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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Free Photo Restoration & Date Old Photographs => Photograph Resources, Tips, Tutorials => Topic started by: petesdragon on Saturday 12 September 20 08:41 BST (UK)
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Hi there I have a number of old pictures of relatives. What is best Programme to help me restore or improve please... I am not a computer whizz so simple is middle name!
Also is there a member support to assist in a trial to improve see attachment... Thanks
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Hi there I have a number of old pictures of relatives. What is best Programme to help me restore or improve please... I am not a computer whizz so simple is middle name!
Also is there a member support to assist in a trial to improve see attachment... Thanks
Opinions will differ, but Adobe Photoshop Elements is very good. A similar free downloadable programme is Gimp, but it takes a lot of getting used to - I don't find it easy at all. Alternatively, you could post them on the Photo Restoration board here, and I guarantee you'll get lots of good restores to choose from.
Mike
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Good advice from Mike...I don't use Gimp so can't comment but I do agree that Adobe Photoshop Elements photo editing software is a good option, I use Elements V. 14 but you can buy earlier versions quite cheaply online. Download the Gimp version first to see how you get on. There are Youtube tutorials online to help.
https://www.gimp.org/
Good luck!
Carol
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Hi, Peter.
I have to agree with Mike and Carol. Photoshop Elements is a very good combination of comprehensiveness, cost and usability. GIMP is free and it's capability is probably somewhere between Elements and the full-blown Photoshop (very expensive) but GIMP is not as easy to learn and use.
I've sampled a couple of the others but - for me anyway - either they don't do what Elements can do or they're harder to learn. Even Elements has a learning curve, but it's one of the easier ones. For the cost of a tank or so of fuel it can give years of fun.
Cheers,
Peter
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Some years ago I bought Photoshop Elements 12 and ran it on my old computer, but I was rather unhappy at the way it seemed to be sucking you into the Adobe universe. I can't remember all the details now, but it might have been things like continually nagging you to set up an account with them and use their cloud services, neither of which is of interest to me. There might have been one or two unnecessary extra programs too, but I can't check that now.
Consequently I haven't installed it on my current PC, but do you know if there's a way to avoid all that kind of thing - basically to install it, use it when required, end of?
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getpaint.net and paint.net and GIMP are FREE and have no ads or prompts to buy anything ... you may donate if you wish, but no pressure. Much of the EXTRAS such as Plug-ins to extend the capabilities are developed by enthusiasts loosely connected to the Forums much like Rootschatters.
Some of the more prolific producers of plug-ins like Boltbait solicit donations but only if you have downloaded and tried their plugins and are using them.
paint.net is simpler than GIMP, and it's just like an improved version of Microsoft Paint which they shipped with every version of Windows. However, there is a steeper learning curve with GIMP but the Help is all there, for free. I'm practising more with GIMP and am finding the extra power of their Clone Stamp tool is excellent for restoring old and damaged photos. I export the repaired photo as a .png file and use paint.net to colourise them using a Single Layer. GIMP may well have a shortcut I haven't yet discovered.
They are free to download and install without unwanted options, and easy to Uninstall.
Cheers, Ian
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Some years ago I bought Photoshop Elements 12 and ran it on my old computer, but I was rather unhappy at the way it seemed to be sucking you into the Adobe universe. I can't remember all the details now, but it might have been things like continually nagging you to set up an account with them and use their cloud services, neither of which is of interest to me. There might have been one or two unnecessary extra programs too, but I can't check that now.
Consequently I haven't installed it on my current PC, but do you know if there's a way to avoid all that kind of thing - basically to install it, use it when required, end of?
I think when you install it Arthur that there is a question about whether you want to receive info on related products...or something like that, and you have to decline. I have used a few Elements versions over the years but never had any advertising.
You can always uninstall if you still get annoying Ads.
Carol
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Thanks - I don't think I would have explicitly agreed to advertising-type things, but I now wonder if as a newcomer I might have gone for a default 'typical installation' setting which included them, whereas I would probably have preferred an 'expert' option which lets you pick and choose - if it was offered.
