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Perhaps your digital photo has too much contrast, and you can't make out the details of the items caught in the brightest spots. Or maybe your photo has faded with time, and the image has lost fine details. Are the details lost forever? Probably not, assuming that you have time, patience, and the right tools to bring them back to life.
Choosing the revival method
The method that you use to bring back lost details varies by the situation and the situation's cause. For example, if the photo lost its details to too much light, using the Burn tool reduces the light and brings out the missing features, textures, or whatever the light has blighted. If the details are hidden in shadow, the Dodge tool can shed some light on these details and reveal them once again. Adjusting contrast and brightness levels can revive details lost to too much or too little of those levels, and you can even use color to bring things out. How do you choose? The best strategy is to figure out what went wrong and reverse it, using a tool that applies the opposite attribute.
Recreating lost detail
 | If you're skilled, patient, and have good eyesight, you may be able to zoom in extremely close to your image and use painting and drawing tools to re-create details that are irretrievably lost. You have to be very careful, though, and avoid it in faces and natural things (such as flowers and plants) because you may find it nearly impossible to keep the subject looking natural. Your changes usually look noticeably drawn, and they end up drawing attention to the problem. You can, however, recreate textures (such as a brick wall or a stubbly patch of cement) and industrial or man-made items (such as the edge of a car bumper or the handle on an umbrella). You can get surprisingly good results, even if you're a bit shaky on the mouse. |
You can use your image editor's Paint Brush and Pencil or similar tools to draw missing items. The keys to your success are
- Setting the brush or pencil to a very small size (3 or fewer pixels).
- Zooming in as close as you can. (Be prepared to zoom back out periodically to check your progress and see your work in context.)
- Working slowly and deliberately.
 | Does what's missing appear elsewhere? If so, steal a copy and replace the missing detail. You can replace lost content with faces, furniture, grass, trees, walls, cars, and sleeping dogs by using the editing tools that your image editor offers. |
Not to be negative (pardon the photographic pun), but sometimes lost detail is simply lost. If an overzealous flash completely washed out someone's face, short of drawing in his or her features by hand, you may not be able to bring back eyelids, a nose, cheekbones, the contour of his lips, and so on. Not every photo can end up framed and admired, or viewed by adoring millions online. If you use every brightness, lighting, and contrast tool that your software has to offer to no avail, you can try a different or more powerful package, or you can do your best and hope nobody notices that Aunt Mary doesn't have a nose.
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