Old/Damaged Photos - Need Advice!
Lisa Daisymere
I have a precious few photos from my family. Many are very old (done
in the 30s, 40s, 50s and 60s).
Two years ago, we had a bad flood at my home. Most of these photos,
particularly ones of my mom, were damaged by water and dirt. I am
trying to save what I can but can't afford the $100 or so per picture
that labs charge.
So I am wondering the following:
Is there any way to safely clean dirty photos? Is there any cleaner I
can get?
And is there a way to make photos flexible enough so that I can lay
them flat to scan them and preserve them that way? Some of these,
like my mom's baby pictures, are so brittle that if I lay them flat,
I'll have 10 pieces.
Is there any way to repaint handpainted photos? I gather this was all
the rage in the 50s when several were done of my mom and the paint ran
horribly from the water in the flood.
Any advice you can offer will be greatly appreciated - these are the
only photos left of my family as everythign else was lost in a fire
years ago!
Thanks so much!
Lisa
Paul Brecht
expense no matter what route you go...
As far as the old portraits. Does the studio still exist ??? That might be
the cheapest, least time consuming way to get them re-done. If you have any
negatives, etc., that will be a good starting point as well...
The only thing I can say is to try to wet the pictures in distilled/purified
water & let them lay flat. You might try steaming them...
Sorry if I'm not that much help...
Paul
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Lisa Daisymere <deeey...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:2b4662a6.02060...@posting.google.com...
> Hi!
>
> >
> particularly ones of my mom, were damaged by water and dirt.
Lisa: I would just soak them in distilled water and even if they are a
little moist, scan them. Then I would have a new print made from the
digital file. As for cleaning them, I would think if they were soaked real
good the dirt will fall off pretty much by itself. Even if a little dirt is
left, go ahead and scan it and if you have Photoshop or Photoshop Elements
a far cheaper program) you can use the rubber stamp tool to fix up the
pictures. I think other programs like Print Shop Pro have that feature
also. Then you can print out photos yourself or have a pro lab do it. You
can then hand color them yourself. If you can find some one with a good
scanner like the Epson 2450 you will have much better scans. Ric in
Wisconsin.
Jack Klaber
If you do not want to spend the money you mentioned for professional
services (100 bucks for a professionally done restauration is really not too
much!), I may give you some help:
1. I advise against using distilled water. The photo's are almost surely of
the silverhalide on baryt paper type.
Meaning, a thin gelatin layer is coated on a substrate of some stuff (baryt)
and 220-300 g/sqr.m paper.
We have to avoid a swelling of the gelatin which would make it very
sensitive to scratches, and worse, to desintegration or peeling from its
base. Destilled water may cause this. High water temperature (above 90F or
30C) is another possible cause of damage.
If you're up to it, here is my procedure. (N.B. use some unimportant
black&white or even color photo's first to see if you are successful before
trying the procedure below on your precious photo's!!)
1. Have a shallow tray (plastic, glass, tin, whatever) at least 50% larger
than your photo's filled with tap water. Temperature should be between
65-80F or 18-25C.
2. If you have a smooth glass plate in the size of the largest photo (bigger
is better, because you can then process several photo's in one batch) or
mirror or window, have it cleaned as good as possible. A chrome plated flat
metal surface is also usable (in fact these chrome plates were used in
professional drying machines until plastic coated, auto-glossy papers became
available). Check for scratches. You should avoid using glass areas with
severe scratches. Minor ones should not be a problem.
3. Soak each photo in the with tap water filled tray. Dirt, sand, etc. may
float on the water surface after a few minutes. If so, replace the water
with fresh, clean water and repeat this water replacement as long as dirt is
visibly beeing released from the photo. You may decide to use a VERY soft
brush (a marder hair size 3-4 painting brush should do) to try and wipe the
surface very lighty to loosen some dirt from the surface. Don't force it and
in case of doubt, stop.
3. When the water is finally clear (Professionals in this field would now
use as last step of the soaking a bath with a gelatin hardening agent, but I
believe this is in this case not needed), add a few drops of liquid washup
detergent to the water and soak the photo's for a minute in this soapy
water.
4. Wipe very carefully water excess and foan from the photo, or better, keep
the photo hanging from your fingers or wash line until drip free.
5. Place the photo with the image down onto the glass and with a squeegee,
rubber roller, or towel squeeze out airbubbles and excess water.
