How do you get a crease out of a photo?

Answer 1

If it is an important and/or very old family keepsake, bring it to a professional who may be able to restore it to close to its original appearance. If it is a photo that you can safely flatten and scan, then a good quality scan will produce an image that can be edited with PhotoShop and other editing programs. Depending on the severity of the crease and what parts of the image are damaged by it, you may be able to do a respectable job restoring a computer version of the photo yourself. If the crease affects only background or clothing, it is easier to deal with. If the crease goes across a face, it may be impossible to edit out. "Stamping" or "Cloning" clothing, furniture, outdoor landscapes and other kinds of background can be easy, because these areas may less critical. You can get creative in how you repair such damage. Faces are altogether different, and even very slight fixes may alter the face in ways that are not acceptable. This depends in part on the size of the face in the image, and how much damage is done by the crease.

One edit of which I'm particularly proud involves a very old photograph of my grandmother who was born in 1899. She was perhaps a teen or in her early 20's at the time the photograph was made. One eye was damaged, I thought, beyond repair. Nothing I did directly to the eye was at all satisfying. She is looking almost exactly straight forward in the photograph. I got the idea to create a reverse image (L-R) of the photo in the same aspect ratio and dimensions as the original scanned image. Now the relatively undamaged eye is a much better approximation of the damaged eye's original appearance than anything I could create. I was able to correct the damaged section with this mirror image of her other eye. For various reasons including slightly different lighting, it is not a completely perfect fix, but it is very satisfying, and a delight to see this damaged old photograph come back to life.