photo restoration

The Horner Family

| randie.hov

This photo of my grandmother’s family, the Horners, was highly damaged after a careless relative decided to store it in a leaky shed.  As a surprise Christmas gift for my non-internet surfing grandmother, I decided to try and restore it.  This is the most challenging photo that I have worked on yet.  There were many moldy spots and one person’s face was almost completely missing!  I don’t think I will ever know what this person truly looked like, but since everyone in the photo is related and shared many common facial features, I gave it my best approximation.

The original photo, moldy and damaged.
The 10×8″ version after some retouching.
For the final copy I set the tone to black and white and cropped the image to 7×5″ so that the composition would fit more neatly around the family.

Sharon and Bill

| randie.hov

Here’s a photo I patched up of my mom, Sharon, and her father, Bill Truitt. She still makes that same expression in photos to this day.

My mom and grandfather in a photobooth on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland.
My mom and grandfather in a photobooth on the boardwalk in Ocean City, Maryland.

Mardela High School Prom, 1954

| randie.hov

Here is a photo of my maternal grandmother Betty Ann Truitt, and some friends of hers at the 1954 Mardela High School prom in the small town of Mardela, Maryland.  Parts of our original print had faded into total whiteness, so I had to use a little bit of imagination. Overall I am pleased with the result. If for no other reason, I am glad to know Photoshop so that I can restore and preserve my family’s memories. I can’t wait to show this to Betty!

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63-Year-Old News About a 104-Year-Old Relative

| randie.hov

It seems like the women in my family are unusually long lived. I think all of the cigarettes and coffee affect us in at Keith Richards-esque fashion. This is an article about Mary Arvey of Bivalve, Maryland who according to my grandmother, is my great-great-great aunt.

Our copy of article was in pretty crummy shape, but I scanned it in and did a little bit of restoration in Photoshop. With older print articles something always tells me to preserve the age of the piece while editing, but it might just be overall convenience since it would take much more time than I can spare to restore this to its former glory.