These are just wonderful, and I bet they (the pics) mean the world to you and your sis. And how nice of those people to find you and give it to you.
JoanMN

Oh I love those old photos, so good that you are able to restore them, beautiful work. Your parents are very nice looking.

Valerie

I understand the importance of having good pictures of memories past. I do have a question though, what software did you use to touch up the pictures. I have several of my grandmother that I need to fix and don't know what software works the best.

Thanks for the kind words. It means a lot.

stephy, Photoshop is the best, but I don't know how to use all the tools effectively even now. So I kept the large working copy in .bmp format (I guess .tiff is better but eats up memory like crazy) and passed it back and forth between Photoshop 6 and Paint Shop Pro 5 (now have CS2). There was a lot of opening and resaving and .bmp is considered a lossless format, you do not want to work in .jpg format, only save in that at the very end, even though you start with .jpg out of the camera. Photoshop has .psd and PSP has .psp, but neither recognizes the other, hence I chose .bmp.

I did all the straightening, color correction, tweaking, sizing and cropping for print output (5 X 7) in Photoshop 6. Most everything else I did in Paint Shop Pro 5. The brush I used the most was the push brush, and I changed the settings as needed (I think most people use a trial and error approach until they find just the right settings), as I could just paint over many of the troublesome spots by pushing the nearest color over the bad spot, don't remember using the clone tool, I use that a lot for some things. I was kind of flying blind on this one, but one thing I had going for me is that they weren't torn so all the detail was intact. They didn't match sizewise, so I had to figure out how to get them both the same general size plus my father's was in one of those funny cardboard frames and I didn't want to rip it up to expose more of the original that was hidden.

It is much harder to fill in torn or seriously damaged areas and I have had limited success with that. I can get rid of creases and fill in small spots where the photo has been torn or finish worn completely off, but a lot of damage I don't think I'm proficient enough to deal with yet, depending on what it is.

I have seen samples of amazing things others have been able to do, like filling in a sizeable missing portion of a plaid shirt. I think most software programs can handle this, but I haven't worked with any others but PhotoImpact 2 and just used that for effects primarily, don't care for it, some people love it.

I knew nothing about using graphics software and started in about 1998 (?). It has taken all those years to practice and build up to where I am now.

If you need to know anything more, feel free to ask, but I'm not sure I can answer. Paint Shop Pro is cheap but Photoshop is so much better, I've stubbornly clung to my PSP 5 version and quit upgrading. Some people have had trouble with the new X version, some have no problems with it. I still use my version for its browse feature and if I don't know how to do what I want to do in Photoshop pass it back to PSP, am gradually learning how to use the Photoshop features. Photoshop is not very intuitive at all, has a steep learning curve, but well worth it in the end.

Paint Shop Pro is easier to learn, but it took me a year to work up to understanding layers and masks. It is not for the faint of heart, you have to struggle. I'm not much one for reading graphics books, have them, but I've found many tutorials on the web helpful. I don't like help files either.

The reason I don't like the book approach is that it gets too technical and I forget it so soon if I don't work with it right away and regularly, but I've read my share of technical books in the past!

Thanks for the hints.
I use to have Photoshop and loved it, but my "genius" brother decided to upgrade my PC from windows 2000, to windows XP, and in the process deleted off photoshop... and as luck would have it, I don't have the original CD anymore to reinstall it onto my computer. I guess one of these days I'll just go buy it again and this time keep track of the CD's afterwards.
Once again, thanks for the tips, I will use them in the future.

If you had a legal copy that was registered and call Adobe, they might help you. I'm worried about my present version. If you want to reinstall or switch computers, you have to do it through CS2, deactivate it first. I asked them what do I do if my system crashes? They said to call them. You are allowed to make one backup copy, but I'm not sure how to do that. Oh, I could figure it out. So much to think about right now.

That's a darn shame. Good luck!

