

Restoring a Photograph from the 1870s - Muzza
http://topdogimaging.net/blog/restoring-a-photograph-from-the-1870s

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brudgers
I guess I see the loss of the added color as unfortunate because it removes
some of the meaning which the artist and the portrait sitter felt was
important to express - the vitality of the person depicted. Keeping in mind
that the Civil War was so recently passed and the degree to which disease and
violence could cut life short - that someone would pay more for such an
upgrade is unsurprising.

Without the color, it tends more toward being just another black and white
photo and more easily ignored - and that was clearly not what the artist and
patron had in mind.

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burgerbrain
I suppose we should probably repaint all of those greek statues too...

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smackfu
Well, what is the reasoning behind not doing this? Other than that our image
of a marble statue is unpainted.

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burgerbrain
Mainly that it would look like ass. Authenticity is overrated.

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smackfu
This was cool right up until the "and then I just fixed it in Photoshop"
glossing over.

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jacobolus
Here you go: [http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Restoration-Start-Finish-
photo...](http://www.amazon.com/Digital-Restoration-Start-Finish-
photographs/dp/0240808142)

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guelo
Sounds like at least a day's work, and this guy seems like a top-notch pro.
How much could he charge for a job like this? $500-$1000? more?

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mgkimsal
He said the touchup work was 4 hours, so I'd imagine getting the original in,
then printing afterwards, and the original consultation would probably be
yeah, about a day's work. Not sure on what this sort of work carries as a
charge, but a few hundred $ doesn't seem unreasonable if you really need the
pic.

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mseebach
Perhaps there was a discount for allowing him to use the photo in the blog
post? Also, I'd say that $500-$1000 is comfortably in the "want" (rather than
need) range for something like this.

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mgkimsal
Agreed in this case, it's probably a want. I wasn't suggesting this person
paid $500 - the post I replied to was asking what this sort of procedure might
cost, and I was replying in the general sense.

Interesting to think how many tintypes may be out there still, and what can
really be done with them. Even just using the camera and strobe like he did,
without the hours of touchup work, seems to do quite a lot of good. Perhaps
that's a cheaper service people could offer over the 'scanner' solution.

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tylerritchie
>Even just using the camera and strobe like he did, without the hours of
touchup work, seems to do quite a lot of good. Perhaps that's a cheaper
service people could offer over the 'scanner' solution.

Most good labs offer this service. Sadly, most also charge as much or more to
take the shot as they do to scan. Often labs will charge based on digital
resolution and ignore the ease or cost associated with obtaining that image.

If you were able to shoot prints in RAW and then again with the same camera
and position only in IR you could automate a lot of the dust and surface
scratch removal with minimal loss in fidelity [1].

Really, a modest investment in time and available consumer technology could
allow an enterprising individual/company to outfit themselves very well for
performing print archival/restoration at reasonable rates.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_cleaning>

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bugsy
Interesting tip on using a flash and a super fancy camera. Having done this
(actually I usually use sunlight not flash but if it's not a perfectly clear
day outside the consistency of flash is useful), he should have mentioned you
need to set the camera a great distance from the image to minimize perspective
distortion.

The blurring of the background is abysmal and destroys the notion it is a
restored photograph. Even if the client demanded this, the restorer should
have refused. As it is it makes his work look shoddy. I give him the benefit
of the doubt it was not his decision. If it was his decision to blur the
background that much, for shame.

The conversion to greyscale was also ill considered.

The loss of curls in the hair is a pity.

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smlacy
TL;DR version:

1\. Take a photo

2\. ...

3\. Photo restored to amazing clarity!

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ZeroGravitas
I quite like the effect on Wikipedia's restoration of the Billy the Kid
tintype mentioned in the article:

[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Billy_the_Kid_correct...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Billy_the_Kid_corrected.jpg)

They have some other candidates for restoration if anyone wants to give this a
try (though obviously the main thrust of this article was how to get the
original image capture right, rather than the digital retouching stage):

[http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_needing_res...](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Files_needing_restoration)

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strmpnk
I would have also considered layering a wet layer/mount to fill in some of the
scrapes when using a LED scanner. There are other side effects but they are a
lot easier to control if you can keep things relatively flat (might require a
lot of fluid in some cases but it works wonders).

Macro shots are another good way to pull out detail though I find my scanner
does a better job in most cases (scanning 2400 to 3200 DPI helps, more is
usually overkill for most mediums). The use of a polarizer is a great idea
though.

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totalforge
There are offshore companies that will do 'photoshop work' for $5 or $10 per
image. As excellent as his skills are, most clients do not understand the
difference.

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bennesvig
I was just looking at something similar but probably not as old:

[https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.238775029469055.68...](https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.238775029469055.68199.139410389405520)

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wenbert
Only 4 hours for that kind of quality work. Very nice! I'd imagine that he can
charge more.

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jeffchuber
Doesn't the new Photoshop have a "Dark-magic" option that does this? ;)