The things I found particularly unnecessary were anything to do with Adobe cloud services, and the Organizer - do you know if there's any way to avoid these?
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Without a doubt the best Photo Editing software is Adobe Photoshop.
It is Photoshop that is used throughout the Pro Industry as the de facto go to default software.
The caveat is that it costs, Adobe do a monthly subscription of Photoshop and Lightroom for about £10.
As posted Gimp is also good and best of all it is free.
There are also some pretty good apps for an iPad if you have one, cone back if you want more infirmation on those to check out.
Whatever you decide upon expect a steep learning curve the angle of the curve is directly related to the complexity of the chosen software.
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Thanks - I don't think I would have explicitly agreed to advertising-type things, but I now wonder if as a newcomer I might have gone for a default 'typical installation' setting which included them, whereas I would probably have preferred an 'expert' option which lets you pick and choose - if it was offered.
The things I found particularly unnecessary were anything to do with Adobe cloud services, and the Organizer - do you know if there's any way to avoid these?
Unless you use it...don't open the organiser just the Editor Arthur.
Carol
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The things I found particularly unnecessary were anything to do with Adobe cloud services, and the Organizer - do you know if there's any way to avoid these?
Unless you use it...don't open the organiser just the Editor Arthur.
Carol
That would be an option. From looking around online I gather that it can't be removed - but even if you don't use it, it's still going to be taking up disk space (EDIT: and possibly running in the background?).
I understand what Biggles50 says about Photoshop being the industry standard program, but that doesn't mean it's the best option for us non-professionals. Apart from the hated Organizer and Creative Cloud that it put on my computer, the only thing I can think of that it offers which I can't get in IrfanView or FastStone (both free, and much easier to use) is support for layers - and in the time I was using Photoshop Elements I never managed to get to grips with them.
While exploring earlier today, however, I came across another free program which does support layers - PhotoPad from NCH Software. I found some quite good reviews, so I thought I'd have a look. It's normally paid-for, but there's a separate link on the site to download a free version for personal use. It also seems to be available in the Microsoft Store.
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NCH Software will invade your computer and bombard you to buy its other apps and services. It appears to be a friendly Australian company with lots of free offers, but if you Uninstall it you will need extra vigilance to remove loads of extras you didn't expect to find.
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I've found other mentions of this kind of thing with regard to NCH, but I don't know how up to date they are. This is what their website has to say:
https://www.nch.com.au/software/safety-guarantee.html
One of the sites I use quite a lot when looking for software is Gizmo's Freeware, and they usually flag up unwanted programs etc, but in this case they don't seem to (so long as you use the link for the free version). This is their review of PhotoPad:
https://www.techsupportalert.com/content/photopad-photo-editor.htm
I haven't got round to installing it yet, so might hold off for a bit. Further comments welcome.
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Just downloading GIMP to try..I have one photograph of my Parents whom died 50 years ago, so wish me luck
Peter
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Another one that I have on my Laptop and we use in our Photography Group is Pixbuilder.
It is free but I downloaded it from WNSoft and did not have any spurious add on, but like most free software do read the splash screens carefully to see if you are installing unwated add ons.
Pixbuilder is simpler than Gimp and has the tools you need.
I have on my Laptop:-
Photoshop
Lightroom
Gimp
Irfanview
Pixbuilder
With the last three all being free.
Suggest that you download each of the free ones and have a play with them.
If you get stuck you should easily find online video tutorials
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My Daughter is an amateur photographer and is delighted with "Lightroom" and has shared info about what it is useful for. I believe she pays a monthly sub for this.
Carol
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Another one that I have on my Laptop and we use in our Photography Group is Pixbuilder.
It is free but I downloaded it from WNSoft and did not have any spurious add on, but like most free software do read the splash screens carefully to see if you are installing unwated add ons.
