The Photograph

This photograph comes from a family album compiled by my great aunt. The album is a six- generational documentary and photographic record of births, deaths and significant occasions with commentary.

I chose this photograph taken in 1888 to practice restoration techniques because it offers multiple challenges: a torn corner, other tears and cracks, stains, fuzzy people, as well as yellowing and fading.

The image is probably an albumen print, the most common photographic technique of the nineteenth century. Albumen images first appeared in 1850 and by 1855, these prints were coated with gold chloride—a preservative that enriched their color. Surface cracking is characteristic of albumen prints as they age and the images became increasingly yellow and brown.

The Process

I worked with the image in grayscale and then restored it to RGB colors. This was the most successful. I also worked with it in RGB colors, using the color channel to reduce the yellow haze and try to bring out highlights and shadows. This was unsuccessful.

Levels adjustment, clone, lasso, and dodge and burn tools were the most useful. Lassoing the figures and then using the levels adjustment gave better definition. I used the same process to emphasize structural elements such as windows, distant buildings and fence rails. The clone tool—among other useful applications— gave the house new siding and built up the torn portion of the dress.

The torn corner is restored by using the rectangular marquee to select a portion of the fence and copying that selection to the clip board. I outlined the torn area with the lasso tool and then used the command “Paste In” to copy the area from the clip board. After flattening the image, I used the clone and dodge tools to add bushes and shading for variety.

The reconstruction process yielded surprises. A child's push toy is on the lawn—invisible in the original photo, but obvious after scanning.

The process also produced frustration. A fold line across the face of the woman on the right refused to yield to dodge, burn, airbrush, paintbrush or pixel-by-pixel cloning. It remains.

The Final Touches

I waited until the end to crop the image and added a layer using a sepia tone. The final image is cropped for focus and for future web use. That process does, however, remove context. In the uncropped photo, the relationship of this house to it's neighbors, the structure of the buildings and the juxtaposition of people with the landscape create an historically useful ambiance.

And to be honest, I prefer the aged colors of the original image to the new sepia tone. The sepia layer lacks subtle gradations that would evolve over time, but I couldn't find a satisfactory alternative.

I would have changed less, I think, for personal use and perhaps publication, but would refine the current changes for webwork or for museum display