Restoration and repair of old photographs

This lady had been ill for some time, and following her funeral, her relatives wanted a memorial photo depicting her at her best, though not unnaturally so. A picture of her thirty years younger would not have been relevant in this case.

This commission highlighted a common problem in modern life - Families today tend to never think of having a professional photo portrait taken of themselves until it is often too late. What survives of too many people's lives is, sadly, only blurred amateur snapshots, and worse, usually only group shots, where the individual person is almost too small to be recognised. This original photo is a typical case - The lady herself was only one of a group of people sitting on a park bench. With the shot taken from rather too far away, it was difficult to isolate only one figure in the picture and enlarge it without blurring - A special and sensitive challenge for PhotoAltering.co.uk

By the way, if at any time you decide you would like a professional photographic portrait taken of yourself or your loved ones, you can simply contact us at PhotoAltering.co.uk and we will arrange a local representative photographer to contact you to fulfil your portrait wishes -
Remember: Good altered photos begin with good original ones...

To produce the new version above, we first scanned the snapshot at very high resolution. It is always best to provide us with the original negatives if possible, but in most cases we can salvage a fair copy from the original print, and we managed okay in this case.

Our task was to make her look healthier, but not unrealistically younger. There are subtle changes which take place in the human face with age, some noticeable only to the artist's eye - Thus it was these subtle changes that we dealt with primarily. For instance, we very slightly strengthened the lady's jawline and also minutely lengthened her chin. Then we added 'catchlight' sparkles in her eyes to make her appear more youthfully alert. It would have been wrong to eradicate her wrinkles completely - She would have looked 'rubbed out' and artificial, so instead we merely softened the lines in her face.

We could even have added earrings, but decided against it - The family told us she did not normally wear them. All these alterations combined to naturally restore something of the lady's alert vigour before her terminal illness, which is how her family remember her best. Finally, we gave her a slight suntan (as she lived in a Mediterranean environment, this alteration was not inappropriate) and sharpened the focus.

More in the tradition of half a century ago, this family did take the trouble to have a formal portrait taken of themelves, giving us digital photo alterers in the 21st Century something better to work with. However, the picture does not appear to have been taken by a professional - Notice how it is slewed at an angle, and out of focus - You can just make out the wavy-cut line along the bottom where this photo was converted into a postcard, a popular format in the early 20th Century. This also means it was printed on good quality paper, which has doubtless assisted in its preservation. However, it has still faded with age.

By the way, the woman in this picture is the same one as in the colour photo above. The background and setting is uninspiring, although perhaps it has sentimental value - Viewed in historical context, this appears to be one of the first new housing developments during Italy's vigorous financial rebuilding of itself following World War 2. Perhaps, after the ravages of war and and an austere standard of living in the postwar period, this family is now reunited and with new-found prosperity has just moved into one of those new flats in the background, so there is a subtext of optimism and hope in the picture as they stand together on this building site on a chilly but sunny late autumn afternoon in early 1950's Italy.

These are the magical moments that snapshots can often capture - Moments which may sometimes seem so ordinary and dull at the time but in fact, when pieced together with failing but not forgotten memories can bring a family's history back to life with graphic poignancy. Time and money spent on discovering and restoring old photograhs is well worth the investment - It can give us a surer sense of our own identity, a sense of time and place - a sense of value, a sense of 'me'...

So we decided not to cut the people out and stick them into a new or artificially beautiful background - The magic of the picture at a personal level may have been lost if we had. Such decisions are all part of PhotoAltering.co.uk's job - to sensitively consider the mood and historical value of the original picture, and also of course, according to the clients' wishes.

There wasn't much improvement we could make to this picture - It was simply a clean-up and sharpen operation in black and white. The original snapshot was out of focus, so could not be sharpened much. However, we straightened it up, boosted the contrast, and then had to rebuild the ground around the youngest boy's feet following the straightening process, otherwise there would have been a white triangle of empty space at one side. Such are the complications of even a simple restoration job like this. We also painted in the scratches and white dust spots which can be found on most old photographs needing repair.

We could have sepia-toned it, to give that old fashioned 'brown' look, but felt that this would have been inappropriate. Sepia is a characteristic of the very early 20th century and is best left for artistic effects in more posed portraits. This picture is more of a documentary shot and is best left as not looking any older than it already is.

Of course, even with a relatively simple picture restoration job such as this, the added bonus is that we at PhotoAltering.co.uk produce a new electronic version of the old picture which can be can duplicated in any number of copies, printed at almost any size, and distributed anywhere. We printed four copies of this restored photograph which the client then sent to each of the woman's four sons in the picture - They are still alive and live in four different far-flung corners of the globe.