I always try to find out a bit about software publishers before I use their products. The WNSoft website doesn't give a contact address, or even say what country they are in - nor are there any clues in the privacy policy, or any obvious T&Cs which state which country's laws apply. A WHOIS check indicates that the wnsoft.com domain was registered by someone in Russia.
It might be OK, but I'm afraid all of this makes me rather cautious.
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Another one that I have on my Laptop and we use in our Photography Group is Pixbuilder.
It is free but I downloaded it from WNSoft and did not have any spurious add on, but like most free software do read the splash screens carefully to see if you are installing unwated add ons.
I always try to find out a bit about software publishers before I use their products. The WNSoft website doesn't give a contact address, or even say what country they are in - nor are there any clues in the privacy policy, or any obvious T&Cs which state which country's laws apply. A WHOIS check indicates that the wnsoft.com domain was registered by someone in Russia.
It might be OK, but I'm afraid all of this makes me rather cautious.
It is wise to be careful yet I am only one of about ten of us in our Photography Group who have downloaded the software and have used it without issue.
A good Anti Viral software check and CCleaner will remove or flag up any dubious files/apps
Wnsoft are part of the web.com Group whoever they might happen to be.
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I decided to give PhotoPad a miss. On looking at their support forums I found some complaints that after a period of time (a) some features are removed and replaced with adverts for the paid version; (b) a watermark is placed on edited photos. It may be that these people had been on a free trial of the full product rather than the explicitly free one, but I decided I could do without the possible hassle.
Instead I decided to have another look at Paint.net, which I first tried some years ago. I thought maybe it was time to have another go at layers (offered by both this and PhotoPad, but not the free programs I've been using recently), but something else which I like to use from time to time is a Transform (or de-skewing) tool. PhotoPad doesn't have this, but it's available as a plug-in for Paint.net. It's early days and I'm still getting used to the interface, but it seems it will do anything that I'm likely to want of it, either as-is or with one of the hundreds of plug-ins.
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Nice one Arthur. keep us posted on your progress :D
Carol
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Wnsoft are part of the web.com Group whoever they might happen to be.
Can you provide a source for that? As far as I can see, web.com is simply a web hosting and design company and domain registrar.
The domains wnsoft.com and the associated forum pteavstudio.com are registered through Gandi, a French company, but as I said before, the registrant (ie the person who owns the domains) is in Russia:
https://www.whois.com/whois/wnsoft.com
https://www.whois.com/whois/pteavstudio.com
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Wnsoft are part of the web.com Group whoever they might happen to be.
Can you provide a source for that? As far as I can see, web.com is simply a web hosting and design company and domain registrar.
The domains wnsoft.com and the associated forum pteavstudio.com are registered through Gandi, a French company, but as I said before, the registrant (ie the person who owns the domains) is in Russia:
https://www.whois.com/whois/wnsoft.com
https://www.whois.com/whois/pteavstudio.com
That is what I found but as I have said I find the software to be pretty good and for me it has not resulted in any problems with my Laptop and virus software does not show that there is any issue with wnsoft.
If you are concerned about introducing issues into your computer then my advice would be to avoid all free software and subscribe to Adobe’s Photography Plan to get Photoshop, and Lightroom which are the industry standards.
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If you are concerned about introducing issues into your computer then my advice would be to avoid all free software and subscribe to Adobe’s Photography Plan to get Photoshop, and Lightroom which are the industry standards.
You are joking, I take it. I've already said enough about my level of expertise for you to know that I'm not a professional and have no need for "industry standards" software. To be more specific:
(a) I neither want nor need to use a cloud-based product
(b) Last time I used Photoshop Express it installed an image organiser program which I neither wanted nor needed, giving me no choice in the matter, and it kept nagging me to subscribe to a cloud product - if that's not an "issue on my computer" I don't know what is
(c) Current starting price for Photography Plan is £9.98 a month
I simply don't do enough photo editing to justify that kind of product or that level of ongoing expenditure, and if a free product or reasonably-priced purchase meets my needs I will use it. However, I do like to know the origin of my software: some developers are perfectly open about this, and others less so. The less they reveal the more cautious I become; it's sometimes said that if you get something for nothing, you become the product, so I always like to know who I'm giving myself to. With Pixbuilder/WNSoft that has so far not been possible.
