Trickphoto.com - Graphic Art and photo restoration samples

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First of all, my apologies for slapping my TRICKPHOTO.com url on all pictures, but I have found my pictures used on other websites before, so this is to thwart theft, not for incessant promotion.

Secondly, what I do is take any photo (old family heirloom pics, recent wedding pictures, baby photos, pet photos, vacation photos, home photos) and scan them so that they're saved and then do my magic to a copy of the photo - like colorize, fix tears and such, (remove people in case you have a great pic and maybe broke up with someone, or put someone missing into a photo) and work on the copy creating a whole new picture. **PLEASE scroll down to the section 2 called "Ray and Nancy Forever" and see what I did to an old 1970's faded-out color photo of this couple when they got married outside in this fantastic park ... there were no purple flowers or hearts in the trees, I assure you! I leave a white space for time, date, place and so on, in a nice text like where it says: "Ray and Nancy Forever". Basically, if you can picture something you want done to ANY photo, no matter who took the photo, I can probably do it ! Use your imagination OR use mine!!

 For a brand-new wedding photo, see section 8 !

 Meanwhile, check out any other graphics on this site (like my many CD covers) and I did them ALL.

So, in addition to artistic or business needs, I do scanning, repair and archiving to dvd for your precious photos of family and pets, which can be lost forever in a disaster! That's no joke, btw; watch a person being interviewed on the news after they've sadly lost their home in a tragedy and they always say: "What can't be replaced are the photos." Think about that. I can restore an old photo like the lady on the left, or the Veteran or the little boy and then you get it saved on a dvd that you can take to a printer and get a framed copy of for your walls or a family album. We can also do this all through the mail, so I can work from the originals, unless you can scan them @ 300 dpi minimum. Drop me a line in the contact form to see how to proceed.

These examples of photo repair, book covers, flyers, CD cover designs, even a colorizing of an M.C. Escher piece of art in the lower right corner, are only a fraction of what I've done professionally. But check out the Viet Nam vet's complete reconstruction where he lent me his actual uniform so I could scan the medals and uniform cloth to get it all super sharp. I asked for $200, he gave me $400.00!

ABOUT TRAINING IN PHOTOSHOP WITH ME:

In my teaching of the basics of how to do any of this stuff, I cover everything. I suggest that the serious student get a Wacom graphics tablet such as their "Intuos" model with a six inch pad. I do not work for either Adobe or Wacom, but to get results like I do, you'll need a tablet (a wireless mouse comes with it, along with a great wireless, no-battery stylus that acts like a paintbrush or pen or whatever.) It is the only way to do convincing clouds, strands of hair, etc. (Look closely at my hair in the photo at the top of the site, see how it looks real along the edges against the background? A perfect example!) If you watch the dvd extras of any computer graphics-laden movie like "Lord Of The Rings", you see these artists working and that's what they are using; just look at their desktops when they are being interviewed. They are very dependable and well-built, and mine even was in a flood 8 years ago and still works perfectly. That being said, you do NOT need a tablet to learn but it is an eventuality that you will come to if you're serious ... and I sure wish these companies would pay me to be what they call a "product evangelist"!

https://www.wacom.com/en-us/products/pen-tablets

Remember my Photoshop motto:

"I could Photoshop your head onto a Giraffe and you'd think you were born that way!"

One more thing: If you have a really nice smartphone but still get crappy pictures I can give you a one-time lesson for $15.00 on how to make your pics look mind-blowing right inside the phone, no Photoshop required.

Jared found me at Trickphoto.com and simply wanted the pose on left restored ...

I asked if he had his original uniform because the original photo was faded where his medals and insignias were concerned, so he gave me the uniform exactly as it was in the photo on left and I scanned or photographed each separate item and also color-matched the uniform itself. Also note that the face is "blown out", meaning so much light and fading as to leave no detail. I had to extensively repaint his face. I think I did pretty good. I even gave him a more "military haircut" that he asked for as the picture was taken by a photographer after he returned to the states and he said his hair was too long! So there is far more to do than just adding color to a picture ...

 Note that the sky is hand painted, not a photograph! (If you read above, you saw where I mentioned the Wacom graphics tablet ... this is an example of what you can do, freehand!)

I then "flew in" the flag, a picture I had taken and voila! He loved it so much he paid me double what I asked for and then gave me other projects like the "Captain Of Marines" gig above. Thanks, Jared!

From selling a multi-million dollar building or home to a wedding picture, nothing can be left un-retouched, in my opinion. If a client wants it yesterday or won't listen to reason then it curtails what I can do, but since the above example only took about 3 hours or so, then it pays to be patient...

In the example above, besides overall color maximizing and re-lighting the pic, the notated items in the progression pic in the next section down (the exact way I downloaded from the net) was all to focus the attention on the group.