Is this believable? (Attempt to make a photo old)

[ItsOscar]

I've tried a few things but I think I like this version the best. This is my first attempt. Any tips out be greatly appreciated.

[chet webley]

Hi Oscar,

It does look a bit "composited" to me... Not sure why though - Maybe the girl's a bit too sharp?

Still pretty good though

[Mike]

I agree that she is too sharp.

Also old photos have physical damage, yours is too smooth and looks new. Take the print out and beat on it with a board or something, rip up a corner and stain a spot or two. Then it will look older.

[John Wheeler]

Hi ItsOscar

First that is a very cute shot. Love it.

I agree with Mike about the lack of physical damage (I had to stop laughing first though )

I do restoration of images from 1840 through the 1920s range. Though there are fewer images of the highest quality, there are many that are as sharp as your image. Nice job on the color/toning. So here are some differences that I see from your image to ones much older

- As Mike mentioned physical damage
- Not too many images have as deep a tone/color for sepia though yours gives a good feel
- Images from that era were relatively expensive and not taken very often. They were a relatively big event/treat and most had exposure times that were much longer than what we have today. Because of that, it is extremely rare that you would have a child with the look you have in your image. It was too important an event. Maybe stiff and a little grumpy yet not posed sad looking. The stiffness look and lack of smiles in the old pictures were because of the longer exposure times (you can't hold a smile that long). In many cases folks had their best clothes on as well with good postures (unless it was an impromptu street image which were typically of much lower quality).
- The lower quality images had poor lens characteristics in the corners. Out of focused/blurred (there was a reason they used oval frames )
- Many studio images of the era also used props both for style and for individuals to steady themselves for the longer exposures.
- More recent types of photos (early last century) were more B&W with less of a sepia look. When the Kodak/box camera craze came out where many more had some camera early last century, the quality of those were not as high as studio shots. They were B&W, softer focus, not as high contrast, and as said they did not age to a deep dark sepia tone.

Those all may be subtle items yet they can add up if you really want an "old" look.

Now all that said, if folks have not see images of that era, they would not know the difference. So depends on your artistic goals. I think it looks great. Just does not remind me of all the old images that I have seen. Thanks for sharing. Hope this was helpful.

[Chain]

John seems to be a goldmine of information!

[plugsnpixels]

I would make more use of texture overlays (look here under Products>Texture Packs and here for examples). Here's a plug-in option.

[plugsnpixels]

John, regarding sepia: Can we assume no photos actually started out that way? I always thought it was due to the aging process.

[John Wheeler]

Originally Posted by plugsnpixels

John, regarding sepia: Can we assume no photos actually started out that way? I always thought it was due to the aging process.

Hi plugsnpixels
I am afraid I am not quite old enough to have observed the original colors of the images or card stocks

I have not done a lot of investigation of what it should have originally looked like. I am only reporting of the results I have seen after aging (photo aging not me aging )

How the pictures age is a strong function of the time period and the processes they use (e.g. the very heavy silver salts used in the 1920 eras and the resulting silvering look that is so hard to restore).

For card stock in the 1860 to 1890 range it has been reported to be a creamy white:

The earliest CDV’s had no front-side graphics and remained a creamy white.

From reference on dating old card stock: http://www.tubahouse.com/backsidetext.htm

The only dark original images that I have seen are mostly tintypes and those age differently than the card stock turning to a sepia color (in my experience anyways).

Here is another reference of many types of images of the era. For those that did not know, egg whites were a key ingredient of the photography process. Albumen prints. See the reference for details:
http://www.geh.org/taschen/htmlsrc/glossary.html

The largest discolorations that I have seen came from humidity issues, the prints being stored with other acidic items (papers), and also stored with certain types of negatives that out-gas apparently and cause chemical damage to the prints (and other negatives). I do not know the details of the cause. Just what I see from results.

Other than that, your question is beyond my present knowledge. If other forum members have more insight on this, I would love to learn more.

[plugsnpixels]

I'm not an expert at photo restoration but I've been working on a genealogical project that involves scanning hundreds of old photos. I prefer to remove age-related discoloration from the images because it wasn't there in the first place, and then further tweak the levels of the scan to improve the tones, spot out the creases and other junk, etc. Though there comes a point where you have to finish one image and move on to the next...