My aunt let me scan this. This photo was a Polaroid photo, so a small size. When I scanned it, I removed the borders.
The dimensions are:
1645 x 1710
It was scanned as 600 DPI JPG.
Are there any mistakes I made? Could I have gotten more detail if I had scanned at 800 or 1200 DPI? Do you think the original print (I haven’t seen it in 8 years) was as soft as the scan, or is it that my scanner screwed it up?
Higher dpi will show more of the defects in the original Polaroid. You’re getting a few white spots already.
First backup your original image.
I’d suggest setting the Levels in Photoshop. Nothing extreme. Create a levels layer. Try 20 on the low end.
0.9 mid point. 245 on the high end.
That should give more contrast. Adjust the numbers as needed. Click the layer on/off to see the change. It’s the mid point that will help the most.
Open a hue/saturation layer. Try 10 on the saturation. Should strengthen the color. 15 might be better. Back off if the colors over saturate.
Flatten layers.
Then try Sharpen More. Or Unsharp Mask filter, if you’re familiar with it.
These are steps I normally follow with any image.
A dark image needs a mid point larger than 1. Like 1.1. light images need a mid point less than 1.
here’s my edit. the spots are from the scan. you can clean them up but it will be tedious.
my levels for the one with the building
8 .95 248
the one at the lake
29 1.2 255
i pushed the saturation to 20. colors were very weak
I edited the 2nd photo again.
the picture was so dirty. Sharpening it makes the dirt jump out.
its going to take a lot of work to touch that up.
I’d clean the picture and rescan.
I’m not a graphics artist. They could do a more precise job setting levels & clean up. The pros use Curves. I never had any success adjusting curves.
I have used photoshop since 1998 and scanned over 1000 slides for my dad.
I did a similar cleanup on each image. That was a six month project. Working a few hours at night.
Anyway, the edited versions have much deeper color & contrast than the raw originals. The photo by the building looks really good.
I hope these edited images are useful.
Editing will vary according to taste. I like deep colors and realistic flesh tones.
To get the best result you should optimize the settings on the input scan. When the scanning software gives you a preview you can adjust the curves (or just levels or brightness and contrast) so that the optimal scan is made and you can later make the best adjustments with a scan containing the most data later in a program like Photoshop.
No access to the original picture anymore. The photo belonged to my aunt and we haven’t talked in almost a decade.
The unasked question is what was the purpose of scanning the photos? To blow up to 11x14 or use as a magazine cover? Probably not, especially since you’re starting with a roughly 4x4" original. If you just want to have pictures of him, then you did OK. Most Polaroid photos have a characteristic contrast and color balance that you either can try to outsmart, or simply get an accurate capture of those characteristics.
Oddly enough, there’s no shortage of “canned” Photoshop filters and plugins to give modern images that funky Polaroid look. Not sure if any of them can be inverted to try to impart a modern look to a decades-old photo.