Enhancing old pictures or scans

Hi,



I am very new here and would like to ask for help.

I found some old pictures which I think are scans from family albums on an old harddisk of my father.

Is it possible to remove the noise and make the less blurry?

I add some examples here.



Thank You

Ann1993 said:

I am very new here and would like to ask for help.

I found some old pictures which I think are scans from family albums on an old harddisk of my father.

Is it possible to remove the noise and make the less blurry?

Click to expand...

Short answer

If you want to do this yourself and are willing to spend some money on software, then maybe something like the very new Topaz Photo AI (https://www.topazlabs.com/topaz-photo-ai) would be the best choice for you.

Fuller answer

It's almost always possible to improve photos, but the big questions are (1) how much improvement and (2) requiring how much (a) effort, (b) skill, (c) tools, and/or (d) costs.

The first two files you attached appear to indicate they are pictures taken with an iPhone, not scans. On top of that, they look both low-resolution and pixelated to me, like somebody crudely upsampled them to 2x in each dimension or something. That's not a great starting point. IMO if you are willing to spend some time and effort, and look for what might be found:

* if you can find the original film and have it scanned by a mid-level service, then doing that is likely to produce the best result, and the cost might not be high (depending on how much you have scanned).

* If you cannot find the original film, but can find the original prints, scanning them (yourself of through a mid-level service) may very well produce substantially better files than what's been uploaded.

* But if neither of the above applies, then we have to work with what you've got.

Modern software to remove noise is amazing. For this sort of task, maybe something like Topaz DeNoise AI would be best, but there are several competing products, and what was best last month may not be best next month.

Modern software to remove blur / enhance sharpness is more of a mixed bag. A software technique that works well on one photo may not work well on another, and a software technique that produces sharpening that one person likes may look bad to another person. Maybe you would like Topaz Sharpen AI or Nik Sharpener, but there are other tools too.

But rather than assemble a custom collection of separate tools to do these two tasks, the integrated Topaz Photo AI may be the best tool for someone who is very new to photo editing.

I just found those old family pics on an old harddisk of my dad.

Just depends how expensive this piece of software is and if a dummy user like me can handle it

Anna

Ann1993 said:

I just found those old family pics on an old harddisk of my dad.

Just depends how expensive this piece of software is and if a dummy user like me can handle it

Click to expand...

Right now the software costs $159 US, so in Austria with a VAT maybe €199?

Topaz suggests that the software is almost automatic--that its "AI" = artificial intelligence knows what to do. You can probably get 80% of maximum quality without doing more than letting the software process the photos automatically.

Also, there may be a free trial where you can test the software without spending any money, and then decide whether it is worth the cost to you.

Did you try with my examples?

Anna

Ann1993 said:

Did you try with my examples?

Click to expand...

I don't have the Topaz software. I don't think it will even run on my old home computer.

(Usually I use DxO PhotoLab, and sometimes Serif Affinity Photo after that, but those are much harder tools for a beginner. Also, I almost always have at least a print to scan, and often the original film.)

Hi Anna,

Absolutely possible to improve this, modern software is bordering on miraculous

For this one I used a combination of Topaz Photo AI and Photoshop:


Fix

Ran Topaz Photo AI, accepted most of the defaults, but also upsized by 2x at the same time.

Then loaded into Photoshop and created a duplicate layer, ran the Dust and Scratches filter on the background, and used a soft edged eraser on the dust spots.

Next used the CameraRAW filter to reduce Haze and deepen the shadows.

Selected Subject, and inverted the selection and then darkened the background slightly.

Selected her face manually using Lasso and then used Curves to lighten it slightly.

A final bit of touching up with the Clone Tool completed the job.

I hope you like it?

Ann1993 said:

Hi,

I am very new here and would like to ask for help.

I found some old pictures which I think are scans from family albums on an old harddisk of my father.

Is it possible to remove the noise and make the less blurry?

I add some examples here.

Thank You

Click to expand...

Hi!

Thanks. That looks fantastic!

Did you use this example because the other are too difficult to try?

Would an unexperienced user (like me) be able to do a similar job?

Anna

Ann1993 said:

Hi!

Thanks. That looks fantastic!

Did you use this example because the other are too difficult to try?

Would an unexperienced user (like me) be able to do a similar job?

Anna

Click to expand...

Thank you; glad you liked it!

