Photo Restoration

Family

It’s fun to trace and record your family history, and even more so if you have pictures of your forebears, their homes and their lives.

However, so often the photos are not in very good shape. They are probably faded, quite likely scratched or stained, and may even have pieces missing. If you are lucky enough to have pristine photos, you may not want to display them and expose them to potential damage and deterioration.

We can digitally restore the photographs, removing scratches and stains, improving the contrast and color (if any), and even re-creating missing areas. We can then produce new prints or electronic images for your records or display – all without altering or risking damage to your precious originals.

Below you will find some examples of old photos that we restored and what we did to achieve the finished product. Afterwards, you can see large versions of all of these restorations and others in the photo gallery.

Old Snapshot & Obituary

This client had only a faded and tattered snapshot of her grandfather (the train driver), and a torn and stained newspaper clipping of his obituary notice.

We were able to produce a much improved photograph by removing the scratches, tears and spots, boosting the contrast and rebuilding the lost corner.

We then found an appropriate ‘period’ frame and combined the photo with the obituary text in a custom dual mat.

The client ordered three copies – one for display in her home, and two as gifts for other family members.

Typical Degraded Family Snapshot

Here’s a fairly typical example of a valuable, but degraded, family snapshot.

It needed some stain removal and significant increases in contrast, hue and saturation.

Sometimes It's Too Far Gone

Sometimes a client’s photo will be just ‘too far gone’ for us to produce a high quality result.

However, even in this extreme case, we were able to enhance the faint image sufficiently for some of the people to be identified.

Victorian Photo in Pieces

This extensively retouched Victorian photo arrived in twenty-two pieces! (Originally attached to cylindrical glass, it had been flattened for storage.)

Restoration required rebuilding of missing areas, as well as improvements in tone and color.

Gallery

Photo Restoration