How do you restore colors? - Affinity Photo Tutorial // Very Easy

[@martindavies8153]

Many thanks. Just discovered this. Brilliant tutorial. As a complete novice I found this easy to follow. Thank you for sharing!

[@paulfredfield]

Again, WOW! It works but I have no idea how! I have just restored a photo of me in Africa that had become very green, fuzzy and bland. Now it looks as I think it actually was 30 years ago. I will probably never understand how this works, but I am grateful for the technique, if not the knowledge.

[@jihstudios]

Fantastic and easy way to restore colors for old pictures. This is the first time I've seen this technique. Thanks

[@OlivioSarikas]

You are so welcome!

[@nancymoore8025]

Thank you very much. This was exactly what I needed. I bought Affinity because of this video.

[@lynncocksedge908]

I spent most of my photography life working with film. I found that different manufacturers used different pigments in the emulsion. For example Agfa colour film is Blue based emulsion,whereas Kodak use a brown based emulsion. This is why 2 identical photos with the exact same settings using Agfa and Kodak will have different results. I think maybe this needs to be taken into account when trying to restore colours from old film negatives or slides I have a lot of slides converted to digital that I will try this tutorial on.

[@pip07200]

Thank you ! Most helpful and simple. Just started scanning old negatives so this will help a lot !

[@nancymoore8025]

I followed this step by step and was very successful. I really appreciate the clear directions.

[@petergillion7178]

Fantastic. Came across this video after spending hours re-storing colour on old photos using levels and colour adjustments etc. Tried this techique. Fantastic results while remaining simple to use. Many thanks.

[@Patricksstrategy]

As usual Olivio you astound us with your ability to explain so cogently and with such language flow something which is simultaneously so beneficial to so many people, me included, a topic which is inherently complex. Thanks again.

[@photoshopman1972]

I’ve done part of that technique for years but used a different blend mode. Still a cool truck to put into my toolbox. Another technique that one can use is to use the levels adjustment layer and adjust each channel to “where it starts” and this usually corrects color nicely. If that layer adjustment makes it too contrasty, you can change the blend mode to color or any other that only effects the color ranges and leaves the luminosity alone. The above is easier on the computer version and can be done on iPad but requires a bit of a workaround. Thanks Olivio for this!

[@zildjianpro]

Excellent tutorial. Quick and to the point. Thank you!

[@gabriel1chan]

Great idea. Will definitely try this method. Thanks.

[@keithk9472]

What a brilliant tutorial. Thank you.

[@OlivioSarikas]

Thank you 🙂

[@japplegate3000]

Learning curves is not difficult! This method is like a quick fix and obviously you can get fast satisfactory results with it. A little more color correcting in the faces wouldn't hurt either as they appear a little too green. Well done Mr. Sarikas.

[@OlivioSarikas]

Hi Ed, maybe not, but show me a way in which you teach people in 15 minutes how to color adjust hundreds of different cases of vintage photos with curves. Using curves is not the hard part, understanding color and color correction is. You certainly would get better results with curves, but i would assume that you would need to create a 2-3 hours long course to explain how to use them in what case and why. So i tried to find a method that everyone can do :)

[@japplegate3000]

@@OlivioSarikas Perhaps I should have said color and curves is not hard for me personally, I can not speak for all. Like any other good program there are multiple ways to perform a task and your method is one of the ways.

[@QigongParadigm]

Wow. Great short tutorial 👍

[@didierguillon8067]

Just perfect ! Brilliant job ! Easy to follow, easy to understand and easy to setup thank you Olivio !

[@534A53]

I'm stuck at 4:59 when you create the new adjustment layer it pops up on top of all the other layers, however on my version of Affinity when I do the same thing, it adds the adjustment layer to whichever layer was selected already. But in the video it doesn't look like there is any layer selected when you are adding the adjustment layer. So which layer does the adjustment belong to? (or how do you do the same steps on the most recent version of Affinity?)

