My Little Corner

March 03, 2009

Saving the Past...

One of my passions and favorite things to do is photo restoration.

What would we do without pictures? We not only relive our memories through them, but we can actually see what our great grandparents looked like, look at our grand parents when they were a young married couple starting a family, and our parents when they were children. Our history is written in pictures. Preserving them for the next generation is so important so they will be able to relive all of the same times in their history.

This is a photo taken at my Grandmother and Grandfather Morneau's 50th Wedding Anniversary. It's a small snapshot, a little blurry, about 3 x 4 inches.

Exposed to light for years on a photo gallery bulletin board, partially covered on top by another photo. Thumb tack holes, spilled liquid, scratches and aging have all taken its toll on the picture from 1963.

I scanned the photo at 600 dpi, worked it in photoshop to resotre the original color. It took a week, working off and on to restore the rest of the picture spots, missing pixels, blotches, faded areas, etc. This is the finished picture, restored to it's original color.

I printed it on photo paper, and put it into a frame for my mom. She almost cried when I gave it to her. Now she can look at it every day and enjoy the memories...mom is 89 years old!

I'm working on an old family album of snapshots from mom when she was a young girl and on pictures from my grandmother from the late 1800's and early 1900's. I spent a full day scanning all of the pictures at 600dpi so I would be able to enlarge some of them. I can't wait to restore them and will be sharing several with you in the weeks to come. They are real treasures.

Postscript: I'm blessed to have so many good (and some not so good condition) pictures from my past. I'm hoping that I can restore most of them, in part thanks to all that I'm learning in the FREE computer classes I'm taking at the North City Campus of San Diego Continuing Education in Adobe Photoshop. I'm taking Illustrator, InDesign and Acrobat classes as well. You can click on the above link and check out the schedule of classes offered.