I was working on an Extended Story recently and decided I wanted to show Addie a picture of me at the same age she is in the birthday photos I was scrapbooking. I headed downstairs to my file box and pulled this 8x10 photo from the folder marked 1965—1975. The surface was not clean and the colors were faded. I bet his has happened to you. What do you do next? I’m going to walk you through my most trusted photo fix process, step by step.

1. I use a piece of real cotton and some un-du Original Formula Sticker, Tape and Label Remover (I know, quite a name!) to clean up the emulsion side of the photo. This will remove most finger prints, dirt and dust without harming the photo in any way.

2. Next I scan my photo using my Canon printer/scanner at 600dpi and save it as a .TIFF file. These are the settings in your scanning software/app that will give you the best results for photos. If you’re scanning a document, you can scan at 300dpi or less. When I’m scanning a one-of-kind photo to create a digital file I use a TIFF because no image data is lost after scanning. TIFF is a great choice for archiving images when all detail must be preserved and file size is not a consideration. TIFF files are very large in size compared to JPEGs because no compression is used.

3. I then import my scanned image into my Photos program, so that it will be stored in iCloud with other images. I generally add a brief description and change the date, so that it comes up closer to when it was actually taken. For example, I changed the date on this picture from 3.11.2020 to 3.11.1973 —I don’t know the specific day it was taken, only the year, but now it will be shown in searches as being taken in 1973.

4. After a few minutes I am able to view this image on my iPhone. This is important because I actually prefer to edit my images on my iPhone using the PicTapGo app (also available for Android). This app is SO EASY to use as you can actually see the results of correcting filters and then you can adjust the strength of that filter.

In the first image you see a photo library as viewed on an iPhone—look for the image of the boy swimming. In the second image you see that same photo with a dozen or more different filters. You can simply select the filter you want and then adjust how much of it you want.

Most of the time I choose to simply lighten/brighten my image and quite often a adjust the temperature—making slightly cooler or warmer. There are several auto corrects as well—for contrast and color for example that come in very handy.

📸 PicTapGo is hands down my FAVORITE photo app—let me know if you already use it or decide to give it a try.