Impossible to Restore

[Learnin'lady]

Hello all. Here I am again with more photographs sent to me by a client. I had to tell him that restoration was impossible. I hate saying that but you tell me what you would have said.
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...toration/4.jpg
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...toration/3.jpg
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...toration/2.jpg
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...toration/1.jpg
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...n/3204582f.jpg

WHAT on Gods green earth could have damaged these so badly they are only from 1968.
I at first thought it was a joke, but there is a graduated I found within.. So sad when people let them go for so long.

[Steve13]

They look like they are all the same batch of pics... maybe weak chemistry and the prints weren't fixed properly?

[Repairman]

LOL. You should have said 'no problem', waited a few days and then handed over a selection of someone else's school pix! 'Cash or cheque sir'?

[Tony W]

I do not recall seeing anything so far gone - and from 1968!!! While it is possible that very poor processing is the culprit I think that there would need to be more than this to make them so bad in such a relatively short period. Maybe storage near volatile chemicals, excessive heat etc etc.

Think you will have to wait for Photoshop CS10 extended special edition to tackle those

[Crapaud]

I thought this was a wind-up at first. I can't shine any light on the cause of the damage, but, undeterred, wanted to see if there was any image at all.

There is an image on 2 and 4 (attached), a very indistinct image on a third one and 2 pieces of stained paper.

These are the best I could get.

You might have to wait for the mythical 'fix it' button that some bosses seem to believe exists.

[Learnin'lady]

Arent those the worst?!! OMGosh. I was in total shock and wanted to share these so bad!!
I dont think that trying to pass anothers pics would be a good idea as he knows what he looks like....lol
I would guess they were from the same photographer as it was his graduation day.
SC10? maybe 30...lol
I want one of these! - mythical 'fix it' button
This is what I could do in a fast moment, just to see if I could do it or not, have to try...
http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...ninlady/11.jpg

[Mike]

The diagonal streak on every one of them has me stumped, but the color and fading or whatever you want to call it might be from the photos being submerged in some kind of flood with who knows what in the water?????

[Learnin'lady]

The diagonal streak is a crack. I would guess that something was sitting on them. and that they were stacked somewhere, I too thought flood. Lord knows there have been many of those!
But Ive never seen a photo after a flood so I dont know.

[lurch]

Yeah, I too would have said these were non-restores. And if you want to see what flood damage looks like, volunteer for Operation Photo Rescue (operationphotorescue.org) or check out their forum.

[Learnin'lady]

Originally Posted by lurch

Yeah, I too would have said these were non-restores. And if you want to see what flood damage looks like, volunteer for Operation Photo Rescue (operationphotorescue.org) or check out their forum.

Yay! I will. Thank you. I have been trying to do this for ever two years?.. sad, but seemed like every time I got the addy something was going on and I couldnt commit.
So Id save the site.
Computer crashed - cant count how many time, lost the site, got rid of the vista invested pc and now have a light weight w7 so Im good to go.
AND as you can see Im not going to be able to do that job...lol
Awe, I feel so bad that that guy but there is nothing I can do, its beyond my talent.

[KTG]

I'm just guessing here, but I wonder if they were printed on a proofing paper that will degrade over time? Having graduated HS in 1969 I seem to remember getting "proofs" to select the final print from. I think they may have been made on a paper that degraded slowly in light? Anyone else?

k

[Learnin'lady]

KTG - interesting theory. One I dont know about. I would like to hear more on that if anyone knows.
Lurch - I joined and the emails are pumping in. Im afraid its all for not tho - I have already read one thing about charging me to be able to get photos to work on, thats just not right.
Ive offering a free service and I have to pay to volunteer? Hmm... that photo I think needs restoring too....lol

[Tony W]

I think KTG may have hit on a possibility. The paper referred to as 'Pop' Printing Out Paper or Studio proof paper. The tone of the paper reddish brown. I believe that if not treated after exposure they would fade. AFAIK treatment consisted of toning then fixing after exposure.
So looks like those images could have been supplied to the client as proofs which have gone where they were meant to go i.e. unusable. Wonder if they actually ordered prints from these?

[lurch]

Kate - You should not be charged anything to volunteer or get photos to work on. You can, however, donate (voluntarily, not at all required) to keep the organization alive. And as I remember there should only be one or two emails involved. You may have somehow triggered a boatload of spam . . .

[Cupcake]

Here is my try at one of the pictures.

[dkcoats]

I think KTG hit it the nail right on the head. I'm a product of the 60s, too (class of '63) and I remember those proofs well.

I'm a little surprised there's as much image left as there is.

[KTG]

Just one more thing. High school portraits, in the '60's, were black and white. You could select an oil color treatment (which everyone did) and may have been part of the package. I still have mine along with sepia toned prints. The more I think about it, I believe the proofs were 4X5". There may have been a number on the paper so you could call the studio with your selection. But the proofs would only last a week or so. DC may remember Dellarson Studios in St. Paul, MN

[dkcoats]

Dellarson rings a bell. Mine were by Zintsmaster in Minneapolis, if I remember correctly. Or was it Haga?

[Kraellin]

these are in pretty bad shape. with a ton of time and a healthy paycheck, you'd still be hard pressed to get a decent end result. i contrasted one out and it's not bad on the gown and cap, and even the face shows pupils and nostrils, but the mouth and chin are pretty much gone and you lose almost all shading on something like this. it could be helped a bit, but make sure you give the client a TON of caveats. this is NOT an easy job.

[0lBaldy]

WOW! just trying to find the image from these old "proofs" is a job in itself

[John Wheeler]

I agree, trying to restore these photos in the standard approach will not result in something for which the customer would want to pay good money.

There are two options/alternatives that might be worth considering.

1) As crazy as it sounds, since these images were likely taken by some photo service that "could" still be in business. It may be easier tracking down who took the pictures that year and see if they archived the negatives. A long shot yet so is any restoration. Also mentioned in a previous post.

2) Take an alternate approach. If the customer has a picture taken of the individual in a somewhat similar time frame, use that picture along with the best graduation image outline and have a digital painting rendered. That is a lot of work and one needs to hire someone that has good skills here. Yet it could create the "moment" with a very good resemblance if a different reference picture is available.

Just trying to think outside the Photo Restoration Box so to speak to satisfy a customer.

John Wheeler

[RobertAsh]

John's approaches make a lot of sense and are likely the only possible solutions here.

In a few seconds I got almost as far as Crapaud on JPEG 4. Even then it's clear there are just too many pixels missing literally everywhere. It's literally a very scattered bunch of tiny dots. There are no solid, contiguous patches of subject matter from which to reconstruct anything. Nor are the remaining dots of information close enough together. It would be a heinous chore to even try, and connecting all those scattered dots would be about impossible without having a reference photo of some kind to go by or personally knowing the subjects for many years, otherwise reconstructing the photos would be mostly guessing what they actually looked like.

[jesterjeni]

I played a little with this picture, I like the challenge...not exzactly a restore...but here is my shot

[John Wheeler]

I really like with what both Learnin'Lady and Jesterjenie came up with. In the image below, I ignored the blue channel and optimized between the red and green channel for four separate areas: background, suit, shirt, head. Adjusted tone and used shape blur in each area. No brushes used except for mask creation for those areas. No other touch-up. Really tough images and just wanted to give it a try.

1 Flattened small Version.jpg