Photograph of a 1949 couple for restoration and colourisation.
The car in the background further shows this picture’s age! Some of the damage gave cause for concern because it actually interfered with the man’s facial features.
That’s always an issue because trying to restore features with no reference material is difficult. It’s down to the restorer to either try and extrapolate or basically guess at what should be there.
Nevertheless, there was still a whole load of creases to deal with before getting to the man’s face.
The completed restoration
The repairs weren’t actually as difficult to deal with for the most part as expected. Of course, when the restoration involves lots of fiddly bits, that ups the time it takes. However, it’s really just a case of taking it slowly and dealing with one element at a time.The face was quite a test. Restoring the eye and the side of the face wasn’t a problem in my mind, but whether what I did would not retain the likeness, yet still bring the restoration to a standard the customer would be happy with.There are many apps out there that profess to be able to enhance photos, but generally, they simply replace one element for another. What they don’t seem to do, is pay attention to replacing “Uncle Bert” with a clearer version of him. Often, they replace the subject with a somewhat generic face that’s not quite the person concerned.I worry about stuff like that, which is why I don’t use apps of that nature. I would rather enhance what’s there and make it better, not try to produce something that looks new, yet isn’t “Uncle Bert”.
The colourisation complete
To finish off, I actually went where I don’t usually go. Colourising.
This can look fake, which is why my preference is to go with leaving the photographs in the same tones I found them with. This way, they retain their authenticity, undamaged.
This way, they can live on in a digitised format that won’t degrade.
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