This was a small grade school photo of someone’s mom, which they wanted to repair and enlarge. It was one of the worst damaged photos I’ve ever worked on short of actually being torn, because beyond the obvious cracks, the entire surface of the original print was a fine network for cracks. I had the customer scan it at very high resolution so it could be enlarged, which just defined those cracks more.

As you can see if you click to zoom in, the close up of the scan reveals quite a lot of damage. I made sure to tell the customer that it might not be a perfect photo in the end – a lot of cracks were right across her face – but I would do what I could to remove and minimize the appearance of damage.

In the end, the photo really didn’t come out too bad! Sometimes I need to resort to a look that is a little more like a painting than the fine detail of photography, to mask all of the work that has been done, and this is a good example of that. It is something the family can enjoy into the future, though, and that was the goal.

Anna Leach was a prominent president of Emma Willard School in Troy NY. The school has a beautiful “hall of presidents” with portraits and photos of each person who has been president there – but had none of Miss Leach.  I was contacted when they found a small old photo in an archive, and asked if I could restore it to a painting sized portrait.

The original photo had been printed on newsprint so this is what it looked like up close.

In the end, I was successful – using a great many techniques to smooth and clarify the texture in the photo, and filters to give it a painterly quality, the tiny original was able to be blown up to 16″x20″. I arranged to have it printed on archival quality photo paper, and delivered it to the school to be framed and displayed – restoring Anna Leach to her rightful place in the Hall of Presidents.