Sunday, March 6, 2011

Photo Restoration / Time Travel


The final image after restoration.

The original print.

My first restoration project is complete! Believe it or not I'm actually looking forward to another project like this. The process was meticulous at times but also consistently rewarding. With every hour of work the original would become more and more clear and vibrant... and if you're feeling psychedelic, I equate the experience to traveling back in the time. In addition to restoring the blemishes, colors, and levels/contrast, I also scanned the image at a high resolution, allowing the now restored print to be enlarged to 13" x 19" instead of its original 3" x 4". By and by this was a fun project that has lead to learning a few new editing tricks and work flow solutions in Photoshop.

As a (somewhat sarcastic) side note: I anticipate in the future I will be contacted by many of today's youth to restore their once trendy "hipstamatic" prints taken via "smart phone". For those unaware this cell phone application allows the user (usually featured in most of the photos) to add preset aging such as faded and tweaked colors, scratches, light leaks, and "film" boarders that give the photos a faux vintage or low-fi film look. I hope someday to make a living restoring their fake old photos into what will finally be, just a bad cell phone photo.

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