Photos are precious monuments of the past. They evoke memories of wonderful moments with friends and family. However, over time, these photos can get dirty, torn, fade and wrinkled.
Fortunately, there are many digital tools available to help you clean up blurry images, edit and enhance your photos, or fix and restore old photos. This article will focus on Windows compatible and online tools for all of this. Click here for more Mac OS imaging tools, or watch the video below.
In this article, we will discuss the following programs to help you recover damaged photos:
- Inpaint
- Retouch Pilot
- Image Mender
- PicMonkey
- AKVIS Retoucher
- GIMP
Touch Up Photos: Inpaint
Inpaint is a photo recovery software that you can try before you buy. Please scan damaged photos to your computer before using the software.
Remove imperfections from old photos by following these simple steps.
- Open the scanned photo you want to correct.
- Select areas of the photo that are torn or scratched.
- Using a magic wand or other selection tool, carefully select all the defective areas in the photo.
- Start the erasing process.
- On the toolbar, click Erase.
- Opens the image file in Image Mender
- Selects the area to be corrected with a marker.
- Clicks the Fix button.
- If the edges are torn or frayed: open the image in the editor.
- Open another copy of the image as a picture and stretch it until it is the same size as the original.
- Flip the drawing to use a nice edge to replace a missing or torn edge.
- Erase the rest of the image that you don’t need, leaving only the new edge.
- The cloning function removes tears and wrinkles.
- Remove the damaged part of the photo by painting over it with pixels of the undamaged part of the photo.
- Select a part of the image that is in good condition to copy and use as a source.
- Move and click the dotted circle to insert it over areas in need of repair, including wrinkles and tears.
- Add life and color to faded photos with Touch Up.
- By lowering the intensity and applying a little tan to the image, it will look less faded.
- Use the PicMonkey effects and the Fade slider to try different effects until your old photo is correct.
- Use colors and curves to remove shadows and highlight highlights to correct the overall exposure of your photo.
- Reconstruct the missing parts of the image using information from the surrounding areas.
- Specify the damaged areas to be repaired.
- Click the Run button.
- The program will automatically smooth the surface of the image and remove imperfections.
- Functionality similar to Photoshop, but with a different user interface.
- Less than professional image editing tools.
- It takes a little time to learn how to use.
- Convert color images to black and white: https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/ Digital_Black_and_White_Conversion /
- Isolate certain tones in your image with layered masks: https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Luminosity_Masks/
- Use Colors / Exposure to add exposure compensation to shadows : https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Tone_Mapping_Using_GIMP_Levels
Inpaint will fix the defects you mentioned above and repair the damaged photo.
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You can download Inpaint and try it before buying for $ 19.99.
Defect Removal: Retouching version
Retouch Pilot is a program designed to remove small defects such as dust particles, scratches and stains that may appear after scanning a photo.
It will also restore old scanned photos by removing imperfections such as scratches, stains and scuffs. Retouch Pilot works on both Windows and Mac.
Give your old photos new life with Retouch Pilot
You can download a free trial with restrictions. The software will allow users to save the image in a special format (.tpi) to see how it works.
If you would like to purchase it, you can upload images in several standard image formats.
Retouch Pilot is also available as a plug-in for Adobe Photoshop or other compatible programs
Cosmetics for Pictures: Image Mender
Image Mender, known as Digital Cosmetology for Photos, is an application that repairs and retouches photographs, other types of digital images, and works of art.
The photo recovery process is simple. Remove dust, scratches and smudges without having to manually adjust layers or clone settings.
The repair process occurs automatically after the user:
Image Mender works on both Windows and Mac computers. Download a fully functional copy of the program for free.
The cost of purchasing a personal software license is $ 24.95.
Fix old photos: PicMonkey
Fix and restore your precious old photos with PicMonkey Eliminate tears, water damage, cracks and folds
First, scan a photo into your computer. Drag it to the PicMonkey home page and open it in the online editor.
To restore old photos, watch the video tutorial or follow these steps:
PicMonkey comes with a seven day free trial. Paid versions cost $ 7.99 for the basic version and $ 12.99 for the Pro.
Reconstruct Images: AKVIS Retoucher
Remove scratches, stains, dust and other defects from old or damaged photos with AKVIS photo retouching and restoration software.
Check out the manual for more detailed instructions on using AKVIS Retoucher.
AKVIS Retoucher is available as a plug-in for photo editors such as Photoshop Elements, Corel PaintShop Pro and Adobe Photoshop. It can also be purchased as a standalone product.
The software works with Windows and Mac and offers a free 10-day trial to evaluate the product.
Full Featured: GIMP
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a cross-platform image editor that works with many operating systems, including Windows, GNU / Linux and OS X.
GIMP is free to use and includes the following features:
To learn more about how to use the GIMP photo editing features, see the following links:
Use some of the digital tools outlined above to rejuvenate and repair damaged photos to preserve your special memories.
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