My grandmother is moving to a nursing home. While sorting out her stuff, we came across a very old photograph of her as a two year old with her family, which dates the photo back to 1931. The photo was in a terrible state and looked almost completely faded (I'll post the original below). I had a go at it with CS4 after scanning the photo and was amazed at what the scanner and computer were able to recover. My granny is the little girl in white front left. The photo was taken in a home garden somewhere in Rotterdam, Holland, before the second world war. My family was extremely happy with the restoration, because it is one of the very few photographs ever made of the family.
Scan: Canon MP640, max. quality settings
PP: ACR 5.1 and CS4, levels adjustment, contrast adjustment, sharpness, local exposure correction, lots of cloning to restore the cracks and remove spots.
Seeing the original, I"m amazed that you tackled this---except for your love for family. Because you didn't give up, you have a wonderful memory for the whole family. A lot of work, but oh, so worth it! Good for you!
Thanks Hazel! Despite the workload it was a very satisfying job to perform. But I have to admit that a simple levels adjustment was already half of the work, which brought back most of the details from the faded photograph.
Saving the ancestors
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