Photo restoration,,,,,,

Greetings!!

Ever have a photo that got damaged over the years?  Perhaps cracked or torn or something spilled on it?  I have had several and hated the idea of throwing them out.  Of course now there are several businesses that restore photos.  And you will pay dearly for their services!!  Recently I have been teaching myself how to restore photos.

With the advent of computers and digital photography it is not impossible for the average person to restore photos without the excessive cost of hiring a professional to do it.  It takes a lot of time and patience and of course a good program or two.  Mine are not perfect yet but they sure do look a lot better than they once did.

Below I have some examples of before and after pictures I have restored.  I am still learning and still playing with it, but I don't think they look bad.  I have printed some of them and hung them on my walls to show off, LOL.  Some I am still working on.  One I did for a friend.  It is of her mother who is deceased.  The picture had a lot of cracks in it.  It was a wallet size she carried in her pocket for years since her mother passed.  The only picture she had.  She was thrilled to get this restored just in time for Mother's Day.

In the program I use I can also "age" the photo to the proper time frame.  Older pictures had distinctive color tones to them depending on the years.  As photography progressed the tints changed.  You can even colorize black and white pictures.  I have not really gotten into that yet because I like keeping them as close to original as possible.

This is the original picture of my Aunt and Uncle on their wedding day.  Not exactly sure of the date but I would put it around 1940.  You can see the cracks and coffee that someone had spilt on it before I got it.  What a mess!  Below are a couple of restored and altered pictures I played with.

 

 

 

The one below is one of my brother's baby pictures.  It was in pretty bad shape as you can see.

 

 

Fixing that torn off corner was a real challenge!  I have put names on a lot of the pictures I have done thinking in the future someone will be going through these after I am gone and wondering who they are.  I guess that is the genealogy in me wanting to preserve photos and information for future generations.  :-)

 

 

The corner is fixed and the cracks and scratches are gone!!

 

Here is one of the 143rd Regiment Company F Officers that I found online.  This is from the Civil War Era which my grandfather served in this Regiment.

 

 

There are spots on the picture and some minor cracking.  I also aged the print to the proper time frame.

 

 

And last but not least, my friend's mother.

 

 

Lots of cracks and that horrible one right across her face!

 

It's not perfect yet and I want to do some more playing with it to see if I can get it smoother, especially on the face, but still an improvement.

 

I have a few more pictures I will show you tomorrow.

 

Until next time,,,,,,,Blessings!!