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Can you repair a blurred photo?

This is a question I often get asked and it is also a photo restorers worst nightmare.

In short the answer is maybe, because of this we always advise customers to send us the photo rather than explain as we will be able to tell almost immediately upon glancing at the photo.

Mild blurring can sometimes be remedied with photo restoration / image enhancement techniques and clarity software but there is only so much that we can do.

Heavy blurring (normally occurs with camera movement as the shutter closes) regrettably cannot be fixed, we may be able to make some improvement but you would never be able to restore or clarify completely.

Unfortunately the general public are miss led by films and TV programs that show a  blurry image of someone’s face suddenly becoming   crystal clear on a  monitor or screen,  If only that were true but the fact is that you can only enhance or clarify what is there.

Feedback Pros and Cons

It is always nice to read feedback on websites this gives the customer an idea of the service you are going to get before you start using it.

The problem with feedback is that the customer is not always sure if the feedback is genuine or whether the owner just entered the comments themselves with made up names etc.

For this reason we decided to add the actual examples of the photo restoration and photo repairs carried out, by placing the before and after images alongside the clients comments. Obviously the clients full permission was granted prior to any submission.

Some may argue that this could still be made up or bogus, but we feel that in this way it adds more strength to the feedback, also we would have to be pretty foolish to place images with feedback if they were not legitimate incase the photos were recognized, then of course we could be sued.

 We are not suggesting that feedback on other sites is bogus, this is just our way of demonstrating the service that we provide by showing examples visually from actual customers. We feel it also adds strength and allows the customer to send the link to friends and family, which sometimes results in more custom and site popularity.

Why not visit our site and the feedback sections where you will see for yourself.

Why We Don’t Use Post

So you’ve decided to have a damaged photo repaired.  Or perhaps you have an idea for a collage or some other creative treatment for your photos.  Now what do you do?  Some photo repair and digital image enhancement services expect you to pack up your photos and send them through the post.  In reality, that is not a good idea.

Doctor Photo is a photo restoration service that does not even accept photos that are sent through the mail.  There are a number of reasons for this, but it boils down to providing faster, more secure service to you. 

Faster Service 

How long does it take for a package that you send to arrive at its destination?  If you are willing to pay extra, you could get your package delivered the next day.  Well, that’s a day too long.  By sending you photo in by email you can usually have the restoration completed and back in your possession the very same day. 

All you have to do is scan the original photo into the computer, and then send the digital image as an email attachment.  It arrives at its destination in seconds.  If you do not have the ability to scan photos, you could ask a friend, or go to your local photo shop or office supply store.  Your local library may also have the ability to scan photos. 

Secure Service 

Another advantage of sending a digital copy is that there is no risk of further damage to your original photo.  It does happen that packages that are sent through the post become damaged or even lost.  When you send the image through email the original photo never leaves your possession. 

If there is a mistake made with the photo repairs, or if the final result is not what you wanted, it can be changed digitally.  There will not be any alterations to your original photo.  If for some reason you are not completely satisfied with the results, you have not lost anything. 

No financial commitment or deposit 

When you order Doctor Photos photo restoration service you are not asked to pay for any of the work upfront.  Once the work is complete you are sent a watermarked copy of your photo for your inspection.  It is only after the job has met your expectations that you will pay for the work that was done.

You see, there are several very good reasons we don’t do post.  The biggest of those reasons is that we want to make sure you get the best service we can provide.

Pricing

One of the reasons that people hesitate to send their damaged photos in for restoration is that they are afraid of the cost of such a project.  If you do a search for photo restoration prices you are likely to be met with a wide variety of prices for the work you want done.  You could see prices that range from £5 to up to £100, depending on how extensive the work is.

You are also faced with some uncertainty with the project.  What if you pay for the photo restoration or an image enhancement, and you are not happy with the results.  You have already paid your money, so your options are somewhat limited. 

Doctor Photo takes away the risks involved with having your old photos worked on by not requiring any money up front.  When the work on your photos is competed you will be sent a copy of the restored photo.  That gives you a chance to review all of the work before you pay for anything.  So if you are not completely satisfied with the work that was done, you don’t have to pay anything. 

