Smooth out blue skies

A result of the digital photo age is that blue skies and dark areas of photos end up looking very speckled and noisy. The smooth blue sky you see with your eyes is difficult to duplicate digitally. With my 35mm prints that was never an issue. The example below illustrates what I mean. If you look at the sky you can see the small speckles and spots. Using dust and scratch removal will not help and noise reduction won’t either.

There is a way to remove those speckles and it is to apply a gradient to specific areas of the photo. In Photoshop it begins by using the magic wand to select the specific area to be corrected. Once it is selected set the feather to 10 pixels. Next use the gradient tool with the foreground to transparent option to insert the shade and color of blue sky that you want. The end result is an amazing picture with smooth blue skies.

Impressive right? In case you are curious it is a photo of Devil’s Bridge in Antigua, WI.

This is an old photo from at least the early 1970s that looked old and torn originally. It has been restored and refreshed to remove stains and tears from the original. The before photo is on the right and the after photo is on the left.

The process involved removing evidence of the tear, patching the wrinkles and white spots out of the picture and removing the old, stained border. Now this picture is ready to be reprinted and shared with family.

And they are …

Restore them to like-new condition

• A restoration can remove tears and stains to bring the image back to its original state

Have your photos handy

• Be able to view and share them quickly without lugging a photo album around

Share with family and friends

• Families are scattered all over the world today and photo scanning enables you to send those pictures to loved ones without losing the originals

Create a gift

• Make that famous family photo a gift for someone special in your life. You could make mugs, t-shirts and postcards on sites like zazzle.

Get a laugh from old school photos

• Share those old pictures with family and friends, especially on sites like Facebook. A humorous stroll down memory lane.

Finally get a do-over

• If the original print did not develop as you wanted it to or you would like to remove an object, now is your chance to do so.

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Photo scanning and restoration

“Preserving your memories”

Don’t let those old photos and memories disappear. Preserve them with photo scanning for generations to come. That photo that was special years ago can be just as special in a digital format. If the photo is scanned it can last much longer than print and is easily available for family and friends to enjoy. Are there photos of your parents, grandparents or kids that have been lying around getting older? Why not scan them and have them easily available? Introducing my new photo scanning services to preserve your memories for generations to come. Services offered are: Scan2Digital – photos up to 8.5″ x 11″ Negatives – scan 35mm film Photo restoration – make your digital and 35mm photos look new again My contact information is on the business card to the right. Click on the picture to see the details. To see prices click here. There is currently a 50% off promotional sale. Samples of my work are available on my photoblog.