Restore your old family portraits

James Paterson restores vintage photos using Serif’s Affinity Photo

- James Paterson

Many of us will have old family photos and vintage prints tucked away, so now might be the perfect time to dig them out, brush them off and digitize them with a scanner or your camera. Once done, you can open the image in Affinity Photo to perform all kinds of impressive restoration work and breathe new life into these beloved old prints. Even the most well cared-for prints will eventually show signs of age. Dust and grime will accumulate, creases and scratches will damage the surface, edges will get bent or torn, chemicals will deteriorate.

The good news is, this kind of damage can be improved with simple tools and techniques in Affinity Photo. Given a little time and attention, we can reverse the ravages of time and restore our prints to their former glory.

We’ll start by using Affinity Photo’s Inpainting tool to tidy up the print. The portrait here is very faded, but we can bring back definition to the face with subtle dodging and burning.