Photoshop Basics
Photoshop has some amazing capabilities. In this article I will talk about a few of the basic tools to use to touch up a photo.
Before I start with that, a few features you should get familiar with are the tools and the history windows. As seen to your right, the tools shows all of the tools that you can use in Photoshop. Get familiar with these, especially the few that I will mention in this article. The history window shows you what steps you have done and allows you to go back and undo steps. If you click on the step previous to the highlighted step, it'll undo the highlighted step. If you want to go all the way back to when you opened the photo, click on "Open" (the first step), or click on the photo above the first step.
Image Size
After I open my photo, I change the image size. To do this go to Image -> Image Size (Alt+Ctrl+I). With the "Resample Image" box unchecked change the resolution to 300 pixels/inch. Click OK.
Rotating
To rotate a photo go to Image -> Rotate Canvas and choose 180, 90 CW, 90 CCW or Arbitrary. Arbitrary will rotate your photo in small increments.
Cropping
If your photo needs to be cropped, go to your cropping tool in your tool window (C). It looks like this (left). Drag it on your photo until it outlines how you want your photo cropped. Hit enter. You can also rotate using this tool. To do this, move your curser right outside of the box that you've created (before you hit enter) and you should see a curved line with two arrows. Drag and Rotate the box that you've made. Once you hit enter, the photo will rotate how much you rotated your box.
Lighting
After these steps are taken care of, I fix the levels, the brightness of the photo. To do this you can go to Image ->Adjustments ->Auto Levels (Shift+Ctrl+L). If this changes your photo too drastically and the lighting is still not right (don't undo), you can then go to Image -> Adjustments -> Levels (Ctrl+L) and drag the black and white triangles directly under the graph until the lighting is right. If the Auto Levels changed the color as well as the brightness in a way that you don't like and you tried the Levels and it still doesn't look right, go back and undo the Auto Levels and go directly into Levels and play with it until the lighting is right.
In the picture above, I would drag the left arrow under the graph to the right until it reaches the base of the steep slope. You can also drag the middle arrow to lighten (left) or darken (right). Play around with it until you get your lighting right. Make sure your preview box is checked and you should be able to see exactly what is being changed in your photo as you drag the arrows.
There are other ways to fix the lighting of a photo. I usually use levels, but you could also use brightness and contrast, or curves.
Color
If the color on your photo is not right, you can try a few different things. The first thing I would try is Auto Color. Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Auto Color (Shift+Ctrl+B). If this doesn't work, you can undo it and try going to Image -> Adjustments -> Variations. I usually have my settings as shown below; midtones and the intensity first check away from fine.
Click on the photo that looks the best and keep clicking until you get it right. Here is a trick that will help you know which picture to click. Notice how More Green and More Yellow are at the top and More Blue and More Magenta are at the bottom. More Cyan is at the left and More Red is at the right. If your photo is too blue, click the photo opposite More Blue, which would be More Green. If your picture is Yellow, Click More Magenta, etc.
There are several other tools that help correct color. Try them out. A few of them are Color Balance, Hue/Saturation, Channel Mixer, Selective Color etc.
Red Eye Removal
The red eye removal is an awesome tool and very easy to use. Find it on the tool window and click on the red part in the subjects eyes. It should automatically get rid of the red.
If this tool doesn’t work there are other methods you can use. One of them is as follows:
1.) Select the eyes using the circle marquee tool (after you have your first circle, hold down shift and make your second over the other eye).
2.) Feather the circles 1px. (Select->Modify->Feather->1px)
3.) Select the adjustment layer Hue/Saturation (or go to Images->adjustments->Hue/Saturation).
4.) From the dropdown box at the top, select Reds.
5.) Drag the Saturation bar down until the red in the eyes is gone and it looks natural.
6.) You may then want to play with the other sliders, particularly the one for Master.
The Clone Stamp Tool, The Healing Brush Tool and The Patch Tool
Three amazing tools in Photoshop that are very important to photo restoration are the clone stamp tool, the healing brush and the patch tool. These three tools help get rid of dust, scratches, lines etc. as well as aid in repairing tears, and other damage the scanned image may have.
Clone Stamp Tool
Using the cloning tool you can copy a piece of your image and reapply that piece to cover an unwanted section of the image.
How to Use the Cloning Tool
1.) Select the Clone Stamp Tool from the toolbox (see image above or use shortcut "s").
2.) Select the brush size and type you want to use from the Options bar across the top on the screen or go to windows -> brushes to bring up the brushes window. For most situations I use a brush that has soft edges. You can make a brush soft by clicking on the arrow in the top tool bar next to the brush and decrease the "hardness" slider.
You can also increase or decrease the brush size by typing the "[" and "]" keys ("[" will make the brush size smaller and "]" will make it larger).
3.) Move your curser over the area that you would like to reproduce somewhere else.
4.) Hold down the ALT key and click to select this area to clone from.
5.) Move your curser to the area you want to replace and click repeatedly to reproduce the pattern.
6.) Reset your clone tool by repeating steps 3 & 4.
TIPS
1.) Make sure you are zoomed in close to your image (you can zoom in by holding down CTRL +, zoom out with CTRL - or by using the zoom tool shortcut "z"). Use small brushes when you are working on areas that have a lot of detail like the subjects face.
2.) Less is more, especially when working with people's faces. If you start to clone too much it distorts the image and makes it look fake.
3.) Try not to use the clone stamp tool to remove features that should be in the image. Once you start to remove every wrinkle, every blemish, every birthmark a subject may have, you start to lose the historical integrity of the photo. Use the clone stamp tool mainly to remove things in the image that shouldn't be there, i.e. scratches, pen marks, dust, mold etc.
Healing Brush Tool
The healing brush blends imperfections into the surrounding background. It is similar to the cloning tool except it blends the area you select instead of reproducing it exactly.
How to Use the Healing Brush
To use the healing brush, follow the same instructions as the cloning tool above.
TIPS
1.) Tips 1 through 3 above for the cloning tool.
2.) The healing brush does not do will next to lines. It will smudge. Avoid using the healing brush to get rid of a line, unless the line is open at each end.
Patch Tool
The patch tool is basically the healing brush tool and the lasso tool combined. It allows you to select an area that you want to remove and blend it into the surrounding background.
How to Use the Patch Tool
1.) Make sure that “source” is selected from the options bar along the top of your screen.
2.) Select an area that you want to remove like you would with the lasso tool.
3.) Drag that selection to an area that has similar patterns and colors.
4.) Let go and your selection will blend away the imperfection, using the patterns and textures from the area you chose as a reference.
When Would I Want to Use the Patch Tool?
When you want to blend away large areas or oddly shaped areas all at once instead of having to use the circle healing brush over and over again to accomplish the same thing.
The clone stamp tool, the healing brush and the patch tool help out a lot with photo restoration. The more photos you touch up, the faster you'll get at using these tools and the better you're photos will look.
There are so many things you can do with Photoshop. These are just a few of the very basic tools and techniques that I use when touching up and restoring photos.