The copy of your photo will have a watermark on it, but once you are satisfied with the results and have paid for the work you will be sent the final version of your photo without the watermark.  This image can then be printed onto photo paper from your home computer, or taken to a photo service for printing.  If the quality of your original photo is good enough, you could have the image enlarged to a size that is suitable for framing. 

You can send a digital copy of your photo either through email, or you can use the file uploader at the Doctor Photo website.  When you send the image file you can describe the work that you want done.  Basic photo work can many times be completed and sent back to you the same day.  If the work is more than just basic touch-up work, you will be given an estimate of the pricing before any work is done.  That way there won’t be any surprises when the restoration is completed. 

Although photo restoration is one of the more popular services available with Doctor Photo, it is by far not the extent of the work they can do for you.  You could also consider having your photos converted from black and white to colour, or having a creative treatment such as a collage done with your photos.  In fact, the only limit to what can be done is your creativity and your budget.  If you have an idea all you need to do is contact Doctor Photo to get a pricing quote for the work you want done. 

The technology that will allow you to have your damaged photos repaired is here.  Don’t let your fear of outrageous pricing stop you from enjoying your photos once again.

A Photo Gift for Every Occasion

You may be looking for a gift that will be remembered, get pleasure from and be cherished, then you should really think about photo gifts for your next special event.  Photos can make such magnificent gifts because they are especially personal.  It is clear that you were thinking of the individual, and not just running out to the shops at the last minute.  It will be remembered as a gift that came from the heart.

How about something old 

One grand gift idea is to take damaged or old photos and have them restored, or improved for the person that special person that will receive the gift.  This is particularly good if the person has a compilation of old photos that have faded or be in need of some repair.  You could have these photographs, restored, have the fading enhanced, or even have old black and white photos turned into colour as if they were taken yesterday.

The good thing about photos is that it doesn’t matter how old they are as they can all be scanned and transformed digitally onto a computer. Once you have done this, they can be safely returned before the person even notices that they have been removed.  All of the restoration is then done on the digital copies, so once the photo has been scanned the original is no longer required.

Or Something New 

Why not create something new and exciting from your own photos.  For example, you may have photos of you and your partner when you first met, when you were married and maybe a recent one. Then why not send all three so we can create a beautiful collage.  Or you could take photos of your children and combine them so that they could be standing behind themselves when they were younger. A nice idea for could be to collate photos of all the grandchildren and have them all put on the one photo for your parents. This is a good method if the relations are spread out and it is not easy to get together for a group photo. 

You may have that great shot of yourself and another one of your partner but they are on separate photos, no problem, just send them both and we will place you together on a background of your choice. 

It doesn’t matter what the occasion is, whether it’s for a birthday, Christmas, a special anniversary, like a 50^th or a paper anniversary (very appropriate as a photo is obviously paper) or any other occasion a personalised photo gift would fit perfectly, the ends are almost limitless to what you can do with a photo these days, all you need is some imagination and a little creativity to bring joy and a smile to that special person in your life.

Transfer a Photo from Black and White to Colour

In the old days of black and white photography the only way to change a photo from black and white to color was to get a set of coloured pencils and do the work by hand.  There were a couple of very big problems with this.  The first was that unless you were a very skilled artist, the pictures could come out looking somewhat cartoonish.  The second problem was, there was no way to undo any mistakes that were made.

Fortunately, advances in digital photo restoration technology have made it possible to covert photos from black and white to colour in a much more realistic way.  Not only is the quality of the final product a much higher quality, it does not require any changes to be made to your original photograph.

Once you scan the original photo into the computer, all of the changes are made to the digital image.  If a colour is added that is not just right, it can be removed, and a new colour added with no negative effects.  Once the procedure is completed you will have a colourized photo, and you will still have the original untouched black and white photo.

The procedure to do a conversion of this kind is not technically difficult, but it is a bit tedious, and it requires a skilled hand to do it properly.  In order to capture all of the shades and textures that are a part of every image, the specialist must go through each area making the changes to each individual area.  Every fold in the clothing or shadow creates a different tone.  These different tones and shades need to be added, colour overlay techniques make this possible and then blending so that it looks as natural as possible.