[@bobprince1472]

That looked like a nice and simple and powerful fix. BRILLIANT... and I will follow it step by step. However, I would love to understand why each move works the way it does because as a novice to fixing colour I would start in the way you suggested at the beginning, with white balances and curves etc and what you did was counterintuitive. Obviously, explaining in detail would make the video both long and unwatchable (but, do you have prior videos that address some of the issues described below?). The implications of picking each particular control seems to be what I need to understand. Inverting, inverts, but then why does that help you to control colour? Introducing Gaussian Blur, what the hell's that about? How did it make the picture look sharper? If I read that right, it seemed to allow colour to be corrected over broad areas of the scene but I have no idea how, or why. The key seemed to be picking the correct Blend mode, but then I am not sure what the Blend modes REALLY do (you can sort of flash through them and see some differences, but how they work eludes me). Also do Blend Modes add up for each layer? Unsharp mask sharpens, but how, if it is unsharp? Blurring to Average then Invert you explained , but what for me was real black magic was... and suddenly, Hey Presto in Colour Burn blend mode, the colours were all corrected. I nearly fell of my seat. Blend Ranges? etc. In other words the use of nearly every control was unexpected.

[@JessicaLZ]

I would also like a deeper explanation if you have time to help explain here or in a new video the methodology/science. Thanks again for this amazing tutorial.

[@gmitchell8672]

Thank you very much for the tutorial. I used your technique and got great results on some 60's and 70's photos from a Kodak Instamatic camera that always left the photos with a brown or orange tint.

[@kumitetoday]

Good point how it will a photo taken in the '80s will never look like it was taken yesterday

[@evafitzelova8720]

Well done, thank you for the tutorial, it's amazing.

[@aure818v]

How did you figure this out? I'm glad I found this video.

[@malcolmsutton6740]

Great video, works a treat, wish I knew how.

[@ShaneBaker]

Thanks Olivio. This is an issue for those of us trying to do our family history. For what it's worth: I thought the image looked pretty good early - at around 2:37. I take your point that you can't make an old image look new, and on that basis, I'd suggest that those couple of steps to 2:37 plus say tweaking of sharpness and contrast would produce a perfectly acceptable result for family history. Just my opinion, of course! :-)

[@a.brantschen6912]

Hallo Olivio This "trick" is really outstanding. I tested it with "normal" but not so perfect pictures. Great effect also! Thanks

[@OlivioSarikas]

Cool, thank you Abra. Good to know :)

[@os6219]

WoW! How did you sort this one out? I mean, understanding quite a bit of color management, I’d like to understand what were your thoughts and ideas to find that awesome solution!

[@OlivioSarikas]

Hi o s, do you know that thing movies do when someone calculates and the numbers fly around their head - kind of like that. ok, all jokes aside: i have no idea how i figured that out. i just looked an it and thought, yep, that should work, and it did :)

[@PeteEdmunds]

Excellent olivio. It worked out so well. Thanks.

[@OlivioSarikas]

Thank you, Pete. happy to help

[@marciocarneirosantos]

You are genius!

[@pariah73]

I really enjoyed the tutorial but I was also wondering at the 'why's' of how the inversion targets specific colors and I have to admit I don't understand it yet lol..I thought I would try your technique and also a different technique. Using your method, I got more or less the same results as you did. The second time I converted the image to LAB and made a curves adjustment to the A and B levels, added an unsharp mask and got a result with the darks not quite so dark and the fluorescent lights less blown out. Thank you for the tutorial, as always!

[@OlivioSarikas]

Hi Pariah, that sounds like an interesting technique too. You can read online about what exactly the blend modes do with the layers and that will give you a good insight into why it works that way :) I will try your method to and maybe use it in another video about restoring old photos. Thank you :)

[@odbphoenix2820]

Great tutorial! Thank you for the information.

[@odbphoenix2820]

It worked perfectly!

[@ittebellu9649]

Wonderful - thank you! 👍👍👍

[@CProton69]

Awesome thank you so much.

[@ianmacdonald6995]

Great and simple many thanks Olivio, only one problem is after following the instructions very carefully it still doesn't work the same as yours, am I missing something as I see affinity photo is now updated to the latest Affinity Photo, many thanks Ian M

[@UnusualAttitudes]

Wow- very interesting & useful! Thank you!

