|
|
||
|
|
 |
Help! My Old Colour Photo has Turned Pink ? 5 Minute Digital Fix
Almost all of us will have seen this particular photographic problem, namely, your old colour photographs appear to have taken on an overall pink or blue tint. This is primarily due to the chemicals within the various layers of the photographic paper starting to breakdown, often due to age, and the way that the photographs have been stored. In many cases it is due to reactants in the environment (remember acid rain?) causing a chemical reaction which results in the fading of certain colour pigments in the photo. Pink and blue colour shifts are commonplace. Luckily, these colour shifts can be easily corrected, using your favourite image manipulation software, in such a way as to be able to produce an acceptable corrected image. In the example image on our web-site the "before" image of the house clearly shows a colour shift to pink. Before we start using any of the image manipulation software tools we first need to access the photograph in question and determine the steps we need to take. What do you know about the photograph in question? Well ... it's a house with a front lawn of grass, a few bushes and flowers, what appears to be a blue rubbish or compost bin, and some (right now) pink edged clouds. What else ... ? If you know the actual house, as I do (it is my sister's), I can tell you the window frames are painted white/cream and the front lawn is always in good condition, lush and a deep green. The bricks are a sandstone colour and because this house is in the North of England it is fair to say that the colour of the sky when the photo was taken would most probably have been a bit grey/white and overcast. The point of this exercise is to use "your mind's eye" to try establish what the original photograph would have looked like and the end result you want to match as closely as possible. Basic Correction Method The Basic Correction method described here can restore colour faded or tinted photos and eliminate almost all of a particular colour cast. The simplicity of the Basic correction method is that it only uses one command from Adobe Photoshop CS, namely the Levels command. The "After" image on our web-site does still have a slight pink edge to the clouds, but the final image is more than acceptable for printing. The source of the your problematic image may have come from a scanned negative, scanned print or digital camera image all converted to an image format (most probably .JPG pronounced "jaypeg") that can be opened in your image manipulation software. I will be using Adobe Photoshop CS, but almost all other image manipulation software packages have similar tools so the method described should be repeatable with your own software package. Step ? 1 Select the Levels command in Photoshop using Image->Adjustments->Levels. A pop-up window will appear showing what appears to be a "mountain range" which is correctly called a histogram. Below the histogram you will notice small black, grey and white arrow sliders. What does the Levels Histogram tell us about the photo? Well ... the black arrow to the left hand side is well away from the "mountain range" telling us that the photo contains no (or very little) pure blacks. Similarly, the white arrow on the far right tells us there is no (or very little) pure whites in the photo. We already know this because the white areas of the photo as we perceived the original to be (i.e. the clouds and window frames) have the pink cast to them. Also notice in the bottom right hand corner of the pop-up Levels window there are three "eye-dropper" buttons, one filled with black, one with grey and one with white. These can be used to "sample" your photo and pick out where it is perceived the original black, grey and white areas of the photo are. These eye-droppers are what we will use in the basic correction of the photo. Which one to use I hear you ask? Well it depends on the photo. I tend to favour using the grey eye-dropper first since I can usually evaluate a photo and find a mid grey part to sample from. If your photo has a definite area of pure black or pure white then try the corresponding eye-droppers. Remember one of the best tools to be using here will still be your eyes. In our example image on our web-site I am going to use the grey eye-dropper and sample the cloud just above and to the left of the house roof-line because I think in the original this would have been a mid grey in colour. Step ? 2 Click on the middle eye-dropper button and then moving the mouse cursor to the photo, left click on the bottom side of the cloud. What happened? The histogram shape changed and you will notice that most of the pink colour cast has disappeared. The clouds still have a tinge of pink to them, but on the whole the photo is starting to look like I think it should. Overall though, the photo now looks a little flat. Step ? 3 Let's have another look at the histogram. Notice the black and white arrows still tend to be at the far left and right of the "mountain range". Left Click and hold on the black arrow and drag towards the start of the "mountain range" and watch the photo. Repeat this for the white arrow on the right hand side. The resulting photo has now been given a bit of a boost in contrast and more closely resembles what I think the original photo would have looked like. In many cases, the technique of using just the Levels histogram and eye-droppers can produce an acceptable corrected image. There is still a slight amount of pink in the bottom of the clouds of our example image, but the aim of the exercise was for a basic correction method using just one tool from Photoshop CS. Less than five minutes of digital image manipulation to produce an acceptable corrected image. If you find the steps being taken are a little hard to understand in this text based article, you can click on the link at the end of this article to see the same method explained on our website with the aid of example graphical images. © Gary Wilkinson 2005 - All Rights Reserved You can see this correction method complete with example images at Correction of Colour Faded or Tinted Photos Feel free to re-print this article provided that all hyperlinks and author biography are retained as-is. Gary Wilkinson is a photographer, photographic restorer and the owner of a photographic retail business. He is also the publisher of the http://www.restoring-photos-made-easy.com website, where other methods of correcting common photographic restoration problems are discussed.
