arts n entertainment

Photographs are a good way of capturing those moments which will linger in one?s memories for a long time. Unfortunately, however, photographs are not able to maintain the same quality as they age. Since photographs are mere paper they are often affected by things such as moisture, dust and scratches and even light. The end result is you will end up having photos that are too light, have scratches and are no longer looking that good.

Well when your photos are looking too old and they no longer look that attractive what do you do? Do you throw them away or you just watch them get worse till they are no longer visible? Well worry not for with Adobe Elements you will be able to restore all your old photos so they look good again as if they were taken just a few hours ago.

Since photos are on paper and Adobe Elements is a computer program how then will you manage to use the program to restore and repair your old photos? Well the answer is you have to convert your photos to a digital format. You do this by scanning your photos such that each photo can be saved as an image on the computer. Once you have scanned the photos you are just one step to restoring and repairing them.

Once you have opened your photograph inside your photo editing program I recommend that you create a copy by clicking on the file menu and selecting save as to rename your photograph. I recommend this so that you have a backup image on the off chance that you make a mistake. Once you have done this vital step you can begin to edit your photo using a few of the tools available. The tools I will talk about are the ones in Adobe Elements.

Photo restoration doesn't require any specialized training or specific skills. All the tools are easy to use and you will quickly become adept at them. The most common tools used in this process are the smudge, blur and sharpen tool.

I am going to give you a breakdown of each of the tools and how you can use them to restore your photographs. The smudge tool is helpful when you want to eliminate any scratches that are on the original photo. You can also use the smudge tool to remove any object in the background you wish to eliminate as well as correct photos that were not properly focused.

The next tool you can use is the blur tool. The blur tool allows you to add tone to photos that have been lightened by the sun; in essence you are making them darker. Using the blur tool you are adding color to retrieve the brightness of the original photo.

The last most common tool you will definitely use when restoring photos is the sharpen tool. This tool is mainly used to fix parts of a photo that may appear to be blurred. When you scan old photos that are now very light in color you will find that some of the parts will appear a bit blurred and this is what the sharpen tool is designed to fix.

Remember there is no photo too old to be fixed by Adobe Elements.