[@brianhorrocks5757]

Very interesting technique, great.

[@MsShand-qh2jp]

Great Tutorial, looking forward to more

[@howlinmad03]

This is WITCHCRAFT man! I don't think I have ever seen a tutorial quite like this one. It blew my mind! Thanks

[@jantepas7511]

Thanks for this fast method. Great.

[@OlivioSarikas]

Thank you, jan :)

[@60secmusic96]

Awesome! You know, what to do!

[@OlivioSarikas]

Thank you, 60sec Music

[@60secmusic96]

@@OlivioSarikas thank you for the lot of good and inpiring work!

[@tomszabo5552]

Thank you for the video. You are correct in that this method is different from adjusting hue saturation and color levels. I have a color photo I'm trying to restore. The image has sections partially faded. So some sections are almost original color but other areas have faded. Almost as if something covered a portion of the photo to protect the original color, allowing other areas to fade. I've tried your method in this video. In addition I tried to make color changes to a duplicate layer with bad results, with the idea of using a mask layer to only show the improved sections of the layer. I had no luck with this method either. Do you have any suggestions?? If you would like to view the actual image, I can email it to you.

[@seecraig]

Perhaps you can explain why this fixes the color. It's as if inverting creates ways to remove the sepia/brown but does it correctly relative to the specific colors involved.

[@OlivioSarikas]

Hi seecraig, truth to be told: I don't know. All i know is that i look at the screen and the colors look right ;) Now, keep in mind that every photo is not 100% copy of what really happened there. That's why we have all these adjustments and filters - to make it look the way we feel it should look. A photo doesn't have a original it becomes the original every time we change it. Very philosophical, i know :)

[@Aeppler65]

That’s amazing!!

[@robertbissett]

Did a screen capture and tried Paintshop Pro's Fade Correction adjustment which often does a good job. Not so good on this image. Followed your method in Affinity Photo with similar results. Here are the steps. Hope I got it right. 1. DUPLICATE 2. IMAGE TO PIXEL, RASTERIZE 3. LAYER, UP LEFT > INVERT 4. BLEND > OVERLAY 5. EFFECTS > GAUSSIAN BLUR > 300 PXLS, PRESERVE ALPHA 6. DUPLICATE ORG. > RASTERIZE > MOVE TO TOP 7. NEW DUP. > FILTERS > BLUR > AVERAGE > BROWN 8. LAYER > INVERT TO BLUE > BLEND > COLOR BURN BLEND SETTINGS > SOURCE LAYER RANGES > LEFT DOT DOWN 9. UNCHECK LINEAR > PULL MIDDLE OF CURVE TO RIGHT/DWN 10. ADJ. LAYER > LEVELS > BOTH SIDES TO START OF GRAPH > GAMMA TO LEFT A LITTLE 11. LIVE FILTER > UNSHARP MASK > TO TOP > RADIUS 1.5? > THRESHOLD > 0 > FACTOR > ADJUST

[@OlivioSarikas]

Thank you for sharing that List of Steps, Robert :)

[@RamiroRon]

Thanks for post this new method. Great Solution! Please, help us to process a photo, from negative color film 35 mm

[@dro7684]

Olivio, you should include a link to the photo you are working on. That way we can practice along with you. The original photo being so hazy, I would have tried Dehaze or Haze Removal first. Is that OK?

[@OlivioSarikas]

Hi Dr O, thank you for telling me. Usually i include the source link with every video. I updated the video description to include the link now :) You could try using dehaze. Maybe that works great too :)

[@dro7684]

I used dehaze to set the stock photo then I did curves adj, color balance adj, white balance adj, and the Unsharp mask you suggested. It came out very good. The fluorescent lights in these trains were very bright. The black man's tie has red and black diamonds and the woman on the right has dark pink pants with a crease. The black man reading the newspaper in the far right is Ralph. LOL Thank you.

[@romanverton4276]

Thank you for the technique! I tried it on some 50 years old digitized positives and the results are more than satisfactory. But it would be highly appreciated if you could possibly make a tutorial on working with digitized color negatives. For now I use curves, levels, white balance, etc. to eliminate that blue tint that images have after inverting. But I believe that making all those adjustments leads to losing original colors of a film.

