Our family has been researching our family history for a while. This past week...we hired a professional genealogists to help in the research.

We met up with him today. He traced our family history back 15 generations to Shelbonre, England.
Starting from Me(2007)...and ending with Thomas Boulding (1523). Its amazing how much history and family they have found.

I've been in contact with a very distant member of our family who has a ton of old photos from the mid-to-late 1800's all the way up to the 1970's. We are currently archiving all these photos.
My next step is to do some photo restoration work on all of the photos.

Can anyone recommend some good photoshop restoration books?

-db

my first thought was the Mormons ......they're real heavy into geneology, so that might be a place to look if they take photo restoration as serious as they do geneology

The family history part is done. Now its about restoring old photographs using photoshop.
Im looking to buy a few books on photo restoration & retouching and spending the next few months bringing them back to life.

Hi Db,
Katrin Eismann has a book titled: Photoshop Restoration and Retouching.
I think that it is now in its third edition. It helped me to understand
how to repair damaged images using a number of different photoshop
techniques. The book, however, is not cheap. Amazon now sells the
third edition for $32.99. Here is a website that might be helpful.

http://www.photoshopdiva.com/books.html

Patre(Pat)

I've done that... didn't get a book or anything. Just a lot of scanning in and retouching, colors, levels, grains. I'll always duplicate the original layer so it's always there. It just takes time and practice, but I have to fix so many things at work maybe it's just easier for me to do that.

We had sooo many old pic at my mom's house, that I filmed gobs - even digitally filmed all the old movies and slides too as they were worse off than all the ancient photos and I knew none of us could afford getting all that transferred to digital.

I'm sure you can look for books online and then save your money by going to the library, or if you're in the states, try Half Price Books. They're online as well as stores. And most book stores can special order anything you can't find.

oh, one other thing I just thought of - I'd bet your local community college has classes on that since it is such a popular thing these days - or even adult learning classes, online classes, and depending on your age, perhaps the senior center - they do computer training, too.

Hey db, Claudiolky is the guy to talk to
http://photoshopcontest.com/view-entry/109130/votes.html
http://claudio.lozinsky.googlepages.com/home

for basic tips you could always get Photo Retouching and Restoration for Dummies

I think it is about $20

I love working with old photos in horrible condition. I love the challenge of recreating

I agree with Patre, this book by Katrin Eismann is the best in the photo restoration market.

Yep we're definitely big on genealogy. Photo restoration is not high on the list though.

Dave you should also post the question in the message boards at OperationPhotoRescue.org. Photo restores are what that site is all about. Someone there may have a good recommendation?

I will be getting that book for sure!

I always try our library first. They are free.

I check out as many books as they have on whatever topic, and then decide which one I like best.

THEN I buy if I need to. With a renewal, you can keep a book for over a month here, usually for a tutorial type book, you've mastered the skill and don't NEED the book anymore.

I found a good website called http://www.retouchpro.com. Its a photo retouching and restoration site.
I will probably be hanging out here for a while as i start working on my family photo restoration project.

-db

"Knowing one's historical family tree can be very interesting. Researching, reading, and finding old photos allows us to understand just how our families struggled in the early days here in America."

I totally agree with Nancy on this (and pretty much anything else that comes from her sweet sweeet sweeeeeet mouth).

Many GOOD "how to" books cost some serious coin, but your local library (or maybe the library in the town beside you) will most likely have something on the topic you want.

That way you can have 2~4 weeks of usage, and if you feel you want the book as a reference (always a good idea) you can go buy it with confidence from your local small non-WalMart book store.

Oh - and PRAcTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE - retouching is an art and you might not get it perfect the first time you get at it.