Physical (not digital) Solutions to Restoring

[Kraellin]

jaxk's recent posts on oxidation of silvering in photos and how to clean it up, inspired this thread. i'd like a place here for posting physical solutions to cleaning up damaged photos and images. this is as opposed to digital means like photoshop and paintshop pro. i feel that some photos and perhaps documents and other items, might best be handled first by physical cleanings and treatments.

it's true that we deal mostly with digital solutions here in RP, but we are primarily concerned with solutions as a whole. and, it's probably quite true that an object that can be cleaned up first physically, is easier to then clean up digitally, if necessary.

so, this is the place for it. post your physical solutions to cleaning and restoring here. this is NOT a discussion thread, with the one exception being if you KNOW something that is posted here DOES NOT work, then please post that also. just list the solution, what do you do to physically handle water damage; what do you do to physically handle stains, tears, folds, rips, wrinkles, mud, dirt and dust? how do you remove a photo that is stuck to glass or stuck in one of those 'magnetic' photo albums? this is also NOT a question thread. for questions, post a new thread in the regular area.

in other words, i'd like this to be a 'faq' for physical treatments to restoring, whether it's documents, photos, canvas or whatever. you may also include physical treatments to preservation. let's build up a reservoir of information that people can find and use on physical restoration. a LOT of time can be saved in the digital handling if a physical handling is possible first.

[mistermonday]

Craig, great idea.

For Slides and Negatives: Light dirt, water stains, finger prints
Use Isopropanol (Isopropyl Alcohol)- must be greater than 90%. You can find 99% Isopropanol at most pharmacies. Make sure it is not rubbing alcohol which is only 70%. Most commercial film cleaning solutions are just Isopropanol packaged in pretty looking dark bottles with flashy labels.
Best is to dip and let the film air dry. If you must use a cloth, make sure it is lint free and soft.

For loose dust on negatives and slides, compressed air is the best. Not the stuff in a can that has trichloroethane but plain air from a compressor (60 - 80 PSI). Ideally the hose should have an in-line filter to prevent any moisture from getting on the film.

Regards,
Murray

[jaxk]

Greasy marks on prints and documents.
Light grease on surface -normal fingermarks for example, can be removed with a 'Putty rubber'[eraser for over there ;-) ]obtainable from art supplies stores.
A good alternative is plain flour dough -a small amount of flour with water mixed into a malleable dough.
Simply gently rub over the mark[s]

Heavier marks-
Oil and grease that has soaked into the 'fabric' of the substrate .
Place a tissue over the marked place, over that heavy craft paper[brown wrapping paper] and warm through with an iron at a low -rayon/nylon setting
You are attermpting to lift the grease back up into the tissue.

[Kraellin]

skipc
Member Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: KY Bluegrass
Posts: 77

ball point pen gone wild

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i've never had one this bad. are there any suggestions for a reasonably fast method to remove the ball point damage?

This question was asked in this thread: http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/147932-post17.html and this answer was posed:

yuccaview
Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 5

Re: ball point pen gone wild

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Get yourself some"Bestine" ( rubber cement thinner) and a Qtip try a corner.
This usually works, so does lighter fluid with a Qtip just be VERY careful!!!
Both of these are dangerous but either will usually work.
Don

[veera]

HI frineds i am veera form inda i ahve lot of doubt about retuoching lod images any help me how to woke that images


veera

[saby]

here is a link of sds (http://www.sds-prepress.de/) what products i use to remove dust from slides, and somewhere there is an ultrasonic cleaner you can find a lot search by google here is one (http://www.hilsonic.co.uk/Benchtop%2...my%20Range.htm)

saby

[Kraellin]

here's one for removing mold: http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...-solution.html

[resto]

Does anyone know of any info out there on photo working before the days Photoshop?
Like when people hand painted and used chemicals.

I’ve read bits and pieces here and there and it was really interesting. But I’ve gone through pages of google and can only find info of digital photo stuff.

I wanted to read some stories of old time photo colors, editors and stuff like that.

[Kraellin]

try adding 'conservator' or 'historical' or even 'old' to your keywords when searching.

also, check sites like the smithsonian or the national archives.

[Yochanan]

Originally Posted by resto

Does anyone know of any info out there on photo working before the days Photoshop?
Like when people hand painted and used chemicals.

I’ve read bits and pieces here and there and it was really interesting. But I’ve gone through pages of google and can only find info of digital photo stuff.

I wanted to read some stories of old time photo colors, editors and stuff like that.

Hi resto,
I'm new here but have been in photography since about 1958 (in Japan) where I learned how to roll my own film and develope and print my own photos, both b&w and color. The way we did it "back in the day" was we worked on the negative first, then sepia toned the photo and then used colored penciles to hand color & touch up the photos. We didn't get many really damaged photos back then because most people didn't want to pay the cost which was pretty heffty if you could find someone that was willing to try it.
The hardest part was getting the skin tones just right.

