Subtitle: I’m Fixin’ to Fix That for You

This week’s photo shows that my tomboy cousins knew how to build a snowman, but our grandfather didn’t always empty his camera in a timely manner.

After his death, his old cameras just sat collecting dust. After my grandmother passed away (Thanksgiving Day a few years ago), all us kids had a chance to walk through the house marking items we’d like to keep. The selfish side of me was a little worried my dad would want the cameras, but it was unfounded. One of them, an old Argus rangefinder, still had film in it.

Film that was at least 20 years old.

I had it developed and found a few gems. Thus was born my first major photo retouching project.

(as usual, if you know you’re never going to use this tip, then you still may enjoy the pictures)

Before

After

He snapped this picture while standing on the porch. I don’t qualify that with a “back” or “front” because it was a matter of opinion. Each porch overlooked its own street, and technically the one the U.S. Postal Service listed in the house’s address probably ran past the front yard. Functionally, however, the other side was the front. Everybody from salesmen to missionaries (there’s a difference, I’m told) used it when they came to knock on the door, and we kids used it for coming and going.

Confusing matters even more was that the porch officially considered the back faced Front Street.

But back to the topic at hand: photo retouching. It’s more time-consuming than difficult, and sometimes more frustrating than rewarding. This wasn’t originally a black and white photo. It was more of a pink and red photo. Color film doesn’t sit as well as its older monochrome sibling.

Rather than correcting the color and ending up with something even Ted Turner would have thrown out, I converted it to grayscale and set to work. There are much more complicated ways to do this, like using adjustment layers and the like, but for this I’m happy landing on the moon rather than going for Mars.

Although I obviously made other adjustments, the most valuable tool in this endeavor is the clone tool. Some programs call it the rubber stamp, and in most software toolboxes it looks like one. There are fancier variations of this, including Photoshop’s renowned healing brush, but with a little experimentation, cloning does the trick.

Did I mention that you don’t have to spend a dime to get a great imaging program on your computer? A program called The Gimp (stands for GNU Image Manipulation Program) is at your service. Originally a Linux application, it’s still alive and well on that platform as well as MacOSX.

I didn’t save every iteration of this image, so I can’t show you the entire process. Converting to grayscale is very simple in most imaging software. In Gimp it’s under Image | Mode.

The clone tool does just what it says: it samples an area of the image and then clones that to wherever you click next. While holding either Alt or Ctrl (varies), select the area you want to clone (example: a section of a tree trunk that is intact). Then, let go the key and click the area you want to repair (example: a section of the same tree trunk where the film was damaged or light leaked in. More likely these days, a piece of dust was on your camera’s sensor.)

Keep “painting” until you’re finished — the sample area will follow along, mirroring your movements. When cloning a large area, I recommend going slowly around the edges first to give yourself a good outline. If you lift the mouse button and then click again, the program will start at the original sampling point. You can touch up edges later by decreasing the brush size and selecting sample points from areas adjacent to the repaired spot.

You can also clone from one image to another, which can be useful when the damage is severe.

Of course, the cloning tool isn’t limited to repairs. It can be fun, too.

Before

After

(This is cool because it also made an optical illusion. Is the top Ben bigger?)

Kind of like the Nintendo Wii controller, you can’t really appreciate how the cloning tool works until you try it.

Have fun!

Update: When editing images, do not work on the original. Most programs allow you to make a duplicate using the Image menu or something similar. Or, you can just make another copy of it on your hard drive and open that one for editing. Of course, always back up your images.

Speaking of folks who have found old film, developed it, and then put it online, here’s a guy who buys old cameras from estate sales, pawn shops, etc. and often finds film still inside. From simple family portraits to soldiers’ personal photo diaries, he has a little of everything.