Photographs are snapshots in time that record people, places, and things in our lives. They also capture important events in our lives, and serve to enhance our memories. Our photographs mean a lot to us, and we love and value them. We place them in picture frames, put them into photo albums, display them in our homes and offices, and carry them with us in our wallets.
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Except for natural disasters, deterioration of photographs is caused by environmental factors such as exposure to humidity, sunlight, temperature, handling, and the breakdown of the chemicals and photographic material used in the photograph and the developing process.
Photo retouching is the application of image editing techniques to improve or enhance images, pictures and photos.
Traditional Photo and Digital Photo Retouching Methods
When our photographs have been damaged or have deteriorated, we often wish they could look the way they did when they were new. Retouching can repair the damaged photographs and restore them either close to, or exactly how they were when they were new. With help from these techniques, you can even improve the photographs.
These techniques existed long before the digital world. It was performed by skilled traditional photo specialists in their darkrooms. Their tools included artist brushes, fixers, toners, retouching dyes and other chemicals, enlargers, mixing pallets, film tanks, baths and other darkroom equipments. They did photo retouching by hand with artist brushes and dyes, and they use enlargers for adding and subtracting exposure to photo retouching service prints and filters for adjusting contrast.
The tools of the digital retouching experts include scanners, computers with high-end photo-editing software (ex. Adobe Photoshop®, Corel Painter®, Paint Shop Pro®), high resolution monitors, and photo quality printers, paper and inks. Here, photo retouching is done with a mouse or table pen, and the work is saved as electronic files that can be printed, emailed, or stored on removable media such as a CD-ROM or DVD. Many of the digital photo retouching features found in the high-end photo-editing software such as Unsharp Mask, Dodging and Burning, and Contrast has their roots in the traditional, non-digital photo world.
The digital photo retouching involves:
· scanning a photograph or film
· performing the photo retouching using photo-editing software
· printing out the photograph
· storing the work on a removable medium such as CD-ROM.
Things to remember before going for Photo Retouching
Before submitting a photograph for retouching, make sure you own it or have written permission to work on it.If you are not the owner and do not have written permission to work on it, then it is a violation of the US Copyright law.
Also, before mailing any valued photographs to a photo retouching company, consider how it would affect you if the photograph was damaged or lost in transit. It is always advisable to take your photograph to a reputable Photo Lab and have it scanned and placed on a CD-ROM. You can then mail the CD-ROM to the Photo Retouching Company, or you can copy and attach the scanned photograph to an Email message, and send it via Email.
Business organizations need to include images in their catalogs, business cards, pamphlets, and marketing materials etc. These images or photos are very important for the success of various marketing campaigns, and to make an impression on the minds of the consumers. This is why, business organizations often need to hire a photo editing service which can help them in enhancing their images. Given the fact that many firms around the world offer such services online, the decision to select any particular firm could be very difficult. Hence, you need to be very careful while choosing any particular firm.
Here are a few tips that will help you to select the best photo editing service for your business:
Find out if they have access to the required tools- photo editing is not an easy task and a lot of tools are needed to edit any image. Before selecting any particular firm, make sure that they have access to the all the tools required in this process. If they do not have these tools at their disposal, they will not be able to provide you with a good quality of service. You can check their website to determine the kind of tools they have in their possession.
Only select a firm which has a lot of experience - a photo editing service will only be able to cater to all the needs of your business, when it has a lot of experience in this field. You must understand that modifying an image is not an easy task at all. Only people, who have sufficient amount of experience in this field, will be able to do a good job and provide you with good quality service. Moreover, experienced firms can deal with all kinds of images, even those which are old.
Find out if they provide good quality of service- as a business, you will need to make sure that the photos that you present to your consumers are of the best quality possible. Hence, you should only choose a firm which can offer you with excellent quality of service and has a good reputation. There are many forums on the net where you can read reviews of these firms. These reviews, which are posted by people who have used the services of these firms, will let you know if a firm is reputed.
Choose a firm which offers affordable rates- the photo editing service should also offer you with affordable rates, along with a good quality of service. Given the fact that there are many such firms available online, it will not be difficult to locate a firm which can offer you with good quality work at affordable rates.