Any Photoshop help to improve old foto, please?

PostPost by: mmatthej1 » Mon Jul 24, 2017 6:54 pm

I took 3 fotos back in the early Seventies, to record a moment when I owned 2 Elans - sadly, the quality is pretty bad and I just wonder if anyone out there is more expert than I and could 'retrieve' the pix as better quality images?

Any help appreciated!
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2-elans-photos.jpg and
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PostPost by: Elanintheforest » Mon Jul 24, 2017 8:47 pm

I just had a quick go but there's not enough information / pixels on those photos to make much difference. They need to be taken out of the album if there is a clear plastic film over them, and then scanned in at a much higher resolution. You may get something better then, although if they are under-exposed as it appears, then even at high resolution there may not be enough to improve greatly.

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PostPost by: mmatthej1 » Mon Jul 24, 2017 10:02 pm

Ah thanks - the pix were scanned as individuals, not in an album covered by plastic, so that's as good as it gets, using my printer!

I'm reconciled that they may well not be improvable but worth asking !
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PostPost by: mmatthej1 » Mon Jul 24, 2017 10:24 pm

This is my best effort, with one of the fotos:
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two-elans-a.jpg and
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PostPost by: Robbie693 » Mon Jul 24, 2017 11:56 pm

As Mark says - there's not a lot to work with, especially being a jpeg. It depends how much contrast you want to put in; a little will pull the cars out slightly but go any further and you start enhancing things that weren't part of the actual image such as the light cast across the print or any reflections that were on there if it was a glossy.

Here's my go, different method on each image:
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PostPost by: mmatthej1 » Tue Jul 25, 2017 8:45 am

Thanks Robbie, they look a lot better!
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PostPost by: elanfan1 » Tue Jul 25, 2017 1:01 pm

image.jpeg and


Just copied to my iPad, cropped it and played with brightness and colour.
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PostPost by: mmatthej1 » Tue Jul 25, 2017 6:55 pm

Thanks Steve - that looks quite 'arty' - I like it !
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PostPost by: The Veg » Wed Jul 26, 2017 1:09 pm

elanfan1 wrote:Just copied to my iPad, cropped it and played with brightness and colour.


I like it too. My first thought was cool psychedelic album-cover. :D
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PostPost by: pereirac » Thu Jul 27, 2017 8:50 pm

My two pence worth...I have Photoshop..
1-elans-photos.jpg and

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PostPost by: mmatthej1 » Thu Jul 27, 2017 10:06 pm

Thank you, also excellent !

Sad fact is that box Brownie fotos were rubbish and are destined to remain thus - if only I'd had a simple smartphone eh ?!?
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PostPost by: UAB807F » Fri Jul 28, 2017 5:21 am

Do you have any options on your scanner to increase resolution ? There look to be faint lines on the scans (at 200%) and I had an option on my scanning software to "reduce moire" which would help there.

If not you might have more luck with trying to take a photo of the original, even some phones can get a decent image these days. (well, better than the box brownie could ;) )

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PostPost by: mbell » Fri Jul 28, 2017 5:42 pm

I agree with Brian. Photoshop and do some pretty good stuff but small improvements on the input quality can lead to big improvements in the output quality. So it worth experimenting with the scanner settings and getting a few images to try improve.
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