Hope that gives you a little idea of what it was like back then.

[ValerieWood]

Photo Restoration is very useful now a days, several walk-in establishments in malls offer this service in order to restore weather-beaten photographs into the same condition it was first taken. With the help of technology, digital photo restoration is made possible and restoring old photos is far more convenient compared to its non-digital counterpart.

[Carol Heath]

Hi Resto,

Before digital photogrpahy/editing I coloured photos for the studios I worked for and for myself. At one stage selective colouring was very popular, especially with children's portraiture. My research paper at Uni was even about hand colouring. Whilst researching, I had the chance to meet a few traditional colourists as well as contemporary (during the late 80s) artists who employed these techniques in their work.

It was a true craft and just like colouring digitally, took time, skill and talent to perfect. I mostly worked on fibre based papers which I printed then sepia toned. Sepia toning allowed for warmer tones when working with portraits. I mostly used oils (Marshall's oils were always the best in my opinion but difficult to get in Australia). The paint was applied roughly with cotton wool wound on to tiny tooth picks then clean cotton tips or balls used to blend the colour and reveal the underlying tones of the image. The more pressure you applied, the more paint you removed. Working with oils, which generally took a few days to dry made blending of colours easy. I may have used a combination of four or five skin tones when colouring a face. I use the same principles as I use today when digitally colouring an image. I start with a base colour then build up colours/tones. Eyelashes and fine details were sometimes accentuated with tiny brush tips and occassionally highlights were also added.

When hand colouring was the only option for adding colour to photos, most studios employed colourists whose sole role it was to colour portraits. Hair colour, eye colour clothing colour etc. were all recorded by the photographer at the time of shooting.

It really is a wonderful craft and I love looking at old photographs which I know have had this extra treatment lovingly applied.

In my restoration work I have come across many different methods of colouring, perhaps one of the most interesting was the creation of senotypes where two identical prints were made on a thin fibre based paper. The 'top' print had a wax or oil applied to it to make it semi transparent, then the colour was added to the back of the photograph. The two images were then sandwiched together and mounted beneath glass.

I still have my oils and pencils and also some coloured dyes which I used for some jobs. Hopefully, it is an art which will never completely die.

Originally Posted by resto

Does anyone know of any info out there on photo working before the days Photoshop?
Like when people hand painted and used chemicals.

I’ve read bits and pieces here and there and it was really interesting. But I’ve gone through pages of google and can only find info of digital photo stuff.

I wanted to read some stories of old time photo colors, editors and stuff like that.

[Kraellin]

thanks, carol

if you'd care to expound on your techniques and any other tips for physical restoration and/or cleaning, i'd love to hear them.

[Carol Heath]

Hi Craig,

Spotting and colouring were about the extent of my restoration skills pre-digital. I was never a restorer, just manipulated photos for the studio I worked for and did minor restorations of my own family photos. For a long while I considered myself a black and white purist and wasn't ready to let go and join the digital bandwagon. I loved the darkroom and the skill involved in creating great prints and wasn't happy with early digital technology and non archival print mediums but now..well lets just say after playing with the new CS5 for the past couple of weeks, I can't imagine going back and doing things the 'hard' way.

Spotting was a technique that most photographers employed to remove dust spots (tiny white marks caused by dust on the negative). Of course, if you had a lovely clean, dust free darkroom and used wetting agents when processing film, these were minimal. Compressed air was generally used to remove dust from negs. I had a lecturer who also taught us that the oil from our brow could be used to remove water marks from negs. (not if you are wearing make-p though). You simply touched your brow then very gently rubbed the non-emulsion side of the neg. I know many will cringe when they read this but it worked and was much cheaper than cleaning agents.

Prints prepared for exhibition or for clients were always spotted using a very fine 000 fine sable brush and inks available in different tones for both black and white and colour images. Dust marks were removed by literally 'spotting' water based ink using the tip of the brush. To dilute the ink and match tones, I usually used saliva. Yes, I know that sounds disgusting, but sucking on the tip of the brush helped to dilute the ink and form a perfect tip for the brush. I usually found it best to gradually build up tones rather than trying to achieve perfect tones from scratch. Fine scratches and tears (on copy prints) could also be repaired using this technique. It was very slow work and hard on the eyes. An image that took hours to spot the traditional way would take minutes using Photoshop. It helped pay my way through Uni though. There were a lot of lazy students who were not too concerned with quality control in the darkroom.

[Kraellin]

wonderful, carol. thank you i particularly like the brow and saliva techniques