6. After a few hours, the photo's should be dry and should fall of the glass
by them selves (if glass is in vertical position; on horizontal surfaces
they may pop from the surface and should lay in a curved position on the
glass). You may help by carefully lifting a corner with a japanese knife
blade.
7. If the japanese knife doesn't do the trick, then you have to moisture the
photo's thoroughly in order to peel them from the glass. Repeat steps 3-6
after cleaning the glass and you may have to use the previous mentioned
hardening agent. Locate a prof/hobby photoshop that sells photochemicals.
They may store such hardener. If you can't get the chemicals locally, try to
get the hardener from photo mailorder or if everthing else fails, ask your
chemist for a solution of potash alum, chrome alum or diluted formalin (very
poisonous and tricky stuff, in concentrated form!).
8 At no instance during the procedure should you bend the photo's too much.
Up to a shallow 30 degrees angle should be OK in totally wet and soaked
condition.
9. The photo's should now have a glossy surface and may curle a bit. Put
them in a thick book for a day or so and they will be flat as well as
glossy.
10. Scan the photo's into Photoshop and start restauring:
a.) scratches, missing parts (cloning tool basically) and b.)coloring skin
tones, flowers, grass, sky, etc. as good and as much (less is better) as you
like.
11. Print out the photo's on glossy or matte photorealistic quality inkjet
paper on a photograde inkjet printer. If you don't know if your printer is
capable, just try and see if the result is acceptable. If not, try to find
someone in your family/friends neighborhood with a good printer.
12. Handpainting issue: Whereas handpainting is more truthfull to the
original, you need the right colorpencils and dyes and some experience.
Using Photoshop and colorizing is easier.
HTH,
and if you should need more advise, get in touch with me (remove the NO SPAM
from my email address)
success!
Jack
"Paul Brecht" <par...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
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Lisa Daisymere
I just wanted to say thank you to all of you for the great responses.
At least now I have a starting point. Since most of the pictures I
have are of my mother who passed away almost ten years ago, it was
very important to me not to do WORSE damage trying to save them. Now
I feel like I have a more educated chance at achieving that! Thanks!
Lisa
Jack Klaber
until further notice, ALL photographic paper AND film use
gelatin. There is not yet a suitable replacement that does
not affect the sensitivity. A "perfect" medium would render a
photographic emulsion (the light sensitive chemical "solution")
using such medium completely useless. Such a film or paper would
not be sensitive to light!!! In the field of photographic film and -paper
manufacturing one starts with a "perfect" gelatin, called inert gelatin, and
by adding substances and prolonged heating, imperfections are induced
into the molecule structure of the gelatin. These imperfections are the
source
of sensitivity of a photographic film or -paper.
No synthetic material has been found (yet) that could produce such
"imperfections".....
The only improvements that have been made are in the base material:
for films (especially movie films) celluloid was replaced during the 40's
and 50's by
tri-acetate and thus films became stable and could not self combust
(start a fire).
During the 70's baryt-paper was replaced by pvc or resin coated paper. Thus
the paper
could not soak up water and the wash and dry process became very short and
simple.
Moreover, the resin base made it possible to produce glossy surfaces that
after drying
remained glossy.
To get glossy surfaces with baryt-paper, you have to use glazing machines,
onto which
you had to press the prints until dry (heating the glossy plates to get
drying times of less that
two minutes). In the photo lab before the 70's you would find big drums with
heating elements inside
and a textile band that squeezed the prints onto the drum, which slowly
rotated. The circumfence,
rotation speed and temperature of the drum was such, that prints were
totally dry after less than one rotation,
to enable working with photopaper rolls of several hundred feet.
Amateurs had to work harder and used the technique I described in my
previous message, using mirrors,
glassplates, etc., or had a electrically heated glazing press.
So, you have to check if the more recent prints are pvc or resin coated.
Look at the back of the prints and
see if you can identify the texture of the surface. Older baryt-paper should
look and feel like
paper or thin premium white cardboard: writings with a soft pencil would be
clearly visible, whilst
pencil marks on resin coated paper would hardly be visible. Resin paper is
also smoother and has
a slight glossy ("plastic") surface texture. A small drop of water would
stay put on resin coated paper,
whilst a water drop on baryt paper would wet the paper and thus vanish in a
short while.
HTH,
Jack Klaber
> when did photo paper
> stop using the gelatin you mention? I have photos
> ranging from my mother's birth in 1934 all the way to
> the present that were damaged. At around what time
> would that cease to be a concern and does the
> procedure change for those made later?