Tutorial 5: Retouching an Old Photograph

The first photo is the original photo that we going to retouch it while the second photo is the photo that is after retouched.

Step 1: Double click on the background layer in the Layer Panel to change the Background layer into Layer 0. To crop the picture of the girl, click on the Rectangular Marquee Tool, click and drag to select only the picture of the girl. Right click and select "Select Inverse", then press Delete key to eliminate the photo frame.

Step 2: Resize the picture to be bigger by pressing Ctrl+T key. Click and drag the lower corner of the picture while pressing Shift+Alt key. After resizing the picture, go to Image>Canvas Size and set the Width of the canvas size to slightly bigger (around 50cm).

Step 3: Now I am trying to make the blurry effect of the background. In order to create the effect, first we need to right click at the layer in Layers Panel and choose Duplicate Layers to create a new layer that is exactly the same as the Layer 0. Now you can rename the Layer 0 to be "Blurry Background" and the new upper layer to be "Clear Woman Image".

Step 4: Now click at the "eye" beside the Blurry Background Layer that indicates layer visibility to turn the layer into invisible so that you can only see the Clear Woman Image layer. Now in the Clear Woman Image layer choose the Polygonal Lasso Tool, set the Feather to around 5px. Crop the image of the woman, right click on the image, select "Select Inverse", then press Delete key to delete the background. ( This step is to make sure that the image of the woman will not affected by the Radial Blur effect that we will apply to the background later on. )

Step 5: Now turn back on the visibility of the Blurry Background layer and click on that layer so that we can work on that layer now. Go to Filter>Blur>Radial Blur. Set the Blur Method as Spin and the Amount at around 12, then press OK. Now you will get the blurry effect of background while not affected the woman image.

Step 6: Now to get rid of the scramble line on the picture, first create a new layer. Then by using Healing Brush Tool and Clone Stamp Tool ( select option Sample: All Layers ) , press Alt key to select the sampling and then click on the scramble line that you wish to cover it. The reason that I create new layer instead of working on the original picture is to prevent that if I make any mistake, it will be more easier for me to make any correction.

Step 7: Now I wish to make the picture into gray scale while not loosing any of the color information of the original picture. By doing so, create a whole new layer name "Gray Scale". Select the layer option as Color. Click on the Paint Bucket Tool, select the foreground color as Black color, and then click on the picture.

Step 8: Create a new layer name "Hat and Coat Color". Select the layer option as Color once again. Select Brush Tool, and choose a Foreground color to paint on the hat and coat of the woman. No need to worry too much about choosing what color to paint it as you can change the color anytime after painting it by going to Image>Adjustment>Hue/Saturation. This will not create a Adjustment Layer but just to adjust the image in the current layer instead of all layers.

Step 9: Use the same method as Step 8 to color the flower on the hat in a new layer so that you can play with the Hue/Saturation adjustment while not affecting the hat and coat colors.

Step 10: Now I use 3 type of Adjustment Layer to adjust my picture. The 3 adjustment layer that I used was Brightness/Contrast, Curves Preset, and Channel Mixer.

Step 11: To create a blue color shadow effect to the picture, create a new layer named "Blue Effect", and set the layer options to Overlay. Select the foreground color as blue(#173865) color and use the Paint Bucket Tool to fill the layer with the blue color. Set the layer opacity at around 50%.

Step 12: Now basically the image is done. I just add in some wording such as my name and student ID by using Rosewood Std font and some golden orange color to make the classic look for the picture. Beside the picture I add some description of what tools that I used to complete this tutorial.

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