What beautiful photos. I especially like the one of your mom...she looks so elegant. I'm trying to take as many pics of my mom but she hates being photograph! However, I've been lucky a couple of times catching her off guard. Thanks for sharing.

now. My daughter sometimes tries to sneak a shot, and I don't like it. I just hate having my picture taken now but didn't until I was about 49 and had to have it taken for the church book. I freaked; I burst into tears. Time flew by so fast I did not realize how much I had aged by then.

Thanks for the kind words. My mother was the glue that held the extended family together. Funny you would say she was elegant. She had two dresses when she went to school, one to wear and one on the radiator drying. She learned to sew her own clothes. When we had company for dinner, everything had to be just so. I think being poor when she was young affected her whole life and attitudes. My father had a inferiority complex all his life, was a quiet, intelligent farm boy, graduated from Rensselaer, skipped two grades in school, served in WWII, didn't have a father at home til I was 5.

Things have changed soooo much since I was young.

You did good work...It's great that you were able to find some older photos of them both!

You did such a wonderful Job!....I bet, the photos look better then original!
Konrad

Yes, I didn't realize I had them both, was wishing I had some similar when they were young. Got to digging and there they were.

Konrad, they are nice but they look too new! I had them printed on matte paper which is mostly all I ever use, oh well, I was happy to put that job behind me and am satisfied with the results.

I also did a photograph of the one and only completed painting (watercolor) my father ever did and spent hours and hours retouching that, had it reproduced on as close to watercolor paper as I could get. The family appreciated that, too. It wasn't faithful to the original as that had a faded look, I perked it up a little and made the sky more blue. He wouldn't have minded, I think he might be proud I'd picked up a few skills without going to school - again - yes, I'm sure he would, learning photography, the real kind, finally, gardening, finding my way around these home pc's, extensive work on the family tree on all sides, found out so many things they never knew, could sure use their help now though with some of that.

I love old photographs, and these two are very nice. Would you mind showing us the "before"? I would be interested in seeing how much work went into them.

I went into my steamy kitchen where the natural light is fading now but the brightest in the house, cranked up the ISO to 800 and took this one. I shoved all my paint project aside to do it, it is too hot to paint and too humid.

You can see that they were not that bad. You can also see that my mother was not the same size as my father, had to fix that and that was by trial and error resizing by percentage until they matched. I took all the color out, (desaturated) then put some back in using color adjustments, same settings for both, that's how I got them to match, tonewise. Then I had to make them a little more contrasty. The problem was when I got the photos and zoomed them up, there were all sorts of little linty, dusty, oddish spots on them in addition to what you can see here. Some of it could have been on the photos or in the photos, from the print process back then, wearing; I don't know.

I hate those brownish shadows. I know how to get rid of them, but this is straight out of the camera, no sharpening, straightening or anything.

{{gwi:2013937}}

You people here have been the only ones to have anything positive to say about them other than my sister who was delighted with them unless she was being gracious. No, she wants me to retouch one of her daughter's wedding photos, so I know she likes my work.

I posted them a couple times elsewhere, and none of the pros had anything to say about them. I do use unconventional methods to get what I want. They would have some long drawn out tutorial, so I just used my intuition and what little I did know about the brushes, etc.

Ah, Aliska, what do the pros know. You are lucky to have pictures of your parents and I think you did a good job on touching them up. I have only a couple of my father and they are so tiny I can hardly see what he looked like. I've tried enlarging them in Photoshop but they break up badly. Best to get a magnifying glass and look at them that way.

That is so sad you don't have any better photos of your father, my ex had one little bitty one. So many kids will be in that situation (not implying that was the case with you).

Maybe some of his relatives have some you could get copies made from? It would be nice to have at least one nice 5X7 at least, even a 4X6 if nothing else.

A lot of the old family photos I have no idea who they are and never had any of some.

So if anybody is reading this and has any old photos, write on the back, pencil fades, ink probably not a good idea, not sure what to do there, label? who they are and approx date if you know. It is such a help to descendants, if they will care. My children would not necessarily know these are their grandparents, they don't remember my mother, oldest does just a little. They might not recognize either one so young like that. I had to run it by my sister (younger) to get her opinion for sure. We're sure.