Restoring an old photo

Posted by Photo Restoration Man on May 3, 2010

Photo restoration of old photos with faces in is by far the trickiest of them all. It may not be known how the facial features appeared in the original and there may also be no reference. If this is the case then these features have to be retouched from pieces of the original photo. The restoration will have to down to the artists ability to recreate the face realistically and true to the character of the photo.

Photo restoration and rebuilding a face with a piece missing

In this close up crop of a photo, a grade 3 restoration, the nose and eyes are almost completely gone. There is no reference photo for the missing eyes and nose. This restoration was performed by taking what little information there was and teasing it out to complete the picture. A patch of skin tone was first applied to the nose area and then shaded in to match. The tiny piece of eye was cut and enlarged and flipped and then using the eye lines and pupil the missing eye was slowly rebuilt. The nose was built from the existing nose texture and then shaded and blended the texture.

These is no magic wand for a photo restoration like this, it is time and care that makes a face with a missing piece become whole again. It can sometimes seem that the final outlay for such a small amount of damage does not equate and that the effort that is put into restoring old photos is harder to appreciate.

“I was truly delighted with the photo restoration achieved by Image Restore. The 90 year old photo was badly damaged, particularly round the facial area. By the time Neil had worked his magic you wouldn’t have known it wasn’t in original condition. The work was turned round very quickly and communications were excellent throughout. Highly recommended.” L Davis 1st May 2010

This entry was posted on May 3, 2010 at 9:34 pm and is filed under photo repair, Photo Restoration, Photographic restoration, Photographic restoration techniques. Tagged: Photo Restoration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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