Wedding photos need repairing – company recommendations and advice.

[Plec]

First, the sob story – clipped version - got married 15 years ago, wedding photographer turned out to be a complete charlatan/tool (his portfolio turned out to be someone else’s). Result: awful photos – all blurred (slightly) and overexposed. The only silver lining to any of this is that I made him give us the negatives so at least I have the raw material to work with.

Well, we tucked the photos & the negatives away & have never look at them since, for obvious reasons, as we made a reasonable album out of guest’s pics. But I’m thinking of getting them restored as a surprise for my wife – but need some advice.

• Firstly, which firm/company would you guys recommend – are they all much of a muchness or has anyone got any first-hand experience of a company’s results?
  
• Or would i be better off getting them professionally scanned and then working on them myself with photoshop CS - would the results be similar or should i leave the comapany to do the whole lot? (Keeping in mind i know what the colours should look like as we still have the wedding dress and bridemaid outfits etc for reference.)
  
• My last question is, given the degree of the problem is it actually worth it – can modern scanning and software correct this type of problem totally or am I expecting too much?

I can scan a picture to give you an idea if it helps.

 

[kae2]

I do this type of work, but obviously can't post recommendations etc.

Basically what you pay someone to do is:

Physically clean and scan images.
Digitally Fix them.
Send back on DVD & print if required.

It is worth doing, and so much can be fixed digitally you may be pleasantly surprised at the results, likewise, don't expect miracles.

Price would depend on number of images and how much work is required.

I've recently finished fixing a digital album (makes me cringe just thinking of it), but most things are fixable. They'll never look like a professionally shot wedding, but they can be improved exponentially.

Much easier now than hand-painting and reprinting in the darkroom (many hours spent doing that too!).

 

[a1ex2001]

Sacn and post an example, some things are easy to fix now the digital age is here other things like missed focus or movement blur are still not very easy and the results won't be great.

 

[Plec]

Thanks for the response guys, appreciated. I will dig out an example photo or two tonight and get them uploaded for your appraisal.

Kae2, thanks for the detailed explanation behind the process – it gives me hope that I’m not on a hiding to nothing.

I don’t suppose you have any links to samples of your work (or others work) that match my type of problem – as in a before and after shot? (no worries if you haven't.)

If it is possible, for reference: all the shots are slightly out of focus and overexposed - as far as I’m aware there’s no physical damage to the negatives although they have been stuck in the loft for 15 years.

Thanks.

 

[Benihana]

Focus will be the main problem I think, you can probably sharpen them a little, but wouldn't get your hopes too high! Its possible to recover from the overexposure as long as there is some 'information' there to tinker with and not just whiteness!

 

[kae2]

I haven't any links yet, although I bought a domain to build a website for this stuff, I haven't got around to it yet (been too busy with work, bad work!).

Lofts aren't nice places for negatives due to the extremes of temperatures. If when you get hold of the negatives, if they're stuck together/stuck to the sleeves etc, don't try and pull them apart!

Over-exposures are harder to fix than under-exposures (as an over exposure means all the "information" is lost, whereas under-exposures often mean there's just too much "information").

The best you can achieve by the sounds of it, is to have them cleaned up, sympathetically sharpened (get as much detail from the image without exaggerating grain etc) and correct the colouring as much as possible.

They would likely look "better" printed than on screen too, so perhaps have them printed into a photo-book to present them to your wife?

 

[D.P.]

You may get some way in have sharp photos from 35mm film by having them scanned to high resolution and then downsampling. E.g, you wont get a sharp 20MP image but you might get a sharp 4MP image will will still print to suitable sizes for an album.

 

[kae2]

You may get some way in have sharp photos from 35mm film by having them scanned to high resolution and then downsampling. E.g, you wont get a sharp 20MP image but you might get a sharp 4MP image will will still print to suitable sizes for an album.

This is absolutely one of the ways of "assisting" the images, unfortunately there is only so much "information" in the frame, and this works best when reducing the images a long way (often beyond any real use).

 

[Plec]

Thanks again for the replies.

Below are a couple of images for critique (apologies for the delay in uploading them).

Obviously, some definition has been lost due to resizing and the scan, plus they were stuck in the album so it's not the best results. But the colour and blurriness is pretty representative of the original image.

In fact the original image looks blurrier as it's larger - but hopefully your professional eyes will still be able to get the information that you need.

Witth the next image please keep in mind that the bridesmaids' dresses are meant to be pink (not bright pink - but still pink) and my wife's dress is ivory.

Also note that the flower girl's dress is patterned.

