How does someone go about restoring an old or damaged photo? How would you breathe new life into something so old and weathered?
Well, it’s not easy, we’ll tell you that! But it ultimately depends on: 1) what kind of work needs to be done to the photograph and 2) if you want either the actual photo restored or if you want it to be turned into a digital restoration instead. Our digital restoration services can restore your damaged photos to new by using the latest and greatest graphical image manipulation technology to date. This is the route you want to go in if your photograph is in a state of intense deterioration.
So How Does it Work?
The digital photo restoration, one of the more common forms, is actually quite difficult.
You start with a high-resolution scanned copy of the photo. (NOTE: the original copy of your photo will be returned to you in the same condition that it was received. It will NOT be altered.) We then evaluate the photo and make notes about where it will need digital alterations, and how to go about them.
Restoration Process
Once the photo is scanned and evaluated, it’s cropped to specify the working areas. Any “obvious” problems such as spots, tears, holes, cracks, fading, stains and scratches are removed. The overall color and contrast is usually altered as well. All of these steps are taken to present a clean and clear working photograph.
Image manipulation programs such as Adobe Photoshop are usually used to patch, “heal” and clone certain spots of the photo. The program (usually) knows how to automatically identify problem areas. Using the built-in tools usually mean you’ll need to work around with them a lot, trying different things out until you get the desired effect.
From there we will touch up the details using some of the tools in our digital manipulation program, trying to match it as close as we can to the original. A photo that’s restored to the likeness of the original will be not only free of defects, but it’ll be colorized correctly (and free from fading), it will be of a high resolution, and it will be clean. Check out some of our digitally restored photos below!
