I need help with retouching an old black and white passport photo.

For my brother’s 50th birthday party in October I am putting together a computer slide show with the help of old photos his wife has given me. One picture is the passport photo in his first passport but two corners are covered with part of embossed seals and a third corner with part of the passport cancellation stamp.

For my limited graphics needs I use Paint Shop Pro but I don’t think it can be used to make these stamps disappear. I heard about Adobe Photoshop but never managed to work with that program. Too complicated for me.

Is it possible to retouch a photo the way I have mentioned above? If yes and if it is not too much work, would somebody be so kind as to do it for me?

I don’t think my brother would like to have his photo, even an old one, published on the Internet but to give an idea what needs to be done I attach the lower part of it. The top right corner has an embossed seal similar to the one in the bottom left corner.

If some kind soul offers to do the retouching I will PM him a link to the photo I will temporarily upload to a protected site.

Try a function such as 'clone stamp'.

Regards

Try a function such as 'clone stamp'.

Regards

Yep, the clone stamp is probably the best/only option and will take quite a bit of time to do it. I use Photoshop and that's one of my most used tools for photo cleanup.

Clone stamp

I'm not an expert but only do for fun, this is a result of a 5 minutes work (right side)

This is a rough idea of how the clone tool will work (right side also). I didn't spend a lot of time getting it that smooth/clean and it will take a couple of hours to do a proper job on a full size image.

Thanks, everybody.

Photoshop is not installed at the computer I am normally using. I’ll go around now and see if it is on any other computer in this place. Perhaps it’s time that I lost my fear of this program.

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Maestro

Thanks, everybody.

Photoshop is not installed at the computer I am normally using. I’ll go around now and see if it is on any other computer in this place. Perhaps it’s time that I lost my fear of this program.

In this case you really only need to learn the clone tool, paint brush tool (I used it to fix the neck in this case) and perhaps the smoothing tool. Just need patience and a steady hand and use high zoom in the areas being modified. Don't need to worry about all the other features/options in Photoshop at this time.

I just checked and Paint Shop Pro should have the cloning tool also.

http://www.baycongroup.com/paint_shop_pro/...ee_download.htm

Thanks, Tywais. In the meantime I found Photoshop on a computer. After lunch (GMT+2) I’ll see first what I can do in Paint Shop Pro and if I can’t manage it use Photoshop.

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Maestro

If you do use Photoshop, check help on the "Healing tool" and "Patch Tool". They are similar to clone but may be more useful in this case.

"The Healing Brush tool lets you correct imperfections, causing them to disappear into the surrounding image. Like the cloning tools, you use the Healing Brush tool to paint with sampled pixels from an image or pattern. However, the Healing Brush tool also matches the texture, lighting, transparency, and shading of the sampled pixels to the pixels being healed. As a result, the repaired pixels blend seamlessly into the rest of the image. "

If you do use Photoshop, check help on the "Healing tool" and "Patch Tool". They are similar to clone but may be more useful in this case.

"The Healing Brush tool lets you correct imperfections, causing them to disappear into the surrounding image. Like the cloning tools, you use the Healing Brush tool to paint with sampled pixels from an image or pattern. However, the Healing Brush tool also matches the texture, lighting, transparency, and shading of the sampled pixels to the pixels being healed. As a result, the repaired pixels blend seamlessly into the rest of the image. "

Yep, i would recommend the healing tool as well. The healing tool has issues with edges though and will need to be combined with the clone stamp. For example, on the right side of the photo there are the diagonal black bars from what looks like a rubber stamp of some sort. The sharp edges between his shoulder and the background should be done using the clone stamp and the large areas of damage in the white area should be done with the healing tool.

If you don't have much experience with photoshop then http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop...p_Resources.htm has a useful free tutorial