The others are possible to do too, I just finished that one first. You'll be pleased to hear that I have another one in progress

Currently I don't know whether you can download a free trial of Photo AI? If you can, I suggest you download it and try for yourself? Here's a link to the Topaz website:

https://topazlabs.com/downloads/

With that image here's what comes out of Topaz without any additional work:


Topaz output, with some settings tweaks.

Thanks - very nice!

I am curious to see another one

Anna

This is done with ON1

--
Cheers
Cariboou!

Very nice!

The others are too bad?

How can I test this Software?

Thanks

Ann1993 said:

Hi,

I am very new here and would like to ask for help.

I found some old pictures which I think are scans from family albums on an old harddisk of my father.

Is it possible to remove the noise and make the less blurry?

I add some examples here.

Thank You

Click to expand...

Mostly with the various sliders in ACR, applied to duplicate layers using masks; enlarged in Topaz Gigapixel; Noise/Dust and Scratches; selective sharpening.







--
Cheers.
Gary
When wearing a bikini, women reveal 90% of their body... men are so polite they only look at the covered parts.

Hi Anna,

Here's my version of this one:


Fix

Again started with Topaz Photo AI, then imported into Photoshop

Manually cloned out the dust spots using Spot Healing Brush.

Ran the CameraRaw filter and adjusted various levels, and applied Dehaze.

Selective additional sharpening on the face using Sharpen AI.

Removed surplus texture using a frequency separation technique.

Manually tidied up a few edges using Clone Tool.

Slight local tweaks to brightness/contrast.

I hope you like it

I may or may not have a go at the third one. These aren't 30 second fixes.

Ann1993 said:

Hi,

I am very new here and would like to ask for help.

I found some old pictures which I think are scans from family albums on an old harddisk of my father.

Is it possible to remove the noise and make the less blurry?

I add some examples here.

Thank You

Click to expand...

Thanks a lot!

That is great!

So you think I should get this Topaz Software to try other ones?

Anna

Ann1993 said:

Thanks a lot!

That is great!

So you think I should get this Topaz Software to try other ones?

Anna

Click to expand...

Thank you Anna; glad you liked it

If you want to fix your own photos, Topaz Photo AI is currently the best option, in my opinion.

The biggest drawback is that needs a decent spec computer to perform well:

https://support.topazlabs.com/article/115-system-requirements-for-topaz-photo-ai

It is also a large download.

If you have a slow computer you may be better off looking at MyHeritage Photo Enhancer (now significantly lagging behind Photo AI in my view) - beware of the subscripton cost though. The Remini app/website is also worth a look:

https://app.remini.ai/

It goes without saying that the better the original images you feed in, the better your results are going to be.

Ann1993 said:

Thanks a lot!

That is great!

So you think I should get this Topaz Software to try other ones?

Anna

Click to expand...

Topaz offers free trials. I don't know what the limitations of the trial versions are, if any. I bought the DeNoise/Sharpen/Gigapixel bundle last year. I find them simple to use.

The main complaint that I have is that their software doesn't seem to open Canon CR3 RAW files with what looks like a proper exposure. I use DXO Photolab 5 for that.

(It's easy to spend a small fortune on software with capabilities that don't completely overlap. I justify it by using the software to process images from expensive hardware.)

Hi Anna,

Here's my take on the final one:


Fix

Again, started out in Topaz Photo AI.

Then loaded into Photoshop.

Created a new layer.

Ran Dust/Scratches on the background layer, then used a soft edged eraser to knock out the dust/scratches.

Camera Raw filter to tweak the colours a bit

Selective work to try and bring the yellow top back into range.

Some Clone Tool to fix some slightly odd edges.

I hope you like it!

Ann1993 said:

Hi,

Is it possible to remove the noise and make the less blurry?

I add some examples here.

Thank You

Click to expand...

Ann1993 said:

Click to expand...

Here is the first one I tried. Removed noise with Topaz DeNoise, and then Sharpened with Topaz Sharpen AI. Then ran the image through Photoshop's raw processing filter to make some minor changes, like reducing the highlights, and correcting the yellow color cast.







--
Major Jack Reacher
Dpreview Members are welcome to EDIT/RETOUCH any of my images which I post to this website without prior permission.

Hi!

looks great! Thanks.
I feel the procedure to achieve this is too complicated for me a unexperienced user.

Perhaps Topaz will be enough?

Anna