Uncle's Gotta Go...Just Need Dad

This fabulous photo has so many amazing historical details and is truly appreciated by the family holding it in their collection. However, it also holds an opportunity to gain the one and only photo of their ancestor taken at this period of his life. Fortunately it is a very sharp and well-lit photograph, so a close-up of any size was definitely an option.

Cropping this closely means making a higher resolution scan of the original. A closer crop can make for a better image and helps keep the work of removing other people to a minimum. However, it is a personal decision as to how much of the original photo's details will be cut off in the process. Sometimes it is more important to keep the details in the entire photo, especially if it helps link the item to a particular period of time. If you aren't sure exactly how much you want to cut off for the final print, then restore the entire photo and make the decision after you have totally removed the other image(s).

Put the Scissors Down...There's an Easier Way to Remove Someone from a Group Shot

Is your favorite photo of a relative that one where everyone else is in the way? This happens a lot so most people who work with photographs have a "stash" of digital files they fondly call "backgrounds." You can make your own using fairly plain digital paper from a digital scrapbooking kit. Just turn it black and white to use with B&W pics, or change the color and tint to make it work with your color photos. A marvelous set of tools exist in Photoshop Elements and Photoshop to help extract a person from a group without touching scissors to your picture, so it's not as tedious or destructive a task as in days gone by. Add a bit of shading around the edges of the entire photo or just the background if desired and you may just end up with a an amazing new portrait of your ancestor! Just remember that scans of group photos need to be at a higher resolution to ensure your ability to print the cropped photo at your desired size. That means measuring the height of the person you want to extract, figure out how large you want to print the final photo, do the math and scan appropriately. Same size = 300 dpi, twice as large = 600 dpi, three times as large = 900 dpi or more, etc.

Missing Pieces of a Photograph

This photo has suffered so much damage throughout the years, and the family hoped to recover whatever they could of the darling image before it completely fell apart. Fortunately there is enough of the original to "borrow from" to fill in much of the missing areas because the family was not looking to maintain historical accuracy. Budget constraints might cause you to place limits on the extent of restoration done by a professional. Be sure to fully discuss the options of printing a smaller size, cropping to lessen the area to restore, and any other ideas a specialist might suggest. There is a positive side to this limitation of funds you might be facing. In effect, you will end up with what can be considered a "more historical image" when restoration stops short of perfecting such a photo. No matter what level of restoration you can achieve (or afford to have done), the result will always provide you with the joy of a newly-found image for your family to print and share.

Water Damaged Photo

A severely damaged photograph just might be saved by some tight cropping as well as heavy restoration. Before deciding to toss such an image, be sure to look at the background and other parts of the image to see if anything can be "borrowed" to cover the damage. Sure the waves and sand are similar, but the main focus of this priceless image is now back on the girl, and that's how it should be! When scanning such images, you will want to increase the resolution enough to make a 300dpi print of the final cropped image. So if the original photo is half the size you intend the final print to be, scan at 600dpi. Scanning at above 600dpi increases your options regarding print size when the restored photo is cropped tightly.

Yellowing Photo

Ah, those yellowed 70's photos...They just might hold enough color to recover an amazing print. Scanning an image printed on that "bumpy" paper of old yields "dots" which can be overcome by blurring the scanned image a bit. However, if your original is blurry to begin with, you might want to keep the speckled look rather than risk having too blurry a final print. Many of these old pictures need some cropping, so be sure to scan at a high enough resolution to increase the size of the wanted images. In this instance, the original 3.5" square was scanned at 1200dpi, producing a cropped 5" x 7" print.

Making Photos Fit Frames

Sometimes we come upon photos that need more than restoration of cracks, colors, lighting, etc. Ancestors may have cut these treasured images to fit some old or long-lost frame. If you are facing such a situation, look closely at the edges of your photo to see if parts of the image's edges can be used to "fill" or "create" those missing areas. This family's photo was restored to fit an 8"x10" frame.

Crop Photos Carefully

As we look through our old photos, it's tremendously important to keep our eyes open and look at details. Maybe this picture doesn't look like it would be worth the time and effort to restore. After all, it's a strange angle, some dead fish, and the person is almost impossible to identify.

Turns out that's my mom. She'd been fishing with her dad, who took this photo. His shadow can be seen on the right. And quite possibly that shadow would have been cropped had that little detail not been noticed. The other shadow may be my grandma.

Then there's the clothes...Who goes fishing dressed liked that??!! Oh, yeah. That's my fashion-conscious shoe-loving mom--the one who refused to go camping ever because she said she'd had enough of latrines (outhouses) growing up...

That old metal fishing pole is now in our home, next to a blue minnow bucket my grandpa used when he took me fishing. I don't recall the pole, but I do remember little fish swimming in the bucket.

Thankfully my mom remembered having this little picture in her collection. This restored photo will now be placed beside the pole and bucket. It will be a constant reminder of my fisher-mom and my awesome photographer grandpa who bothered to catch on film this little detail of farm life.

Miniature Photo Restoration

The original of this photo was just about 1.25 inches by 1.5 inches, if that. So small. Yet this little photo prompted so many memories about my grandfather, a giant of a man with huge hands toughened by years of working on his farm and automobiles. If you scan these small photos at 2400-3200dpi or thereabouts (like you would a negative or slide), it gives you plenty of pixels to print a large photo. Sometimes the print will look grainy as you look closely. However, hang the print on a wall and you won't notice the imperfections as much. It certainly was worth the effort to restore this little gem of a photo.