STEP BY STEP RESTORATION MASTERCLASS

Fix damaged vintage prints in Affinity Photo and learn fundamental retouching skills

01 SELECT A PIECE

Open our image restore_before.jpg into Affinity Photo then grab the Selection Brush tool from the toolbar. Check ‘Snap to Edges’ in the options then paint over a piece to select it (hold Alt and paint to subtract areas if the tool picks up the wrong area). Hit Cmd/ctrl+j to copy to a new layer, then Cmd/ctrl+d to deselect.

02 POSITION THE PIECES

Highlight the background layer and repeat with the Selection Brush to select and copy each piece to its own layer. Next hide the bottom layer and grab the Move tool. Click on pieces and use the bounding box to rotate and move them into position. Hit Cmd/ctrl+’ to turn on the grid to aid in lining things up.

03 FILL THE GAPS

Make a new layer at the top of the layer stack. Grab the Inpainting tool from the toolbar. Set it to work on ‘Current Layer and Below’ in the tool options then paint over the gaps, scratches and lines to repair them. You can click on a point, hold Shift and click on another to make a straight line – useful on scratches.

04 CLONE ROUGH PATCHES

Grab the Clone tool and hit 3 for 30% opacity. Set it to sample ‘Current and Below’ and make a new layer, then hold Alt to sample a clean part of the print and paint to smooth over any patches of rough tone or colour in the image. The low opacity allows you to gradually blend pixels as you clone.

05 USE THE DUST FILTER

Press Cmd/ctrl+shift+alt+e to merge a copy of all layers into a new layer, then go to Layer > New Live Filter Layer > Noise > Dust and Scratches. Zoom in close then increase Radius until you see small spots of dust disappear. Increase Tolerance to halfway, then decrease until the dust is reduced.

06 BOOST THE DETAILS

Click the Adjustment icon and choose Curves. Plot an S-shaped curve line to boost contrast. Next add a Recolour adjustment and choose a sepia colour. Finally, hit Cmd/ctrl+shift+alt+e again then go to Layer > New Live Filter Layer > Sharpen > High Pass. Set Mode: Overlay then increase Radius to sharpen.