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Landscape Photography - Capture the Beauty That is All Around There are many different types of photography. You can take pictures of anything and there is someone out there somewhere who would like to see the pictures that you take. So, photography is a great field to get into. The Advantages of Underwater Camera Housing You will need an underwater camera housing to keep your valuable camera dry. This is a very important piece of equipment. How to Take Better Photos of Your Baby or Toddler Every Mom wants to take great photos of their babies and toddlers. We all want professional looking photos for our children without paying a fortune! This better baby photo article will help you take the best photos you can and you don't even have to own an expensive camera. Removing a Textured Pattern from a Scanned Photo ? 5 Minute Digital Fix One of the most common problems when dealing with scanned photographs as part of a digital restoration activity is that after scanning, the digital image appears to have a textured pattern to it. Birthday Party Photo Tips ? How to Make Yours Truly Stand Out How many of the birthday party pictures you've seen are kept just because they are of someone's birthday, not because it is inherently a terrific photograph? Color Management, the Digital Darkroom, and Adobe Photoshop Preface Digital Image Files ? Megapixels, Megabytes, or DPI? When I promised readers that I was going to do an article on this topic I was scared. For two reasons - firstly, it's a HUGE subject. I get lots of questions about it, and I see a fair bit of misunderstanding about it. Secondly, there are already a lot of good articles about it on the web, like this one on luminous-landscape.com. Pinhole Photography: Right Back to Basics Why Pinhole Photography? 10 Steps to Buying a Digital Camera You Must Know You are anxious to purchase your new digital camera! You want to get it in your hands quickly so you can begin to enjoy it. Are you going to go to the store right now and pick one out? Wrong! You must have some basic knowledge and know-how prior to entering into the world of salesmen and digital cameras! Here are the steps to buying the digital camera that is right for you. Digital Film Processing is Really the Only Option for Truly Quality Prints Digital photography has taken off like wildfire these days, primarily due to its ease and quality in its digital film processing. With a good digital camera, it's as though you're using the very best Kodak film for every single one of your digital photos. Moreover, digital film processing can be done from the comfort of your own home with the right digital film processing software or with digital photo developing online. Picture Framing for Photographers - Part 2 There are two sources for obtaining the moulding for making a frame. You can firstly start with a straight piece of timber, and using a home routing system make your own moulding shape with a rebate to take the art work. Alternatively you can pick from a large range of ready finished mouldings available from your local frame shop or hardware store. I recommend the latter. It's easier, the choice is much wider, and it's more cost effective. However, one word of warning. Always look for a moulding with a good straight back and not too flat on the surface. If the moulding has a bump or some raised section in the top surface it will cut and join easier than a flat moulding. Most mouldings are made from pine or obeche. These are soft grain timbers and cut and join well. Hard timbers like ramin are more difficult to work with. Digital Camera Interpolation Explained In a device such as a digital camera it is very important to understand the very basic aspects of the device so as to properly operate it and give it the due respect it deserves. Such a topic is interpolation! These are accessories that help the digital camera to perform the technologically advanced features that it is capable of. In extreme explanatory and simple terms it can be summed up as that interpolation refers to software programs that can effectively enlarge image resolution beyond the actual resolution by adding extra pixels using complex mathematic calculations. Now, this is a feature that can be absolutely useful in providing a good success to a user. A Guide to Underwater Cameras There are two types of underwater camera systems: an ""amphibious"" camera, which is a self-contained waterproof system, and an SLR land camera with waterproof housing. Amphibious systems are small, compact, and easy to travel with, while SLRs offer more advanced features, such as auto-focus, advanced exposure control, and through-the-lens viewing. Is Film Better than Digital for Weddings? As a professional wedding photographer I get this question