The black and white conundrum

This is about the black and white conundrum when restoring black and white photographs.

I have chosen this photo because it best illustrates exactly what I mean.

Photos fading and turning brown

All photos fade eventually. The emulsions that are create the photograph on paper break down. It just depends on how quickly they do so.

The more a photograph is exposed to the atmosphere and light, the faster it will happen.

Black and white photos can turn brown over time. This is usually due to exposure to light, especially sunlight and general atmospherics.

If the photo has been poorly developed, this too can be a cause.

I have had a lot of black and white photos to restore and some of them, like this one, have a brown tinge to them. This particular photo has only a slight browning, while others could be mistaken for sepia photos.

For me, this just shows their history and can be likened to an antique, which has a “patina”.

Patina is something people crave: like rust, flaking paint, scratches and dents … whatever. They all come together to show the item’s history.

So, I have to wonder, is it better to be sympathetic to a photo’s journey and repair obvious damage, but leave the brown tinge, or should I restore it back to new?

To fully restore or to be sympathetic

Obviously, sometimes it’s right to leave that aged appearance.

Other times, restoring back to ‘as new’ is the right thing to do, especially if the client has specifically asked for it as part of the photo restoration. Sometimes however, this decision is left to me. The finish is not mentioned.

Whatever the condition of the photo, it may be the only one in existence, so for the client it could be priceless. So it goes without saying that of course, I want to do my best when restoring someone’s picture. I can only imagine the memories that might be associated with it.

Many people want these old monochromatic pictures tinted or colourised, which isn’t strictly restoration. Equally, a large number of people want that old look. So how far do I go with the restoration?

Often, the hair styles, clothing and many other factors can place a scene photographed into a specific period in history, so does it really matter? I think so.

The condition of this photograph

This photo has creases that run across the entire photograph, some of which are across the woman’s face in several places. there is also a portion of the photograph missing from the top right-hand corner.

The vibrancy of the photo was also fading, though not too much, so certain levels also needed to be adjusted.

The fix

In this instance, I first recreated the top corner, continuing the wall to the top of the picture. Then, I cleared the creases.

Mostly, this wasn’t a difficult task to complete, however, I left the reconstruction of the face until last.

The creases went through the woman’s eye, mouth and nose. Some of it was pretty simple to fix. The eyes however, require quite a bit of precise workmanship, because it’s so easy to spot if they’re not right. After all, get them wrong and the likeness of the person can disappear.

In this instance, the fix was relatively minor and to just one eye.

Level adjustments

The original had a brown tinge to it, which was probably due in part to its age and possibly due to not having been processed correctly at the time it was developed. There’s therefore a question mark over whether to remove this and revert to pure black and white or whether to adjust the levels so that this almost sepia tint remains, yet the photograph’s image is cleared, sharper and has better contrast.

For the client, I chose to leave the photo as it was. I had no way of knowing whether the photograph hadn’t always had that sepia-type tinge to it. So, I simply adjusted and enhanced what was there to retain the older-style look, while improving the quality of the image. Below is what the image would have looked like as a purely black and white image.

There wasn’t too much difference between the black and white and the tinged photo, but for me, not only did the photo retain its historic appearance, but also had a much warmer fee to it than that of the black and white version. Thankfully, the client thought as I did.