Digitizing and Retouching Old and New Photos

Photographs are delicate and fragile recordings of history. They can be lost in accidents, faded away due to the sun, or just wrinkled and split due to lack of care or preservation. Even photos that have been stored safely away can decline over time. It is important to consider digitizing and restoring all your photos now for future generations to enjoy.

The first step is to digitize photos. A home scanner can quickly and effectively put all images into digital format and do some simple refurbishment along the way. Most scanners allow you to adjust brightness and contrast, color correction and crop out unwanted elements in the photo before saving the new image. After you have a digitized copy of the image, you can print out as many of this "new" photo to enjoy.

There are many companies with higher quality scanners and can digitize your photos in record time for a few cents per image. It is worth considering if you have boxes of images.

The second step after getting all your photos into digital format is to go through and see which of them need additional retouching. Old photos may especially need care in order to restore them to what they may have originally looked like.

There are many free, simple photo editors that you can find online and simply upload your photos and make your own changes. More complicated damages will take more work and you should consider looking for a professional photo retouching company to help with corrections such as: 

Repairing tears in a photo
Restoring missing pieces in a photo
Color correcting extremely faded or sun damaged images
Water Stains
Removing unwanted people in the background or adding a missing person
When looking for digital photo touch up help, a search on Google will show hundreds of results. It is important to visit every site and go through their portfolio to see if that company has the services to fit your needs. Make sure you are satisfied with the results from samples they have on their sites. Look for companies that offer a quick turnaround time -- within 1-5 days.

Price is also an important consideration. You can find services ranging from $3 per image all the way to $300 an hour for photo retouching. Search for something within your budget and don't forget to consider how many photos you have that need editing. Most companies will give a discounted price for a large number of photos that need retouching.

A good service should always send you a proof and allow you to review and let them know if there are any changes that need to be made. They should always strive to make sure you are happy with the changes.


It can definitely be a long process to digitize and restore your old photos, but the satisfaction of having these timeless memories back is priceless. The photos that you have digitized now will be with you for years to come and sure to be passed on to future generations.

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