[@OlivioSarikas]

Hi Roman, maybe half a look at my tutorial about levels. This might help you adjust the colors and get rid of the blue tint :)

[@romanverton4276]

@@OlivioSarikas Thank you, your tutorial on levels is very informative as is always the case with your videos. For now I have found out that the best way to develop digitized negatives for me is as follows: 1) load a RAW file for development 2) in Develop persona use Curves to reverse colors 3) sharpen if needed 4) click Develop 5) go to Levels adjustments and shift handles to eliminate empty parts on an x-axis for every color. If your photo has a correct exposure the result should be quite satisfactory.

[@JoeHoddinott]

Excellent technique! This works great for discolored photos that went warm (brown) but not so much for old photos that are UV damaged - bleached by sunlight - and fade to cooler blue colors. Do you have a simple methodology for that?

[@OlivioSarikas]

Interesting, good to know. I would have to experiment on that.

[@blueknight9748]

Thanks Olivio,,, this is a way I've never seen.... and to get the green out could you use curves?? dropping the green a little??

[@OlivioSarikas]

Hi blueknight, yes sure you can. Give it a try :)

[@patriciacoveney1]

This was quite fascinating and I look forward to seeing how you fix an old black and white photo. Do you know a way of predicting the original colour of a black and white photo. I recently tried to do this on a 1940s photo portrait using the painting app Procreate. I liked the result but have no idea if I was close to the original. Also can this method of colour fixing be done on affinity photo for iPad? You live in a beautiful city especially for an artist I love Vienna , best wishes and vielen Dank.

[@DoctorZebedee]

Olivio. Sometimes when I restore an old photo, I get squiggles all along some sharp edges (like along a telephone wire against a blue sky). Is there a way to get rid of those?

[@mezbrookscarter8289]

Hi Olivio. Thanks for the great tutorials. I recently bought Affinity photo because I want to take product photos of my products for an online marketplace. Please, could you film a tutorial on how to edit photos for selling products online?

[@OlivioSarikas]

Hi Brooks, product photography is a artform on it's own. And i don't feel qualified to teach about that at all. Check out this channel: kzbin.info/www/bejne/paLEaqOYqLl9h5I However, i AM known to find quick and easy solutions for otherwise costly processes. So, if in doubt you actually can pull of a good "product on one color background" shot, which is pretty hard to do right, do this instead: Get sound rough wood, or some stone pebble or some sand or other rough material, put your product on there and photograph it with your iPhone in Instagram from a dynamic perspective. It's pretty easy to get great shots like that and because of the rough background the not so perfect handheld look actually complements the picture style.

[@johntrueblue]

link to the source file doesnt work.

[@therookiefisherman5234]

Would you help me on advice for a desktop specs that is good for editing, please?

[@OlivioSarikas]

Hi, ufff... i'm really not the guy to ask about that. I basically simply bought the best gear i could afford at the time and 16GB RAM check some benchmark sites and read some articles. also i build my machine not just for photo editing, but also for streaming, video cutting and music production. so i need different specs

[@janjacques6148]

Bedankt

[@OlivioSarikas]

Thank you my friend

[@Nocomment1]

Good work but I can't find a tutorial on how to color correct portions of the picture that are hazy and discolored without interfering with the good portions of the picture😒

[@joeljrichards]

A lot of green in the shadows still.

[@dandaman456]

I must disagree with the majority of comments. Is it a useful solution - yes. Are the steps described well - yes. However, there is no explanation as to why this works. I want to know the why.

[@maik7571]

Sie machen so schöne Videos. Können sie nicht auch mahl bei gelegenheit was Deutsches Produzieren. Danke

[@timbaker2739]

Perhaps you need to look up the word automatic. This is certainly not automatic,

[@DiegottlosenCharmeure]

the tutorial is useful for sure, but please fix the color of your beard.

[@OlivioSarikas]

no ;)

[@DiegottlosenCharmeure]

@@OlivioSarikas aber es brennt in den augen zu viel gamma!