# Restoring old faded photos



## CeesFoto

Hi,
Does anyone know what is the best way to restore scanned old faded photos with Lightroom. Just using the whitebalance is not enough.
The best results I can get so far, is by using the old Kodak ROC plugin in Photoshop by means of external editing.
Is there a plugin for Lightroom that does the same job ?

Thx in advance : Cees Flooren (The Netherlands)


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## erro

White balance, contrast, exposure, blacks, saturation... basically all the tools in LR can be used. It depends on the image, of course. Do you have a sample image to show your problem?


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## Kiwigeoff

No plugin that I've heard of Cees. Jib for PS at the moment I'd say.

Welcome to the forum, hope you stay and enjoy!!!


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## CeesFoto

User Erro asked for a sample: 
Sample : http://www.flooren.eu/downloads/faded.tif
The result from the OneClick plugin Kodak ROC can be found on http://www.flooren.eu/downloads/resultfromkodakroc.tif
I tried to get the same result by only using Lightroom, but I did not manage to get the same result as from the Kodak ROC plugin in Photoshop.

Suggestions are welcome.

Cees Flooren


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## Effeegee

Cees

A few moments in LR would let you create a preset for this type of shot which could be applied as auto develop on import.  The attached version of your faded shot used a few adjustments in the basic panel in the develop module.  What precisely is required is a product of the type of fading, the original materials and their particular aging.  It will not be a universal solution but at worst it will be a very good start for the majority.  On my monitor this edit is close to your photoshop example but who knows how differently colours are represented where you are?


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## DonRicklin

He's my rendition all in LR using HSL TAT in Hue and Saturation to color correct and some Recovery and WB in Basic. No need for PS!

Took me a minute or so.



Don


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## erro

Always difficult to say what is a "correct" correction of an old photo, but here is my quick attempt:





Click the image to see it larger, and to also see the history steps


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## CeesFoto

Effegee, DonRicklin and erro,
Thanks for all your quick and good suggestions. With the history steps from erro I managed to get satisfying results.
I noticed that the big trick can be done with the Shadow Hue , Shadow Saturation, Highlight Hue and Highlight Saturation.
All these are part of the Split Toning section, and I must admit that I never used these before.
Never too old to learn.

I will make a develop setting and see if it works on other scans.
The Kodak Restore Original Color does an excellent job with just one click. But the overhead of going in and out PS for each photo is annoying.

Regards Cees Flooren


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## erro

The problem with old faded photos is that they almost never have just one simple uniform color problem. Mostly there are multiple problems, where shadows and highlights are affected differently. I am in no way an expert, I simply play around with the tools.

My thinking with the sample photo was something like:
- take a white balance sample from the middle of the white (?) wall
- use blacks and exposure to make the histogram spread a bit wider (darker shadows and brighter highlights)
- overall color seemed a bit purple, so push the tint towards green
- increase contrast and clarity (local contrast) to reduce the gloomy faded look (add sime punch)
- remove purple cast from shadows
- re-adjust overall color with tint
- desaturate reds in general
- add some magenta to the highlights (had gone green due to previous adjustments)
- decrease overall brightness


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