrections and adjustments are made. Once all the signs of damage are removed, the final stage is resizing and cropping the photographs followed by photo tinting and coloring.
It is especially challenging in cases when the facial features are missing or extremely damaged. The restored photographs are finally printed on specially formulated inks and photographic archival paper of high quality.
Restoration of wedding photographs
Even an awesome photograph can be made spectacular with photo restoration (as it aggressively involves retouching as well). The stages of restoration of new photographs is more or less the same. First the photographs have to be scanned. Photographs that are like below, has a background that is very distracting. It has been restored from a portrait to a landscape mode eliminating unwanted details in the image. A bit of light is added for that little magic!
Adding light and changing the perspective does wonders
Photo restoration does wonders to your photographs. Lots of amazing features are available in restoration phase, like:
1. Red blotches, blemishes, line and wrinkle removal
2. Red eye reduction, eye and teeth whitening
3. Body enhancement(slimming)
4. Subject/background removal
5. Color adjustments
6. Digital compositing
7. Skin smoothing
Here is an example of the fine touches added during photo restoration (probably by retouching the photographs to enhance the overall look and feel of the photograph.)
The magic of retouching!
Tips For Selecting The Photo Restorer
When going for photo retouching and restoration, it is extremely important to bear the following cautions and tips in mind.
• “Pay after you receive the photo” Type Of Restorers: It is advisable not to fall for this statement. A dedicated artist immensely values his or her talent and time and can never give it away so freely. You may end up selecting one good snap out of four restored because that may be the quality of work.
• Processing Of Photos: It is essential to find out if professionally highly-trained technicians are handling and printing your photographs. Whether the restoration is printed in a photo lab or just in any place should be known well in advance. Also do not go to a place where scanning of photographs are done at low DPI (below 300).
• Examine Samples: Examine the sample restorations done and see if the colors are rich and deep (for black and white images too). Check if the image is clear and sharp. Skin tones should be warm and realistic, hair color should be natural and realistic and colors should not be bleeding from one to another.
Restoration of wedding photographs is definitely an art which should be professionaly handled by trained technicians who have eye for detail and are sensitive to customer’s requirements. This ultimately results in making new memories while capturing and restoring them!
About the author: Leah is a blogger and photography enthusiast. She loves writing photography and photo restoration blogs. She is keen in updating herself with advanced photo enhancement, restoration and editing methods. She at present blogs for wowapic, a picture restoration services website.
