Terri
07-19-2009, 05:54 PM
This is my latest project, so I'll be adding to it in this section.
Bit of background: I've been digitally restoring scanned prints of family relatives for some years - sometimes for customers who simply wanted colorized versions of old family B&W portraits. I had a favorite inkjet paper that would take photo oils straight from the tube, which made it a fairly easy process.
That paper is no longer produced with the same coating. Although I have found workarounds, taught them at hand coloring workshops, etc., the luster of the work has dimmed for me. I have a darkroom here at home and stuck to my own enlargements, and drifted away from doing digital restorations.
I finally got around to exploring digital negatives. I recently purchased a book that promised some step-by-steps, plus some extra downloads of curve corrections based on the Epson 2200 photo printer - my personal printer. It has seemed suddenly much more doable.
I still didn't really have anything in mind, particularly, just a new thing to try when I got around to it. A recent visit to my mother, in another state, has given me what I lacked: a photograph she has asked me to restore.
This is a photograph my mother found in her father's wallet, when he passed a few years back. She and my aunt were going through all his things. No one in our family seems to know when or where this photo was taken, but it's my grandmother at a fairly young age (most of my memories of Grandma were of her in her later years). This photo also seems to have been colorized somehow - not much tint in the face, but clearly in the clothes. Grandpa took a liking to it and in his wallet it went for years, after her death and until his own. So this picture has been bent, sat on, cracked, you name it.
Here it is - Thelma:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v435/terriks/miscellaneous/Thelmacopy.jpg
One of my first challenges will be to get it digitally cleaned up. Whew! :lol: I've cleaned it gently with Film Kleen (a godsend product) and have scanned it of course.
The size of the image meant a large res scan. Wallet sized = tiny! Here it is with a couple pennies and a US quarter, to give you some idea of scale.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v435/terriks/miscellaneous/coinswithpicture.jpg
I love this expression and the direct look. The image is already soft. It might be a bromoil in the end - IF I can get a good digital negative made from this.
Wish me luck - and stay tuned.....
Thanks for reading along! :)
Bit of background: I've been digitally restoring scanned prints of family relatives for some years - sometimes for customers who simply wanted colorized versions of old family B&W portraits. I had a favorite inkjet paper that would take photo oils straight from the tube, which made it a fairly easy process.
That paper is no longer produced with the same coating. Although I have found workarounds, taught them at hand coloring workshops, etc., the luster of the work has dimmed for me. I have a darkroom here at home and stuck to my own enlargements, and drifted away from doing digital restorations.
I finally got around to exploring digital negatives. I recently purchased a book that promised some step-by-steps, plus some extra downloads of curve corrections based on the Epson 2200 photo printer - my personal printer. It has seemed suddenly much more doable.
I still didn't really have anything in mind, particularly, just a new thing to try when I got around to it. A recent visit to my mother, in another state, has given me what I lacked: a photograph she has asked me to restore.
This is a photograph my mother found in her father's wallet, when he passed a few years back. She and my aunt were going through all his things. No one in our family seems to know when or where this photo was taken, but it's my grandmother at a fairly young age (most of my memories of Grandma were of her in her later years). This photo also seems to have been colorized somehow - not much tint in the face, but clearly in the clothes. Grandpa took a liking to it and in his wallet it went for years, after her death and until his own. So this picture has been bent, sat on, cracked, you name it.
Here it is - Thelma:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v435/terriks/miscellaneous/Thelmacopy.jpg
One of my first challenges will be to get it digitally cleaned up. Whew! :lol: I've cleaned it gently with Film Kleen (a godsend product) and have scanned it of course.
The size of the image meant a large res scan. Wallet sized = tiny! Here it is with a couple pennies and a US quarter, to give you some idea of scale.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v435/terriks/miscellaneous/coinswithpicture.jpg
I love this expression and the direct look. The image is already soft. It might be a bromoil in the end - IF I can get a good digital negative made from this.
Wish me luck - and stay tuned.....
Thanks for reading along! :)