Photo Restoration Blog

Archive for the ‘photo restoration’ Category

So many posts about photo restoration, but what can be done to prevent photo restoration in the first place?

I guess the obvious one is look after your photos!  What I am really talking about is thinking first before your store your photos.

How to store photos – Keep them dry and flat

• Wherever you store your photos make sure they are kept some where dry! This may seem obvious but keep them flat too, not thrown in a drawer or piled up randomly.

• What to store them in?

• If your photos are in albums that they can removed from, store them in either acid free photo pockets, polypropylene or polyester pockets are the ones to go for. Avoid all others as overtime the plastics can leach into the photos and damage them.

• You could re mount them in an album using an acid free archival album with built-in overlay sheets to hold them in place.

• If you photos are really large then place a sheet of acid fee tissue paper between then before the next step.

• Put them in an acid free photo storage box

Where to store them?

• Photos have to breathe so make sure they are stored somewhere dry and not cold and damp. Spare shelf inside the bedroom wardrobe or storage chest at the foot of the bed.

• Statistically the driest place is the box room or spare room, there are fewer pipes to burst and no on suite to flood.

• Perhaps it may be a good idea to pick the room furthest away from your loft or attic water tank as well just in case of burst there too.

• Don’t put the in the basement or attic / loft. They are either prone to damp or excess heat.

• If you look after your photos then hopefully you will not need my services!

If you have any further advice to give why not leave a comment?

One of my customers wanted me to share this image of her late mother with you all.

The restoration was not the most trickiest of restores but was satisfying to complete. Here is the video. The rebuilding of the radiator and sleeve took a while. You can see from the video how much attention was paid to the recreation.

What if Titanic photos were retouched by editors, how does this portray the great ship? A rare photo may show this is just what happened!

The Titanic is steeped in mystery, dramatic stories of life and death and survival but what if those early photo were retouched?

I was fortunate enough to restore a rare photo of the Titanic from an avid collector of Titanic Memorabilia. He has allowed me to use this photo in this blog post as it shows the now famous Titanic photo of “letting go the rope” at Southampton docks, in an altogether different light.

You may have seen this image on many websites, for sale or even on museum walls. It normally depicts a scene of what looks like a clear crisp April morning  but was that exactly how it was and was the great ship so romantic looking? If in doubt simply Google the image and you’ll see what i mean. Here is a quick example.

The normal depiction of Titanic at Portsmouth

Below is the Titanic in a perhaps more accurate representation.

Print of Titanic 1912 Portsmouth rare new depiction - (un-restored version with light damage)

This restored scan of fiber based silver halide print of the Titanic shows an altogether different ship. Was this an early version of this famous photo, perhaps even the original one? The sky is not clear at all but choked in smoke from the funnels, neighboring tug boats also belching smoke adding to the smog. The sky way above the ship stained with burnt fuel in a thick haze. This image is clearly a very different one from what you see in the press! The famous photo you see is perhaps not what you imagine it to be!

Print of Titanic 1912 Portsmouth rare new depiction - (restored version)

Versions of this photo in the press and public eye show a cleaner, more romantic version, with cleaner plumes of smoke, perhaps more like we imagined them to be, like a quaint cottage in a landscape painting with a gentle whiff of smoke from the chimney.

This article is solely the opinion of the author.