OT: Restoring Old Photographs

[dagza]

Hello

I am currently scanning a load of family photos and need some mac (preferably) software to help me restore them.

I have iPhoto which is too basic for the task. I also have Fireworks and Photoshop but I was looking for something a little more automatic. At least some software to get me started by doing some of the work before I drop them in to an image editor.

The photos vary in quality so am looking for something which will handle colour / greyscale correction, noise and rips and bends on the photos.

Anyone any experience? All comments very much appreciated.

Darren

[FN-GM]

Adobe Photoshop Elements will probably be the product.

Z

[john]

Everything Elements does is in Photoshop really, You can automate stuff in Photoshop so I am told, I will admit I don't know how but perhaps google can help with that?

[FN-GM]

In Photoshop Elements there is a wizard to restore photos.

Z

[Andrew_C]

It may not help, but the software that comes with Nikon slide scanners is very good for doing batches of slides that are all damaged in similar fashion. Good, but slow, for individual settings.

[dagza]

Thanks for the comments so far. That was quick! I'm not shy of photoshop and my brother is a graphic designer so I will pass the nicer photos to him to touch up properly. I was just hoping for a program that would either do a batch ior quickly identify the problem with each individual photo and solve (some of) the problems.

This was the best hit from google so far:

http://www.colorpilot.com/

I have downloaded the 2 demos but am too busy scanning to investigate! I will look at that tomorrow afternoon. I have bloody thousands of scans to get through. When I look back at the images I am really glad my dad was a photographer ..... until I look at the carrier bags of prints :-)

Darren

[dagza]

In Photoshop Elements there is a wizard to restore photos.

Which version is this in please?

I have elements 3 on my iMac and have found an enhance menu which is fair at sorting out levels in one click but have not found a wizzard as such. I have also found the dust filter but I think I would be better off cloning by hand.

Unless I am missing something obvious it would appear elements only goes to version 4 on the mac and 6 on windows. Upgrade to 4 or use the windows version to do this?

Darren

[CyberNerd]

there is a photo restoration chapter in this gimp book.
you can automate tasks in gimp with script-fu (google script-fu brings some tutorials). Gimp for OSX is here.

[rrichmond]

Good topic...

Does anyone know of any free tutorials for Photoshop? Preferably version CS3....

[gaz350]

mmmm there is a bunch of CS3 Video Podcasts on itunes