asked more than anything else. Rarely will somebody ask me about my wedding photography education, awards, or professional memberships. I believe the root to this question lies on misinformation about the different qualities of film and digital. Magic and the Photograph It was widely reported in the press (15 September 1997) that a British tourist, who stole a lump of stone from the base of the Great Pyramid five years earlier, returned it to the Cairo Museum with a letter saying that 'it had brought him bad luck ever since'. The Museum authorities were not surprised; several such items had been returned by people who felt cursed {When the Luxor Casino was built in Las Vegas it moved on its foundation so the elevators had a lot of re-engineering to be done, while I lived in Las Vegas. The death toll during its construction was nine. Do you think a religious and spiritual force knows when it is being improperly sullied?} after stealing them. A good reason for caution is the largely bogus story of an Egyptian coffin lid - or fragment of a coffin lid. It was told to Arthur Weigall, author of 'Tutankhamen' (1923) by its one-time owner, Mr. Douglas Murray who purchased the coffin some time in the 1860s: 'no sooner had he done so than he lost his arm, owing to the explosion of his gun. The ship in which the coffin was sent home was wrecked, and so was the cab in which it was driven from the docks; the house in which it was deposited was burnt down; and the photographer who made a picture of it shot himself. A lady who had some connection with it suffered great family losses, and was wrecked at sea shortly afterwards...The list of accidents and misfortunes charged to the spirit which is connected with this coffin is now of enormous length. Understanding Digital Photography Most serious photographers and all professionals use a Single Lens Reflex camera (SLR), the definition of an SLR camera is that the image is captured exactly as you see it in the viewfinder. However there are now two types of SLR the single lend reflex film (SLRF) and the single lens digital (SLD). They are both single lens camera, but digital does not use film and the resulting image can be processed at home with the aid of a photographic editor such as the chemical component in a traditional camera is film. When film is exposed to a real image, it makes a chemical record of the pattern of light, coming through the lens. Film has a collection of light sensitive frames, suspended on a strip of plastic. Colour film has three different layers of light sensitive material, which respond to red, green and blue (known as the (RBG) values. When the film is developed, it is exposed to chemicals, which dye the separate layers of film, into a color negative. All modern film is made up of silver halide crystals. Digital SLR Camera versus a Compact Digital Camera Digital Single Lens Reflex (SLR) cameras are excellent cameras that produce clearer, sharper and more colourful images than most point and shoot digital cameras available. With prices falling rapidly, they are now more affordable then ever. With the price gap between an entry model digital SLR camera and the most expensive compact digital camera narrowing; the question is? do I spend the extra money and get a Digital SLR camera? or save a few hundred dollars and purchase the best digital compact camera. History of the Camera Early cameras of the 16th and 17th century were able to project images onto paper or glass but the study of capturing, processing and printing the images took many more years. Up until the 17th century, scientists believed that light was composed basically of the 'white' that is perceived by the human eye. It took the research done by famous physicist Isaac Newton to discover that light is actually composed of a spectrum of colors. While he made a big contribution to the study of optics (that is at the core of camera advances) with this discovery, Newton did not actually have anything to do with camera development per se. Digital Cameras Demystified Demystifying Digital Camera Jargon The Paradigm: Going Digital As you might imagine the paradigm shift from traditional film-based photography to digital is rapidly creating new opportunities to learn and grow. The photography industry is moving at an incessant pace, and digital cameras sales have surpassed their film-based cousin at an alarming rate each year. On January 16, 2004, Eastman Kodak announced it would end its sales of film cameras in the United States and on June 15, 2005, Kodak announced it will discontinue production of black-and-white photographic paper by the end of the year as it continues its transition to digital photography. Soon digital cameras will hit critical mass and film will only represent a minute segment of the industry.
|
|
|
|
|
