Merge Photos

A couple of summers ago, my grandparents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. They had a party with the whole, huge family. They had a picture taken, but it was taken in 3 shots because of how big the group was. The pictures were printed separately and framed together and it sits on my grandparent's piano.

My grandma's family has been collecting family pictures for a CD. My grandma wanted the pictures from their anniversary party included, but she wanted them combined. And boy, was it complicated. When I got the top lined up, the angle at the bottom was different and didn't line up. So I had to rebuild legs, shoulders, shoes, shirts, floor, and all kinds of stuff along two merge lines. Now I'll have to get it printed for my grandparents.

Color Shift

Over time, the color in photos can shift. Here is one of me as a little girl that really had bad color shift and I was able to bring back lots of detail.

Reduce Noise

I got married shortly before it became common to get a digital copy of wedding photos. I scanned in all my photos for backup, and then I was using this photo on a digital scrapbook page. It was really grainy, especially on our faces. Wedding pictures are especially important to look fabulous, right? I reduced the noise, or the grainy look and got rid of some speckles, which are common problems in scanned photos. Noise can be a problem in digital photos, as well.

Scanned Color

Color photos present a different kind of problem than black and white ones. The colors can look dull and muted. Restoring them can really make the color pop. Besides fixing the color on this one, I also fixed a few scratches.

Scratches

One common problem with scanned photos is that the originals may be scratched, folded, torn, or have other physical damage. I love this photo of my parents, but the original was quite small, and had a big fold and some strange speckles all over. 

Old Black and White

I absolutely LOVE looking at old photos of my family. I scanned a bunch of them for a family history album I did recently. These old photos often lose a lot of detail as they age because of fading. This particular photo was a scan of a print, so there was even more detail lost.

Backdrop

I took this beautiful photo of my friend's baby. I used a homemade white backdrop, but you can see plenty of wrinkles on it. With his white onesie, just whitening the backdrop didn't look super. So I cleaned up the backdrop and added a beautiful, soft damask pattern to it. Love!

Multiple Textures

I added a few different textures to this photo: a couple of different grungy ones, and one that changes the color as well. I mounted a large print of this photo and it hangs above my piano. Love it!

Texture

Textures add some interest to photos. There are so many great textures available. This one adds a little bit of grunge and looks great with a vignette to darken the edges.

Sepia

If you want just a hint of color instead of straight black and white, sepia is a good way to go. I can do different hues, depending on the photo. Old photos look great with a slightly more green hue, but I love this dark, warm hue for newborns.