Old Things Made New

 --- the art of photo restoration:

I've rolled up my sleeves and am delving hard and furious into the project I started a few years ago of scanning all of the photos in Mom's "box."  When I started doing this, I would stop and "fix" each photo before I moved on to scanning the next.  Right now I am just scanning, flaws, torn corners, 'noise' and all.  Maybe one day I can go back and fix them all, but for now I'm concerned about getting them all scanned electronically.  

Before

After

There is definitely a certain amount of art that goes into repairing old photos.  The collar on the picture of my mother above involved recreating or redrawing an image that no longer existed after a portion of the photograph had been torn.  It will never look the way it did originally, but at least it gives the appearance of a whole picture now.



Before


The picture above of my father's family outside their basement home in Twin Falls, Idaho, had multiple areas that needed repairing.  If you look close you can see the tear across the white shirt of my Uncle John D and into the shoulder of my Uncle Bill's shirt.  There are numerous scratches and tears and pits in the original that came with the ravages of time on an unprotected picture that are especially noticeable when you look at this photo in the original size - which is very large.

After.  Back row:  Gordon, John D., Junior (my father), Vernon    Front row: Bill, BerthaMae (Grandma Hansen), Jim, L.A. (Grandpa Hansen), and Veon.

I still need to complete the project and clean up the issues on the right side of the photo, but the problems showing up through the important parts (all the people) have been corrected in this version.  I love the ability we have to make old things appear new through the use of computer power.

I am also grateful for black and white.  The old photographs, above, in spite of brittle splits and aging cracks, are still incredibly viewable.  Unlike photos taken with color just sixty years ago:

Photo taken around 1950.  My Mom is the prettiest one (in the dark shrug)

I am disappointed in how badly these old color photographs have faded.  Pictures I took back when the boys were young are starting to fade, too.  Important reason to scan them quickly before we lose the entire image.
Can they be salvaged?  Yes.  With some effort they can be cleaned up.

A quick pass resulted in this partially restored photo.  But in enhancing colors, it also brought out another distressing detail.  Here is a lesson in how NOT to handle photos and why my mother always said "Do not touch the picture with your fingers" or "Just hold it by the outside edge."    All the smudges?  Yeah, those are fingerprints, and an expert could probably tell you which of us children did not obey our mother.

At this point, this photograph may be better converted to black and white (though that big thumbprint in the upper right is still very obvious):

  Or even have fun with it:  Here's a possibility in watercolor mode:

(By the way, Mom, do you know who the rest of the women are in this picture, when it was taken, and what the wonderful event was that allowed you to all get dressed in ball gowns and get corsages for the occasion?  I'm guessing a Gold & Green Ball, but I could be wrong.  I'm also guessing this was after you and Dad were married, because the date the photo was developed was in 1950.)

I admit I have fun playing with the old photos.  But the important thing is getting them protected.  I've realized as I've gone through the box just how valuable this collection is to our family.  It would be tragic if anything happened to destroy these wonderful images.  And I am so grateful for those who took the time to take the pictures.  What a treasure!

Here are some things I'm learning from the experience:
1.  Always identify the pictures we take with date, names of the individuals in the photo IN THE ORDER in which they appear in the photo, and a little notation about what was happening and where, if applicable.
2.  See Number 1.
3.  See Number 1.
4.  Oh, and that advice about not handling photos with your bare hands - yeah, it is important 60 years from now.