How many hours to restore this image?

[Pixelshaw]

Just wanted to check how long people would be spending to do a FULL detailed restoration of this image. Including straightening out all the distortions etc. Also, once restored how long to add colour?

[Doug Nelson]

You're a braver person than I. I'd turn the job down.

[JoReam]

Bumpy emulsion damage is some of the hardest to deal with due to the distortions it causes and the shadows and highlights. I have seen physical conservators lift this emulsion layer off the substrate and put it on a new substrate to flatten the image out. Whether that would be possible with this I don't know. But I know that involves a lot of technical skill time and patience and would not be cheap.
I have struck bumpy emulsion before in a 50s photo. The difficulty is getting the facial likenesses correct and also estimating the time taken to rebuild the image from the remaining areas of the image that are not damaged. I do believe there is enough in the original to fix it, but it will take a fair few hours, as to how many that's a bit hard to estimate especially as this is reduced for the web,

[Pixelshaw]

You're a braver person than I. I'd turn the job down.

Cheers Doug. I do love a challenge though. Luckily the faces were not of critical importance to the customer. So I figured making straight lines and fixing architectural stuff is more of a 'possible'. The plan was dodge and burn the hell out of it. (the image is greyscale only, no colour channels to play with.) Then use liquify and cloning to straighten out the distortions. I quoted 7 hours work. Customer thought I was crazy lol. Just wanted to know if I was missing something. Thanks though.

[Pixelshaw]

Bumpy emulsion damage is some of the hardest to deal with due to the distortions it causes and the shadows and highlights. I have seen physical conservators lift this emulsion layer off the substrate and put it on a new substrate to flatten the image out. Whether that would be possible with this I don't know. But I know that involves a lot of technical skill time and patience and would not be cheap.
I have struck bumpy emulsion before in a 50s photo. The difficulty is getting the facial likenesses correct and also estimating the time taken to rebuild the image from the remaining areas of the image that are not damaged. I do believe there is enough in the original to fix it, but it will take a fair few hours, as to how many that's a bit hard to estimate especially as this is reduced for the web,

Thanks Jo. This is vinegar syndrome damage. I too do think it is doable. Luckily the faces are not critical, so a few head swaps here and there is an option. The original is a high res 40mb tiff file. But there is hours of dodging and burning work there plus to straighten out all the architecture etc. etc. I quoted 7 hours. I think my client thought I was overquoting him. Just wanted to check that I wasn't missing something.

[Doug Nelson]

I quoted 7 hours work. Customer thought I was crazy lol

The customer will always think you're crazy, at least mine did. Back when I did the RP Live shows I was always astounded when I was interviewing restorers that regularly got many hundreds of dollars for their work. People think it's just a button we push or something.

Sorry, pet peeve

[Pixelshaw]

Why were you astounded exactly? Did you meet any RICH photo restorers?? Am I doing something wrong???

People think it's just a button we push or something.

It has always bothered me that people are more likely to pay a plumber $$$ just for walking through the door (no work, just call out fee!), than they are to pay a restorer to spend hours restoring the last photo that they have of their Mother.

Rant over.....