Your very first time...

[Doug Nelson]

I'm wondering how y'all first caught the restoring bug?

As for me, I've always been into photography. I started fiddling with an instamatic when I was 8, and had my first darkroom when I was 12.

At age 18, after dropping out of college (different story) I got a job at a camera shop. This was in 1978. One of my duties was to run the copy camera (a Polaroid MP-4, to this day a nice setup). We used a Polaroid film that made a negative after you soaked the backing in a special solution, then sent the negative for printing.

We got a lot of straight photo copying business, and later on after I had my own custom lab I started cultivating that type of market. One day I got a request from an old lady that wanted her head superimposed onto a group shot of her high school reunion (she couldn't be there for the shot).

I'd never tried anything like this before, and it prompted me to learn about airbrushing, friskets, etc. That's when I caught the bug. It was 10 years before Photoshop came onto the scene.

[akj]

Whew Doug, your subject line had me a little worried there for a minute . . .

Anyway, I took a Photoshop class where we were asked to experiment with different layer modes. I slapped a color mode layer on top of a black and white photo of my dad and accidently started painting on it. What a surprise I got! I thought, "So this is how they do this . . ." Next we learned about color correction and curves and I was hooked. I found Katrin's book at Amazon and that's how I got here.

I took the Photoshop course to help me with the web design work I do and now I find myself heading in a different direction. Ain't that the way it always goes??

Amanda

[Ed_L]

Wow! I thought we might have a thread that needed to be deleted!

Back in the 70's I asked my aunts and uncles if they had any family photos I might use to copy. There was a good response to this, which is where most of the archive photos came from. I had a B&W darkroom, and I tried different things to improve on the looks of the originals. I had limited success on many of them. Then many years later, we got our first computer, and I heard about Photoshop, but couldn't afford it. I tried a couple of different image editing programs, but there was very little written about them, and even less available through the internet at that time. It seemed overwhelming to me. Some time later, my kids got together and bought Photoshop for me for Christmas, and that's how I got started. I'm still in the beginner stage, but thanks to good books and good tips from the 'net, I'm learning. Of course *THIS* is the place to be if you want to learn.

Ed

[Chris W.]

Well where to start!

After being self taught in different jobs like real estate, court reporting, para-legal and many office type jobs I was still bored. You learn it and then the challenge was gone.

The only thing that seemed to keep my attention and offer a continuing challenge was the computer. I messed with doing things like the little greeting cards and labels and designing different projects at home but when we moved to the country I found all this extra time to really have fun with it. I began doing business cards and graphic design for local businesses and then they wanted web sites so learned that and started providing that service. All through this I had used photoshop but only the basic functions. I've always loved photography and still would like to improve my skills in that area but soon local people wanted me to start making copies of pictures for them and needless to say the originals were not in the best shape..I guess my perfectionism took over as I just couldn't stand making copies of something that wasn't good. Hence the restoration took over. I haven't been doing this long, about a year. I do love it though and know I have a long way to go to get it down to where I'm happy with my quality...others like it but I'm just not satisfied with it..because I know I can do better.

Gosh, sorry I rambled on and on...I love to talk and visit with people as you can tell.

[kathleen]

zero zippo nada photography background, but strong visual/design leanings lifelong. love for "the story", and old photos are full of them.

took ad. design class @ cc last yr. that gave me my first taste of photoshop, but no restoration per se. had an 8x10 of the 1899 family saloon in chicago with my great great grandfather's name above it half obliterated; restored that to my immense satisfaction, been learning daily ever since. plan to learn much more here.

[DJ Dubovsky]

I have always liked all kinds of art especially airbrushing but it was my husband (computer programmer/engineer) who got Photoshop for me. It looked overwhelming so for a long time I never did much on it. Then one day when I was playing around with it discovering the bells and whistles as it were, I got a call from my sister in law who asked if I would be able to color an old black and white photo. I said I don't know, let me see. So while I was talking on the phone to her I started coloring a photo in Photoshop. By the end of the conversation I said yes I think I can. Send it to me. That was the Xerox to painting photo on that webshots page. It became more of a painting than a photo. After that I was incouraged to learn more and haven't stopped since. I love it. Best of all, I don't have to clean up the airbrush and paints when I'm done.
DJ

[thomasgeorge]

I got hooked ,serious like, after playing with PS 4. During my career as a Firefighter the one thing which always sort of hurt was to see folks in a daze wandering around the remains of their burned out homes or apts. and the one thing they would all do was to try to find their photos,which were usually in a most sad state. I always wanted to be able to do something but at that time there was nothing which could be done. After retiring I started playing with digital astrophotography and then things just sort of took off from there. When I got my hands on PS 4 the light clicked on and, having played with photopaint 4, I saw that here was a vastly different and better product and now I could do something to REALLY restore old and damaged photos, so I hit the ground running and never looked back. Tom