Oxidation to photo

[Joramilea]

Originally Posted by jaxk

This photos as suggested at first is discoloured because of imperfect fixing in the photo development stage.
The colour is in fact metallic silver that had oxidized'
The way to sort this is to take some metal/silver/jewellery polish on a cotton bud, work a small section let it dry and polish off.

The only problem is I don't have the origional. It was scanned by my husband and his brother with a bunch of other pictures while they were in MO for the funeral of this lovely lady. Due to family problems between the sisters I will probly never get the origional like my mother in-law had hoped.

[Kraellin]

jaxk,

those are good suggestions and i assume they work due to the results that someone said they got when you posted the oxidation one in another thread and they tried it. in fact, i put a link to that thread in the library so it wouldnt get 'lost in the shuffle'.

i would love to hear of any other physical means of restoring photos you, or anyone else, might know. this forum is for restoring and that doesnt mean just digital restores. we've had a number of photos from OPR, for instance, where folks are trying to restore flood damaged images from hurricane Katrina and i have to wonder if some of those wouldnt have been better handled by physical means first and then digital. things like cleaning mud and water damage on the physical print, removing dust before scanning, separating images that have become stuck together and so on would all be welcome here.

[jaxk]

Thank you for that Craig
There are indeed many ways photos can be manipulated manually to bring a measure of health to them -I avoid the word restore - one seldom can get 100%
I shall describe some I have tried from time to time.
First do make a scan as a back up of the item in its damaged state- you can't win 'em all.

Dirt ingrained prints
A print is an emulsion of silver or Chloro Bromide in a gelatin base.When made wet the gelatin swells, becomes soft and is easily physically damaged or has dirt engrained into it.For this try the following make a bath of lukewarm water with a spot of detergent [ very weak wash up liquid] lay the print in it completely immersed and let it soak whilst under water try to ease away the dirt with a very soft brush[Herself's best make up brush perhaps] do not be vigorous, very gently, when you have done lay it back down on a towel to absorb most of the moisture and let it dry naturally.

I'll come back from time to time with other hints and tips

If there is a collection of photos , be prepared to sacrifice one or two to experimentation and gaining individual skills.
Good luck.

[Kraellin]

jaxk,

i made a new thread here in the restoration forum for posting physical solutions to fixing, repairing and restoring. i'd be happy if you'd post some of your knowledge there. it's a 'sticky' thread up at the top of the restoration forum. we are always have folks looking for how to remove photos from glass, how to clean old photos, how to separate photos stuck to each other and so on. a repository of these solutions would be useful.