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Many photographs in our family collections are black and white, often quite small and not that perfect shot that you would like them to be. I have a few of them myself and find that they can benefit from a bit of digital love. The one advantage we have is that our digital alterations will not harm the original photograph at all, unlike years ago when we cut our photographs up and glued them in an album!
Here are two photographs: as you can see one is very dull and one is in good condition. Let me show you how we can just “dress them up” a little.
I am starting with the photograph on the right. It does not need much alteration: it is not too dark or full of “noise” as some older photographs can be. I first duplicated the photograph layer and changed the Blend Mode to Overlay. I duplicated the layer again and this time set the Blend Mode to Screen, reducing the Opacity to 75%.
 
Already the photograph has a little more clarity, the shades of black and white are brighter and the dullness of age is improved. Go to Layers>Merge Visible on the Menu Bar. In the Adjust menu item I selected Brightness & Contrast>Clarify with a Strength=3.
I could leave the photograph alone but I do like playing around! I decided to try a Layer Style on it – Layer Styles came in with PSP X2 – and I used Inner Glow: I can’t be specific with settings as Layer Styles are slider controlled, so copy the approximate positions and use white and you should get a similar effect. Remember to check the Preview on Image box so you can see the changes. I liked how it softened the edges and so made the central figures pronounced.
 
The second photograph is in a poor state: I have a version where I have restored it quite well but for the purpose of this tutorial we are looking at quick remedies to photographs like this, without resorting to complicated restoration.
I begin as usual by duplicating the layer and changing the Blend Mode to Overlay: I then duplicate that layer and lower the Opacity to 65%
I think that is looking better already, but let’s merge the visible layers and try some more effects. Look in the Adjust menu>Add/Remove Noise>Edge Preserving Smooth: experiment with the setting until you get something you like. I used an amount of 21: it doesn’t remove every scratch or “noisy” part but it does have a significant smoothing effect.
I used an Inner Glow Layer Style again, this time using a colour from the actual photograph. You can do this easily by hovering the mouse over the image and it will turn into the colour dropper.
Finally I added a new layer, filled it with Grey R128 G128 B128 and set the Blend Mode to Lighten, lowering the Opacity to 28. It just adds a little more softness to the photograph, and although it is far from perfect, it is much improved compared to the original.
Here are the original and my altered photographs together. I have used quick effects, and spent very little time editing the photographs compared to what I would spend were I doing restoration work on them, and I think they look better. This is a great way to tidy up any photographs you think are a little dull, or need more interest. It’s easy and quick – which means there is more time to scrap!
You can download a PDF version of this tutorial by CLICKING HERE
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