Newbie help needed

Hi,

I have an old photo (from 1930s - my grandparents wedding photo) that has been ripped and badly repaired (the photo has been taped back together, but there is a gap between the two bits).

As well as this, the photo is not exactly great quality, a lot of scratches, creases etc.

I have scanned it in and had bit of a play with PS, but as I don't really know what I'm doing, I'm not getting very far.

I would like to get it repaired and cleaned up so I can get it printed out and framed for my mum and her brother and sister.

What is the best way in PS to do this, or would PS Elements be better/easier for working on an old photo?

I would appreciate any help.

Thanks.

Hi,
PS is certainly better for this kind of job.
To restore the damaged areas (scratches), use the Patch, Healing Brush, Clone, and Brush tools.
To splice the torn part, select one of those (assuming there are 2 pieces) with Polygonal Lasso Tool (as precisely as you can), then copy it to new layer [Ctrl+J], and clasp it to the other piece. If the piece does not fit in, activate Free Transform [Ctrl+T] and turn or scale the layer. The joint may be retouched as a scratch.

Excellent advice from doubrovski. I would only add that there is a site (thanks to tornupinside for this) that specialises in retouching and restoration. There you will get in-depth help and tutorials on restoring photos. They are very friendly and will even have a go at restoring your image if you upload it to the forum.

http://retouchpro.com