I love the heal tool, I recently upgraded to Photoshop 7, and was sent on a mission to fix this picture of my grandparents, its about 50 years old (Few years over) He's been dead for quite a while (20? years ago) and she lives down by Corpus Christi, its been pretty strange working on this picture For the after picture, see the next post

Aaand after

Siiince I forgot my comment, has anyone else done any sort of restoration with this sort of thing? or do anything quite as helpful ? .) sorry, maybe enjoying myself too much, heh

Attached Link: http://www.retouchpro.com/

Nice job! Bet your granny will really like this for Christmas! The link here is real nice for this sort of thing.

That is a very good link. Some very good retouch or recovery techniques. Some professional and very workers Bill

Nice effort...

It seems to me that not to long ago someone posted a message asking about how people here in the forum can make some money to support their photo habits. This is certainly one way to do that. The trick is in getting the work to begin with.

With some well planned self-promotion, home based marketing and a reasonable pricing structure one could easily go head to head with local color labs in their area. Just as an FYI... Here in Central NY (middle of the state) the going rate at most professional labs for restoration is between $60.00 and $80.00 per hour.

great job! my mom has been sending me photos to touchup, gets a bit tedious but her happiness with the results make it all worth it :) bet there's more waiting for you .. wanders off to check out the link...

That's a very good idea, Alpha. Once again, showing that others' brains work much better than mine. It seems that it could be a tricky path to walk in the Internet, though. How would one accept a job and promise a good return? What I mean is...someone submits a photo to you. You say you can fix it. Do you get paid up front? What if the customer is not happy? Or do you show them first and if they approve, then get paid? What if they just "snag" the retouch? But, back to topic. I've fallen in love with the new bandaid/heal thingie. I've wanted to sound off about it but have restrained myself 'cause I know it's an expensive app (PS-7) and some can't afford it.

While the web is one way to approach this, and IMO a web site would certainly help for displaying your skills, I was really thinking of people marketing their talents in the communities they live in as their primary source of business. I have been after my son (the human sloth) to do this for a while now.

The plan is fairly simple... Take an old photo and restore it to pristine condition. Now layout a design that shows the before and after along with contact information and anything else you think is important (IE. we also make custom greeting cards, calendars, etc.). Make about 20 prints of this on high quality photo paper, and mount those on some single weight matt board. If you want to get real fancy allow enough space on the board to attach a business card holder, so your cards are easily available to potential clients. Now make a trek around your community to find all the places that allow people to post personal, and/or small business ads on a public bulletin board. Make sure you ask permission and find out any pertinent details. Usually these type of bulletin boards are found in supermarkets, drug stores, libraries, etc... My guess is that a project of this nature would cost about $30.00 to $50.00 in materials plus your time. This is a really low investment for the potential return.

I would also consider advertising in whatever small weekly papers are in your area. Generally the rates in these papers are quite low, and (more importantly) the are well read by older persons (the people most likely to want this type of work done).

Now add a web site into the mix that focuses only on the services you are going to offer, and displays them well. I do not think that I would try to sell this service directly online at first. The site would be more of an online portfolio that emphasizes you talents, and provides contact information for potential clients. Again this is a low investment (except for your time) proposal. Setting up a commerce site is fairly involved and is something I would rather see people grow into as opposed to attempting right off the bat.

The only area left is your pricing structure...

My suggestion here is that you call around to any local businesses that offer this service and get some quotes. The best way to handle this is to go to their establishment with an old photo in hand, and ask for a quote. Armed with this information, you can set your pricing to be competitive without screwing yourself, or your clients. Keep in mind that aside from your time there is also materials involved, and that all businesses have a markup on the materials they sell as part of a project.

Well that's it for now. I think if anyone is interested in this, there is enough here to start the wheels turning.

Well, Alpha, that certainly is a lot of good information! And, certainly generous of you to take time to type it up and post it here. If there were other money-makikng ideas, seems like it might be something nice for the Resource area.