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Many of us rewind our old memories, especially those related to people of our previous generations, through hard copies of photos as these were the most popular format of capturing the sweet moments at that time. These photos were used to be kept safely in albums or kept like that in an envelope. For many functions like marriages, ceremonies, etc., photos were taken and kept in albums. We all want to look at these pictures always, but one cannot deny the fact that the problem of faded photos is what most of us are facing today. Older photos, even these stored in albums are not protected and gets faded with time. But these faded photos can be restored. Yes, there are possibilities and this blog explains those for you.
Why do photos get faded?
Do you want to know what the reasons behind the faded photos are? Here are these: the reaction of sunlight with dyes/color within the photo print, exposures to humidity etc. Often faded photos are identified with colors blown away from print, grey color, appearance of yellow/brown blotches, complete picture disappearance, etc.
How to protect photos from fading?
The preventive measures are mentioned to protect your old images for future. Some preventive measures to protect your old photos from being faded away are:
- Store them away from sunlight, moisture, smoke, fireworks, and air exposure
- Protect old photos forever by digitally scanning it and saving to your system before any damage
- Store photos in high quality albums at a dark and moisture free place
- Have backup of precious old images to avoid risks of damage, fading or other distortions
Currently, we have to deal with the already faded photos and fix them by adopting some feasible solutions.
Multiple ways to fix faded photos
Let us know how you can still fix your old faded photos and get them back to beauty. We cannot deal with faded photos manually but need some tools to fix the colors, and other settings like pigments, brightness, alignments, contrasts, etc.
Some powerful image editing tools like Adobe Photoshop, Paintshop, GIMP, etc. can be your aids here to fix faded photos and develop a clean visible digital photo which you can print anytime. Also, you can repair or fix grainy photos in different ways. Now, we will see how to repair and restore damaged and lost photos in Photoshop.
To use any of the image editing tools for fixing the old faded images, it is required to have a digital scan of that old image and we recommend you to choose a high quality digital camera, mobile or scanner with high resolution to scan the image avoiding any kind of issues. Take good scans of your old faded photos and store them on your system for further fixing up. Now, check out the further solutions to fix up the faded images.
Using Adobe Photoshop to fix faded images
Adobe Photoshop is a standard image editing tool supported by both Windows and Mac Operating Systems. It can help to modify image settings, clear out the image zones and also in fixing old faded images.
The tools works slightly different with old black/white images and colored images. Let us know the needed steps for fixing both types of images.
Fixing faded black & white images
Black & white images generally fade with black color wiped out and the white color changed to grey color. However, we can try using the powerful image editor tool (Adobe Photoshop) to fix this issue.
- Install Adobe Photoshop on your system. Open your black & white faded image with Photoshop.
- Navigate to Layer>>New Adjustment Layer>>Curves.
- From the left panel, click on the black-point eye dropper and use it on the places on image which you think should be of black color (by clicking it on that area). It would fix the faded black color on the image.
- Next from the same Properties box, select the white-point eye dropper and use it similar way on the areas which you think should be of white color.
- To soften this effect, you can go to Layers>>select the curve and set its opacity level to about 90 percent from the given option.
- To make it perfect, go to the Layer>>New Adjustment Layer>>Hue/Saturation location. Slide the saturation level to 0 under saturation section.
- Now, the image will look much better than before.
Fixing faded colored images
The faded colored images can also be corrected like the above method using black-point eye and white-point eye. But remember here, you should border the main figure within the photo. Then from Layer>>New Adjustment>>Hue/Saturation, check out the correct coloring in image by sliding the slider under Hue option until you get the correct coloring in that image. Usually, you can find the correct value between -45 to +45.
So, we have experienced the Adobe Photoshop way to fix the faded images.
The Paintshop Pro tool also provides a direct facility Fade Correction. It can restore the colors to the faded images at once on a single click. Let us know where to find this tool and use it in Paintshop Pro.
- Launch your installed Paintshop Pro version on your system and then open your faded image via it.
- Move to Adjust menu and click on it. Then navigate to Color>>Fade Correction.
- The automatic correction will happen by default although you can modify the correction settings as per your requirement.
- Hence, the image is finally restored to its original color.
So, these two authentic and popular tools are always available for you online which you can use anytime to fix your faded images with the above explained processes. There are other helpful tools in the market like Pixlr, GIMP, etc. to fix other issues of images like blurriness, discoloration, distortion, breakage, etc.
What to do to fix corrupt/inaccessible photos?
Some photos are not accessible due to corruption or other issues like damaged structure, broken image file extensions, etc. And the best way to fix this issue is repairing them instantly using the Kernel Photo Repair software. The professional software is programmed with advanced algorithms and repairs all sort of inaccessible, corrupt, lost photos in a minute. It supports all image file formats and images from almost all devices including high quality professional cameras. You can get the trial of this tool for free from the website.
Summing up
The best ways to fix the old faded photos are explained in this blog. A perfect photo repair tool is also introduced to all users for fixing any sort of corruptions in photos.