Hope this proves to be of some help.

Were we ever that young... :/

 

[kae2]

The issue is that as the images were shot in bright sunlight, recovering that detail could be difficult (and definitely not possible from the printed images, unlikely from the negatives).

Redressing the colour balance issues, sharpening to a degree and generally tidying up the images is possible.

(Just a quick edit on this machine which doesn't have a colour calibrated monitor, so this might not be spot-on, but better than the green cast on the original!).

The photographer has metered for the wrong part of the image, taken them in direct sunlight and hasn't colour balanced them in the darkroom (not difficult with a calibrated colour meter) or hasn't kept his chemicals at the right temperature (we're talking a 1/2 degree shift causing poor colour reproduction).

You could definitely improve these digitally, whether the improvement would be enough to justify the expense is upto you though.

 

[Plec]

Thanks again kae2 - you're example has at least given me an idea of colour. The cravat is much closer to the original colour – from what i remember.

The images at the church (the bridesmaid’s photo) were, as you've noticed, shot in bright sunlight - but the images at the reception (the one that you've sampled) were shot in cloudy conditions. So perhaps we may have more luck with these?

As for a light meter and the use of the dark room he had neither. He had a bog standard SLR (from what i can remember) didn't use a light meter and we received our photos in a Boots folder :/. (Could this be a bonus point? - i.e. the fact that they were developed in a mass production lab 15 years ago. Does this mean that re-developing the negatives under pro-conditions would yield siginificantly better results?)

He blamed the poor focus on a hangover and said that he had had no complaints about his use of developing in the past. The temptation to flaw him at that point was all-consuming. But then I would have been stuck with just the shoddy photos – at least I forced him to give use all the photos and their respective shoddy negatives (hoorah! /end sarcasm). Not much of a bonus but at least he made no extra profit at our or any of our guest’s expense…

As mentioned in my opening post he was a complete charlatan/crook - but it was a gift from my mother-in-law so we had no input. From recollection she followed a friend’s recommendation - had we paid for it ourselves we would have been far more thorough. In fact we would have used a local man who we use to do the school's photos - but unfortunately this was a gift so we didn't have any input.

No matter I may try and work with what I’ve got – you’ve certainly given me food for thought.

I’m guessing price varies for each image – dependent on the degree of correction required – but is there a ‘ball-park-figure’ I should be keeping in mind for approx 30 shots?

Thanks again for all your input, really appreciated.

 

[SMed]

Photoshop are coming out with a new tool/plug-in to rescue blurry photos. Now, I don't know if it will work on scanned images as there is probably less information for the process to work with - I do not know. But check out the photoshop de-blur videos, pretty impressive. It's not out yet though.

 

[Plec]

Photoshop are coming out with a new tool/plug-in to rescue blurry photos. Now, I don't know if it will work on scanned images as there is probably less information for the process to work with - I do not know. But check out the photoshop de-blur videos, pretty impressive. It's not out yet though.

Wow, i just watched the 'Photoshop Image Deblurring sneak' and their results look almost too good to be true - especially the last image at approx 5 mins 30sec.

Listening to their blurb they won't commit to date when this feature will be released - but when they do it's sure to have an impact as it's a feature that would certainly interest me (not just for my wedding photos but for the photos that i've be inherited from my parents.)

My photos are comparatively focused compared to the images the adobe guy was manipulating. I'm just a little sceptical how this feature will translate for the average user - but if it's as good as their promo then i will definitely be purchasing a copy if it's featured in the next release.

 

[kae2]

The "new" tool that adobe are demonstrating won't help in this instance. That tool is designed to move "streaked" pixels back into a "point".
Imagine taking a photo of a star, the length of exposure to take the image means that you end up with a streak of light. Software can then fix that to make the streak of pixels into one sharp point, it can't re-focus a blurry image.
Also, it's a lot of hype, showing an image that's been prepared to the purpose, it's gong to be a while before it appears, and then won't be the miraculous fix people are expecting.


No photographer worth their salt would have boots develop their images. I used to spend several days (upto a week!) working in a darkroom to develop a set of prints, not get a 1 hour processing lab to chuck them out - definitely a contributing factor to how poor they are, and in some ways, hopefully an indication that there might be more "information" in the negatives than has ended up on the print. This is assuming that boots didn't knacker the negatives when they processed them - some of the very quick developers aren't great and the negatives deteriorate quickly, even when stored well.


I can only give you an estimate based on how much I charge, but a standard "fix" for a roll of film starts at £150 for a negative clean, scan, individually process/correct/repair and put to DVD. It's a very time consuming process to do properly, not a batch "auto-fix" in photoshop.

