Shortly before Christmas, I was contacted by a new customer who wanted to know if I could restore his father’s old Navy photograph as a Christmas gift. I took a look at it and knew that no matter what else I had on my to-do list in that week, I had to do it – it was such a beautiful example of a formal black and white photograph from that era in American History, hand tinted and loved for many years. But, it had aged a great deal and I could think of no better gift for parents still living than to bring it back to its original form.

He sent me a digitally scanned copy of the photo in high resolution and I got started. Zooming in, it was clear that there was a lot going on in this photo – some fading, as would be expected, and lots of cracks in the surface, both broad and very fine. I also found there was a good amount of damage that is probably caused by moisture or mold, and the lower corner was missing entirely. In a situation like this, thankfully, it is possible to restore the area by relying on what is around it so that is what I did.

Since my customer’s satisfaction is always guaranteed, we went back and forth a few times with little adjustments – for example, my research indicated the WWII naval uniform of that period was navy blue, but that it was almost so dark as to be black, so it took some fiddling around to get the shade we wanted. My technique, which I think sets me apart from many competitors in the digital photo restoration field, involves a lot of close-up, pixel by pixel restoring with a graphics tablet and pen, when dealing with crucial areas like the eyes and features, means that I am pretty much cross eyed when I’m done So I always send off my first round expecting the customer will spot a few things I got to used to seeing, like a funny tint on the teeth.

When it was approved, I sent off the final, high resolution digital file to my customer to get it printed locally and delivered to the folks on Christmas. In the end, everyone, including dad, loved the results and I’m very pleased because its not often that a photo with a lot of damage CAN be restored perfectly and I think this one came out pretty darned close!

Sometimes someone will come to me with a photo that they’ve discovered, an unexpected found treasure that offers a glimpse of a long passed relative in an image they did not know they had. And often, that photo has become so worn and faded with time that there is not a lot of information left to restore. But that doesn’t stop me from trying. I just make sure they understand what we’re up against and set their expectations at the right level for the photo I’m working with. This was one such image.

The customer had it scanned herself, since it was the only image she had. I had her scan it at 600 “dots per inch” to assure I had detail to work with, since it was quite small. I certainly had my work cut out for me – more than just the usual aging spots and cracks, this photo also had scotch tape attached to it and hair under the tape. It was going to need a combination of careful filters and adjustments, and manual painting over areas that needed detailed repair.

When an image is this bad, and the color is mostly faded away, it sometimes is easier to remove the color to work and then put it back, or remove it and restore the photo to sepia-tone. I decided to work on this photo in black and white so I could concentrate on the work and tint it later since the color was so faded.

As I tell all my customers with photos like this, I can only restore what is there. If the persons nose is faded to nothingness, and adjusting the image a few different ways doesn’t bring back the detail to work with, the only option is to create a new nose, which requires fine art, not restoring. I also let them know that sometimes when you do apply a lot of adjustments and corrections to a photo, it starts to look less sharp (if it ever was!) and often the best way to resolve that is to create something more akin to a “likeness” of that person, than a realistic image. This is an example of what I mean by that. By the time the restoration was complete, it made more sense to let the texture and fuzziness remain and make it look more like a tinted painting or a colored pencil drawing – not a photo but a good clean representative likeness of the loved one. Sometimes, unfortunately, that is all that can be done. It was certainly a great improvement from the original scrappy little photo!

I’ve shown you how I can tint photos using Photoshop to give them color – but finally, I got to see in person what a tinted photo done the old school way looks like up close.

This photo was originally black and white, and someone had carefully hand painted every bit of it with colored dyes, to make it look like a color photo. The problem? This 4 decade old photo had gotten some water on it and the ink had run!

The original was about 8×10. I scanned it at a very high resolution so I could see every detail, and went in with my graphics tablet and removed all of the cracks, large and small. I also removed a lot of speckling that had taken place in the dye surface. That was really the easy part and something I do regularly.

Replacing the area which had been wet was a bigger challenge because the ink had all run to the color blue. I needed to repaint it based on what little I could see underneath, and pick up the dresses fabric pattern from the areas which weren’t damaged. This was obviously the most time consuming aspect of the restoration.

In the end it was worth the detailed effort – here is the photo, restored and ready to be printed again.

The Catalina Islander, a local newspaper in California, hired me to restore and color tint this vintage photo to use for a July 4th edition. A reader had provided the photo, which featured his mother, on the left, as a young woman.

After I got past the initial puzzle of how the drummer was staying upright without a tow rope, in a day and age where Photoshop was non existent, I started by cleaning up some minor degradation and spotting. Then I adjusted the contrast in places that were dark but still needed color, like the flag’s stripes. The client provided some input into the colors to use, and I chose others that seemed appropriate. After a number of revisions, the new version looked like it had been tinted the way it was done by hand in the old days of photography – using Photoshop. This is the final result:

There was a time when if you wanted a color photograph, the photographer would have to hand tint the black and white photo with colored dyes. This was a very detailed, time consuming process but the result is a beautiful “old fashioned” look that I’ve always loved. When I received this cool young photo of my grandmother Rose, a woman who often wore bright pinks and blues, I knew I was going to have to give it a try – only instead of using dye, I’d use Photoshop.

This is the original photo. As you can see, it’s quite nice – very textured from the paper it was printed on, and only a few minor imperfections.

The first thing I did was scan it, and do some clean up, so it would look like this. I also desaturated it (made it all grey) which removed some of the tiny brown spots that were splattered about.

I had the fortune to know my grandmother so I knew she had beautiful blue eyes, light brown hair and a fair, rosy complexion. I started this project trying to approximate those colors myself – but it turned out to be a real roll of the dice, fifty bazillion shades of blue and brown all considered. Then, I had an idea. I could sample colors from an actual photo of her! I had this one, the grandmother I knew growing up.

A few wild and fun hours later – voila – a “hand tinted” old photo of Rose! As with the traditional method, the goal is to get as life like as possible but of course, there is nothing like the real bloom on a Rose’s cheek (hey now, don’t groan!). I found that laying on flat color was relatively easy but for it to look right, quite a bit of fine tuning, detailed painting and color adjustment was needed to give it depth and realism.

Here’s a closer view so you can see the great texture that is in this image.

For a really nice effect on your old black and white family photos, let’s give tinting a whirl!