Using a gradient to fix a sky

The lovely Becky posted this gorgeous photo in Ask Damien, because she was having trouble with the power lines in the background.

Needless to say, Becky's first thought was to clone them out. But if you've ever tried to clone something like this, you'll know that it's impossible, because there's nowhere to sample appropriate colour from. The sky above the lines is different (in both colour and tone) from the sky below, so there's no easy way to merge them.

And healing isn't an option either, because the lines go all the way across the photo, and the healing tools don't work at the edges of photos, nor where detail intersects with other detail (the tree, in this case).

Maybe Content Aware Fill would work for this, but I don't have it, so I can't try. In any case, there's a very simple solution for it, involving a gradient. Becky, I hope this works as well and easily for you as it did for me.

Reproducible size of old photos

When I'm restoring old photos for my customers, I'm frequently asked "Can it be enlarged?"

The answer is always "Yes".  All that's required is for me to scan it at sufficiently high resolution.  As long as I capture enough pixels, any photo can be enlarged to the side of a truck, if you wish.

(I will write about the technical aspects of "how many pixels is enough" in a future post.)

It needs to be clearly understood that nothing changes during enlargement.  The quality of the photo won't become worse, nor magically better.  It will be exactly the same photo, only bigger.

If it was a clear, well-focused photograph, it will be a clear, well-focused photograph at any size.  Conversely, if it was a bit blurry and out-of-focus, it will be equally blurry and out-of-focus at any size.  Not worse, not better, just larger.

Let's face it, not all of the old cameras had the amazing lenses and focusing capabilities of our modern devices (although some certainly did), so this is certainly something we need to consider.  I guess it's fairly simple to foretell how a photo will look when enlarged - just hold it at normal viewing distance, then bring it closer to your nose.  (I'm full of high-tech advice!  Ha ha!)

If you wish to enlarge your old photo, go right ahead.  Folk don't bring just any old photos to me - they bring photos that are rich with character and historical significance.  And that trumps technical imperfections every time.

That rich look

A while ago I was asked how to achieve "that rich dark look". I'd already mentioned it, in a roundabout way, in this post, but I think it's worth elaborating.

Obviously there are numerous ways to achieve any effect, and this is only one. I've taken all the following screenshots in Photoshop Elements 9, but the method is identical for all versions of Photoshop and Photoshop Elements.

I'll start with a standard "clean" photo, to which I've done a basic enhancement using a couple of Levels layers:

To commence the fun, I add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer:

And change its blend mode from "Normal" to "Multiply". This is the crux of the method.

Sometimes, you get lucky ...

I'm going to confess something ... I don't really know what all of Photoshop's layer blend modes do.  I mean, I have a vague idea about some of them, but I've never made any attempt to really learn them.

But that doesn't stop me from using them!  Not in the least.  More often than I care to admit, I find myself saying: "I bet there's a blend mode for this", and flicking through them optimistically, hoping to find one that does what I want.

This photo is a perfect case in point.  I haven't shown it all here, but it was a gorgeous shot of The Kiss ... marred by the second shooter standing behind them.  D'oh!  My client sent me this photo to ask me to "please clone out the second shooter".