A friend of mine, Jean-Claude Langer, asked me to restore a cherished old B & W photo he had of his father. The picture (photo #1), as you can see, was in bad shape with some; missing pieces, unseemly folds, fading and staining. The image was taken in Paris about 1931 and Jean-Claude asked me to restore it, but at the same time keep the old feeling it has.
When I do photo restorations for pixlfixl customers, certain issues consistently come up related to seeing the newly restored images. All the photos I work on are damaged to varying degrees and have sometimes been this way for quite a long time. Because of this, customers sometimes get used to and attached to the poor condition of their images. Many have never seen the photos in their original pristine condition, so when they see them restored they’re frequently very surprised. It’s sort of like the first time you saw a picture of one your parents when they were a child. It’s a bit disconcerting at first, but then it makes sense.
What follows is an explanation of what I actually did to restore Jean-Claude’s photograph. The first thing I do whenever I’m given a photo that’s faded over time, is I desaturate it (take the color out). I do this because I’ve found in practically all cases that fading, due to age, leads to uneven discoloration. Desaturating the tones brings everything into the same color space. At the end of the restoration process I’ll add an overall color tone (usually a variety of sepia), if it’s requested. Photo #2 shows what the original image looks like after it’s been desaturated.
My next task is to restore the tonal range of the image. Old B & W photos fade over time because the silver emulsion that makes up the image is susceptible to chemicals in the air as well as the effects of exposure to light. Fading makes the dark values lose their richness (they get lighter) and the light values get muddy. Luckily I can reverse this in Photoshop and do it with a great amount of control. The two ways I like to do this are to use the “image-> adjustment-> levels” or “image-> adjustment-> curve” tools. The trick is to restore the darkest shadow tones, the brightest highlight tones and set the intermediate grey values where they look best. Photo #3 shows the result of using the curve tool to do this. You see an immediate improvement during this step. An essential part of doing this effectively is having your monitor calibrated correctly, and viewing your image with a look-up that will show you what your image will look like when it’s printed on a specific paper. In Photoshop you set this up with “view-> proof set-up” and “view-> proof colors“. I can’t emphasize enough the importance that what you see on your monitor accurately shows you what it will look like when printed. Without doing this, you can end up wasting a lot of time and paper when printing.
After balancing the tones I’m now ready to clean the image up. I remove the folds, tears, add the missing pieces and clean up the sky using the “healing brush” and “clone-stamp” tools. This is the most time-consuming part of the process and requires a lot of attention to detail. I make sure that when I clone in the grass I don’t have any noticeable repeating patterns and that I respect the depth of field that happens on the grass plane. Another interesting restoration question is how much one should do to to make the image look better. Where does one stop? For this photo Jean-Claude gave clear direction beforehand that he wanted the little bush removed that was just to the left of his Dad’s hair. After seeing the restoration preview proof on-line (photo #4), Jean-Claude also decided that he wanted the wood debris in the grass on the left side removed and the buildings under/behind the Eiffel Tower to be darker. These requests were easily accomplished and I think they make the image cleaner and stronger (photo #5). I’m of the opinion that doing whatever you can to help the image be more effective is alright, as long as it’s in the spirit of what you believe was the original intent of the photographer. This is a very subjective area (of course) and open to whatever interpretation you may assume.
Photo #6 is the final restoration. The warm color tone was added back, in order to give the image a feeling of age.
Here’s what Jean-Claude had to say after seeing the restoration,
“Papa!
What a great photo. With many questions that will remain unanswered.
Like what year was it: you looking so much like me, or is it the other way around, I assume you are twenty, so the year could be 1931.
Must be a Sunday, as this is not your working outfit. So where is the crowd, if this is a Sunday, at noon, according to the shadows?
And you are not looking at whoever took the picture, as if unaware. And what is the main subject: you or the tower?
A friend of mine, Drew, restored the photo and did a beautiful job. I now have the picture as you kept it in your wallet.
Or was it her wallet.
Let me guess: was her name Helene, by any chance?
Love,
Jean-Claude”
Drew,
I want to thank you for giving me the precious opportunity of a renewed dialog with my dad, André, thru the time machine device that is a restored photograph. I was most impressed with your respect of the integrity of the original, and your impeccable technical ability to achieve it. You were also most gracious in complying with my added request for changes, as we both agreed that it was for the better.
All in all, a great experience.
Merci,
Jean-Claude
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