Because of all the details that need to be accounted for, there is not effective way to automate the procedure.  Computers cannot accurately determine what colour to put where, or how to handle the detailed textures.  It requires a human to determine whether the eyes should be brown or blue, or what the shade of the blouse or skirt should be.

Most people do not have the skill or the patience to accomplish this properly.  Even if they did have the computer program to do the job, it still takes someone who knows how to use the program.  Fortunately there are services that are available that will do this work for you.

If you have old photos that you want to have converted from black and white to colour, all you have to do is look around to find a service that can do the job for you.  You can have it done for a very reasonable price, and it typically does not take too long to get the finished photo back.  You will have a picture that is professionally finished and ready for display.

Use Photo Restoration to bring your old photos back to life

Photo Restoration 

Photo restoration is becoming more and more popular.  While in the times of yore a damaged photo was usually thrown away or stuck in a corner somewhere, modern digital photo technology has now presented the opportunity to take those old photos and give them a new lease of life. 

Time has a way of taking its toll on photos.  The corners can become folded or bent, they may get creased, crumbled or torn, and the photograph could become discoloured or faded by sunlight or mistreatment.  When this occurs your photographs can become less enjoyable than when they were first taken.  But just because you may have several damaged photos this does not mean that they cannot be enjoyed as they once were. 

Photo restoration techniques are now obtainable to make it possible to return your photos to their original splendour.  In some cases it is even possible to make the photo superior to what it was when it was first taken.  Not only can you carry out repairs it is possible to remove unwanted object that may spoil the photo or maybe change the background to improve the image.  You can have an old photo changed from black and white to color if you so desired. 

Once the photo has been scanned (300 DPI or more) into a computer, a digital photo professional will be able to go over your photo correcting any flaws or anomalies. This normally entails scrutinizing each part of the photo and cloning from good areas to cover the damaged ones, ensuring all the time that the correction looks natural and blends well with the surrounding area.  Every tone and shade of color will have to be matched in order to make the scratch or blemish become invisible. 

These sorts of techniques may also be used to make alterations to your photo.  You may have a picture that was very close to being a grand shot, except someone blinked just as the photo was being taken.  You could then have the eyes opened digitally by having the specialist redraw the eyes so that they are open in the photo. 

The good thing about this procedure is that your original photo is left intact.  All of the alterations are carried out on a digital copy so you will still have the initial photo.  Providing the restoration and photo enhancement is done correctly it is often possible to enlarge your photo to a size that would be suitable for a large frame. 

It is difficult to estimate the time involved when it comes to photo restoration as each photo has to be viewed separately. Some photos can be restored in a matter of minutes with single click computer enhancement software as where other can take a few hours painstakingly covering each area correcting tears scratches and missing parts. 

So why not look through your old photos that were once your pride and joy to see if you can have them repaired, altered, coloured or manipulated.  This especially applies to relatives that may have passed on so that they can be commemorated and remembered as they should be.

Photo Manipulation

When it comes to digital photo enhancements, many people stop at fixing red-eye or making changes to the brightness of the photo.  In reality, there are many different photo manipulation options that you could consider.

When you take a snapshot, it is not the end of the photography process.  In many instances that is just the beginning of where you could go with your photos.  The images in the photo can be enhanced, removed, or rearranged in any way you can envision.

Many times, that is the hardest part of the photo manipulation process; envisioning what is possible with your photos.  You need to be able to see the images in your photographs as a part of a larger work of art.  It can mean adding or removing images that are in the photo, or it could mean completely altering the look of the photo by changing the background.  Instead of standing in your living room, you could change the scene to a tropical paradise.

Another thing you could do is to take a collection of photos of friends or family and create a collage with them.  It could be individual pictures on a scenic background, or you could even create a group shot that would give the appearance that everyone was together for a sitting.

Another creative way to rearrange you photos is to do a “then and now” type of project.  You could take images of your children and toddles and put them in a collage with images of the same children when they were older.  It would also work well as a Wedding Anniversary gift by taking a photo of the couple on their wedding day and combining it with a current photo of the couple.

