Here are some examples ranging from photos that were taken around 125 years ago to very recent showing that you don’t have to give up when a photo is damaged, worn, or even poorly taken at times by a photographer. It’s hard to believe how many people have shared heartbreaking stories of the photography experience they had, this made me want to see what I could do to help recover images & have added it as an option within my business as it’s another way to help preserve memories for others. It is my sincere hope that you are encouraged by seeing some of the potential through the examples below in case you or anyone you know ends up in these disheartening situations!
My mom had reached out to me with some images of my grandparents when they were younger including this one of Nana from when she was 16 (she is now 97) and asked if there was anything I might be able to do to recover part of it, the only copy was the one on the left from a scrapbook unfortunately, initially this image took a few hours to clean up but then with some new software this fall I decided to test my updated process and got this result in 45 minutes.
My Aunt sent me this image of my Great Great Grandmother Lucinda Ada Hunt which appears to have been taken in the 1890’s or thereabouts, since it was a very low res image (less than 100kb if I recall correctly) I wasn’t sure what I would be able to do even with the newer software I’ve added to my process, needless to say we’re all quite pleased with the result particularly considering this took 1 hour of editing.
An Example of a 15 Minute Restoration Project - Before Image her face was Out of Focus, the White Balance is Bluish Green, there is a lot of Noise in the Colors, & this was cropped which left it needing some detail improvement with resolution which is easily seen particularly in the face details. Just because an image is a little off such as this one doesn’t mean all hope is lost, there are more things that can be done but this was a 15 minute challenge to show what can be possible!
Here is an image of my Great Grandpa Viar with his horse Prince, I was testing my updated process including the colorizing aspect & this took 1 hour to edit. As you can see from the other images, the editing times can vary depending on the photo & some photos are able to be improved more with less time, it depends due to many variables everything from the location of damage, the starting resolution, how much of the image is pure black or pure white which means zero detail to bring back, etc… and all of this is why I have people send the image to me before I offer an estimate so I can be as accurate as possible with the labor costs.