If you are wondering whether you should restore your old photographs the first thing you must decide is which problem to fix first. At times it is easy to decide which should be fixed first, some photos might have tears or you may have a photo where your subjects have a bad case of red eye. However, some photos will have a variety of problems and they must be corrected in the proper sequence so when you solve one problem you may be correcting an entirely different problem. Here are a few problems you might attack.

* The first thing to do is handle any structural problems you may have. Torn, or ripped sections of your photos should be scanned and repaired with your photo editor so that you will have a whole picture to work on to correct other problems.

* The next thing you will want to do is to correct any contrast issues. Are your photographs too light or dark? This can be easily overcome using the Brightness/Saturation levels in Photoshop Elements.

* You can next correct simple problems such as “red eye” and dust spot with the Red Eye reduction tool.

* Once you have finished adjusting the contrast you can tackle any other color adjustments you wish to make using modification tools such as the color picker. You can lighten or darken any existing color, or change the color completely to suit your taste.

* Using the cropping tool you can remove or replace any content you do not want in the photo. Simply replace those undesirable objects with a more pleasing background.

All of these repairs can be easily accomplished using an inexpensive program such as Photoshop Elements. Be brave and experiment with your photo editing program. You can always go back and undo anything that does not return the results that you desire.