Photos Scanned from Books or Textured Paper

Scanned photos from books and other textured papers sometimes leave you with disappointing images. It's hard to say exactly what resolution to recommend. Experiment with various dpi's based on the size you wish the photo could be printed. Editing the original using a blurring technique and some shading might minimize dots or texture enough to gain a print, though it could end up needing to be smaller than you hoped.

Photos Stuck to Glass

Sometimes photos get stuck to flat glass, sometimes to domed glass. Depending on the situation, it might require a professional's help in scanning if you are facing an issue with curved glass. However, if the glass (with photo stuck to it) will fit your scanner bed, place a transparency sheet down on the glass bed of your scanner. Then carefully place the glass and photo down over the transparency sheet so you don't scratch your scanner's bed. Scan at correct resolution for print size. Then carefully lift the glass and photo. Most of the time there will be problems with color, tears, cracks, or changes in surface texture. If it's a one-of-a-kind photograph, it's better to try and get a good scan before the image degrades any further. Digital editing can be done at any time. Preserving the original should be your prime motivation to scan as soon as possible.

Restoration from a Damaged Negative

Here is a composite layout to emphasize the importance of saving ALL your negatives, no matter how damaged. The wrinkled negative (below left) was scanned. The result of the scan can be seen as the unrestored portion of the photo (above right). The restored portion of the photo demonstrates just how much of an image might be recovered with some heavy-duty restoration techniques. Definitely inspiring to those hoping their one-of-a-kind negatives will yield a photo treasure! A larger negative can be scanned at 2400dpi or even 1200dpi, instead of the usual 3200dpi used for the smaller negatives and slides.

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.

Grainy Photographs with Severe Surface Damage

The original is 3.5" x 4.5" and the family hoped to print this image much larger than it's original size. It isn't the damage that is determining the final print size, but the photo's "texture" or spotted appearance. Were this to be a very sharp original, a slight blurring of the surface would have produced a smoother image ready to print at the desired size. Unfortunately, it is so blurry to begin with that smoothing the surface would harm the final image too much. Printed at a smaller size, the photo looks great hanging on a wall in a wonderful frame. When looking at your old photos, remember that hanging their restored prints on a wall minimizes the appearance of surface texture enough to trick the eye into thinking you must have a marvelous original. Also, consider printing in black and white. The contrast helps "sharpen" the image, as opposed to the softer tones of a sepia print. However, sometimes sepia prints help minimize surface damage. Experiment with printing to see which works best for your image.

Taped and Textured 1900's Photograph

I've been working on uniting written "stories" from my husband's grandparents with all the photos scanned at his aunts' homes. These priceless photos and documents give life to the words of these relatives. It's been quite a project, to put it mildly. While scanning, we came upon this wonderful photo of a family member who played a key role in bringing my husband's German grandparents to America.

This original photo was printed on a textured paper. In order to gain a better look on her face, the little "cracks and creases" were mostly removed (smoothed over) in the digital image. Details in the clothing show up better now that the same smoothing process was applied to much of her outfit. When restoring your photos printed on textured paper, you may choose to "blur" segments or leave the texture. The latter choice means your restored image retains more of its historical value. Sometimes scanning at a higher resolution (in order to have more pixels to make "repairs") means you enhance the texture a bit, but that can be overcome with various tools and techniques of restoration.

1870's Photo

Taken in the 1870's, we have been told this is the only photograph of an ancestor on my mom's side. It was offered to a family newsletter, and I was asked if I could do anything with it before publication. These old images are treasures as they are, but bringing out features allows descendants the opportunity to enjoy the portraits in a "new" way. A risk is making faces something they are not, so less restoration is the best with these historical items. Closely working with existing features and filling in the blanks, as it were, gives faces more life without creating a "new" portrait. When considering the improvement of these really old images, it is up to the family to determine just how much to enhance such old photographs. Be sure to scan the original and place the digital file in a safe place to preserve this irreplaceable photo for your family. A copy of the original scan can be printed and hung in a frame, while preserving the original print by placing in a safe, if desired. This is a copy of an image, and that limited the restoration possibilities for me to begin with. If I had the original to scan myself, it might have been a different result.

Dark and Reddish Photos

This photo was a small, almost unnoticed one tucked into the pages of an aunt's album. My mother-in-law spotted it while we were scanning other items, and said it was her favorite wedding photo of her parents. Of course I had to try to recover this image for her, but it was pretty far gone. We decided a smaller print would be best (shows less imperfections), and scanned the original at about 600dpi, enough to print at double the size of the original photo if we could. With a bit of work she has a decent, if not great, version of this in her hands now, as her sister was the one with the only original. Fortunately we have another, better photo of this couple elsewhere on this blog.