The basic idea is simply cutting an image out of one digital photo and pasting it into another.  The images are then blended so that it is not noticeable where one edge stops and the other starts.  It will create a seamless image that looks like it was all one shot.  It also requires a lot of care when cutting the images.  You need to be sure to get the entire image you want without getting any of the unwanted background.

Having a quality photo manipulation project requires a skilled digital photo restoration specialist.  There are not any computer programs that can completely automate the process.  It still requires a person to make decisions about what to use, what to discard, and where to place images for the final photo.

The chances are good that you already have a great collection of photos that could be used to create a new photograph.  Using photo manipulation techniques you could transform some of your average photos into a work of art that could be framed and displayed.  That way your memories could be moved out of a storage area and put in a place where you will be able to see and enjoy them.

The Perfect 1st Anniversary Gift.

Perhaps it is coming up to your first anniversary or maybe you know someone who is approaching theirs?

Hopefully this article will help you or at least give you an idea to finding a gift that will show the recipient that you have put some thought and effort into the present.

Okay the reason I have specified the first anniversary is because first anniversaries are associated with paper and a personalised photo gift like the one I will describe shortly will fit the occasion perfectly.

So what you need to do is root through your wedding album and pick out a few good photos and scan them at a high resolution (300 dpi or more) if you don’t have a scanner yourself then maybe you know a friend or someone who has one, worst case scenario it will cost you a couple of quid at your local photo shop.

Next you need to go on line and find a suitable photo restoration service that will be able to transform your photos into something quite beautiful and artistic to create that perfect gift.

A good idea would be to have a background shot of where you went on your honeymoon or maybe a favourite scenic location of yours. You can then ask for the happy couple to be removed from the existing photo and placed over the honeymoon view or any scenic view of your choice.

Another idea would be to have a photo when you first met, one of your wedding and maybe a recent one and ask the photo restoration company to create a photo collage once again choosing a nice scenic background can really set the whole thing off.

Once you receive your photo back you should be able to have it printed on quality paper large enough to have framed and hang anywhere where it will sit pride of place.

Of course this type of personalised photo gift can be used for any wedding anniversary; it does not have to be limited to the first.

If it wasn’t for the fact that I am in the photo restoration business myself, then I would most definitely do this for my own partner, but as this is my job she would probably call me a cheapskate and I would have to do without for a month (nothing new there).

I hope this has been useful to you and feel free to leave a comment below.

How to get your demo disc Noticed?

Hopefully by the end of this short article you will receive a few ideas on how to get your disc noticed by a recording company or contractor.

Imagine your job is to sit behind a desk and sift through and listen to hundreds of demo discs every day! Well someone has to do it. I imagine it would be similar to what a recruitment agency does when they have to go through hundreds of CV’s. In any case you can bet your bottom dollar that some do not even get looked at.

So how can you make your disc jump out and say play me. It’s quite easy it simply has to stand out above the rest and the only way it can do this is for it to appear visually interesting or intriguing.

As a band or an artist you must already possess some artistic or creative imagination but you may be lacking the technology or experience to put that into a finished photo to enhance the front cover of your demo CD.

You don’t have to pay hundreds of pounds to hire a professional photographer (although this would also be a good idea) for with a little imagination and thought you can create a striking photo from your existing collection.

Providing you have some kind of idea and the basic photos to put it together then this is all possible with the aid of photo software and digital manipulation.

All you have to do is scan your photos and send them and your idea to a reputable Photo restoration company. You would be amazed at how a basic photo or shot can be transformed into something eye catching or interesting and that is what you will need to draw the attention towards your CD.  

Let’s say your group was called Warzone or something along those lines, then using photo software it is quite possible to remove the background of an existing shot of your band and replace it with a graphic photo from the Second World War, Iraq of Afghanistan.  Or if you’re a solo artist then using photo touch up techniques it is possible to turn miss piggy into miss word. I am not suggesting that you will need to, only that the possibility is there.  

Using photo restoration and manipulation techniques together with a little imagination can open up unlimited boundary’s to creating a front cover that is going to stand out way above the rest and get you half way there, the rest is down to you.

I hope this has been useful to you and feel free to leave a comment below.