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Might I suggest another option, Affinity Photo (https://affinity.serif.com/en-gb/photo/), from Serif. It's relatively inexpensive at about £50 and Serif regularly run sales with big discounts. Upgrades are free and they have an active support forum (https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php) (mostly users helping other users) and a number of video tutorials on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQZN-kIrZUQyoTnexM3jJAw) and Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/affinitybyserif).
There are quite a few videos on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=affinity%20photo%20restoration), by 3rd parties, on photo restoration using Affinity Photo.
As a long time user of Paint.NET I found it wasn't so simple when dealing with photo restorations, particularly scratches and creases, which I think it probably due to its lack of a healing tool/brush (or maybe it was just my incompetence). Paint.NET has a clone stamp but I don't find it as easy or quick to use. A lot of commercial software has a healing tool/brush (and similar tools) but quite often free software doesn't (Gimp being one of the exceptions).
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If you are concerned about introducing issues into your computer then my advice would be to avoid all free software and subscribe to Adobe’s Photography Plan to get Photoshop, and Lightroom which are the industry standards.
You are joking, I take it. I've already said enough about my level of expertise for you to know that I'm not a professional and have no need for "industry standards" software. To be more specific:
(a) I neither want nor need to use a cloud-based product
(b) Last time I used Photoshop Express it installed an image organiser program which I neither wanted nor needed, giving me no choice in the matter, and it kept nagging me to subscribe to a cloud product - if that's not an "issue on my computer" I don't know what is
(c) Current starting price for Photography Plan is £9.98 a month
I simply don't do enough photo editing to justify that kind of product or that level of ongoing expenditure, and if a free product or reasonably-priced purchase meets my needs I will use it. However, I do like to know the origin of my software: some developers are perfectly open about this, and others less so. The less they reveal the more cautious I become; it's sometimes said that if you get something for nothing, you become the product, so I always like to know who I'm giving myself to. With Pixbuilder/WNSoft that has so far not been possible.
The Adobe plan is not necessarily Cloud Based, it is part of what is called Creative Cloud.
If you want the best then this is it.
BTW, all my files reside on my Computer and not on the server owned by Adobe.
You have been given great advice from all here and what you do is up to you.
My advice ceases
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The Adobe plan is not necessarily Cloud Based, it is part of what is called Creative Cloud.
Silly me, thinking that something with Cloud in its name is primarily a cloud-based product. I can't think how I made that mistake.
But that's not my main objection to it. Having already paid upfront for what I accept might be a good standalone desktop program (Photoshop Elements - you'll recall that I do own a copy and used it on a previous PC), I resent the continual assumption that I might want to start paying £10 a month for a subscription-based service which offers little or nothing extra that I actually want.
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Hi there I have a number of old pictures of relatives. What is best Programme to help me restore or improve please... I am not a computer whizz so simple is middle name!
Also is there a member support to assist in a trial to improve see attachment... Thanks
Opinions will differ, but Adobe Photoshop Elements is very good. A similar free downloadable programme is Gimp, but it takes a lot of getting used to - I don't find it easy at all. Alternatively, you could post them on the Photo Restoration board here, and I guarantee you'll get lots of good restores to choose from.
Mike
Our team's all-time-favorite photo post processing tool is Photoshop. As Mike suggested that the choice of software differ from person to person, so you should select the software based on your convenience.
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I don't know what operating system you use etc, but I use an old (CD loaded) version of Photoshop it has stood the test of time well.
I dislike many/most online and download programs as the manufacturers seem to still have some control over them these days (I must be getting paranoid in my old age).
Cheers
Guy