 

[SMed]

So this is more for motion blur and not out-of-focus shots. So pretty much Image Stabilisation in post-processing.

 

[kae2]

So this is more for motion blur and not out-of-focus shots. So pretty much Image Stabilisation in post-processing.

Bingo!

Motion blur means that all the info is still in the imagebut has been stretched. In an out of focus image the data wasn't there in the first place. So can't be shifted back into position. Its the same method they use for removing obscurring blurs on images.

 

[SMed]

Gotcha, thanks.

 

[Plec]

The "new" tool that adobe are demonstrating won't help in this instance. That tool is designed to move "streaked" pixels back into a "point".
Imagine taking a photo of a star, the length of exposure to take the image means that you end up with a streak of light. Software can then fix that to make the streak of pixels into one sharp point, it can't re-focus a blurry image.
Also, it's a lot of hype, showing an image that's been prepared to the purpose, it's gong to be a while before it.

Point well made, thanks for taking the trouble to explain its failings so comprehensively – certainly for my needs.

Do you think they will ever develop a tool to deblur poor focusing – or would there be too many assumptions in the algorithm to make it a consistent tool?

Out of interest what software do you use for correcting images?

No photographer worth their salt would have boots develop their images. I used to spend several days (upto a week!) working in a darkroom to develop a set of prints, not get a 1 hour processing lab to chuck them out - definitely a contributing factor to how poor they are, and in some ways, hopefully an indication that there might be more "information" in the negatives than has ended up on the print. This is assuming that boots didn't knacker the negatives when they processed them - some of the very quick developers aren't great and the negatives deteriorate quickly, even when stored well..

Agreed, and your closing remarks are both encouraging and disturbing – you give with one hand and take away with the other .

I understand what you’re stating though – basically there are no guarantees and you can only work with the raw materials you’ve got. I’ll dig out the negatives later for inspection and ‘wont’ try to separate any that may have developed an attraction to each other.

I can only give you an estimate based on how much I charge, but a standard "fix" for a roll of film starts at £150 for a negative clean, scan, individually process/correct/repair and put to DVD. It's a very time consuming process to do properly, not a batch "auto-fix" in photoshop.

£5 per shot does seem about the average for a problem like mine and i appreciate that it's not a point and click affair - each picture will require its own analysis, restoration and correction process.

Would you be interested in the job if I decided to go ahead - subject to a sample photo which i would pay for?

I think I would prefer to use someone who was dedicated to the profession and seem to have a passion for what they’re doing – and from reading your posts (and others) a chap such as yourself.

If you are interested I’m guessing it would be sensible to send you a sample negative to see what’s possible and then for me to make a decision as to whether it’s worth getting the whole film done?

Don’t feel obliged or pressured in considering this – it could be that you're swamped with work. I will fully understand if you don't/can't want/do the job. I appreciate the help thus far and it would seem fitting to pay you to do the job if you wanted it (or at least pay for a sample for me to assess etc..)

 

[kae2]

Point well made, thanks for taking the trouble to explain its failings so comprehensively – certainly for my needs.

Do you think they will ever develop a tool to deblur poor focusing – or would there be too many assumptions in the algorithm to make it a consistent tool?

It's not so much an issue of the algorithm having to make assumptions, but that there is literally missing data from the image. If you imagine a piece of graph paper covered in squares. If you take an out of focus photograph of that, then you will end up with a lot of hazy grey lines merging into each other or at worse, the lines obscured completely. There is no way that a piece of software can make anything meaningful of that.

Out of interest what software do you use for correcting images?

Depends on what needs doing, but primarily Photoshop to do a lot of the fixing, then I use Lightroom to ensure they flow.

Agreed, and your closing remarks are both encouraging and disturbing – you give with one hand and take away with the other .

I'm a realist, but I tend to err on the side of caution.

I understand what you’re stating though – basically there are no guarantees and you can only work with the raw materials you’ve got. I’ll dig out the negatives later for inspection and ‘wont’ try to separate any that may have developed an attraction to each other.

Definitely the best way. Also, don't try to wipe/clean/remove dust in any way. Dust is especially scratchy and a small scratch on a negative translates into a big scratch on a print (and subsequently more work!).

£5 per shot does seem about the average for a problem like mine and i appreciate that it's not a point and click affair - each picture will require its own analysis, restoration and correction process.

Would you be interested in the job if I decided to go ahead - subject to a sample photo which i would pay for?

I think I would prefer to use someone who was dedicated to the profession and seem to have a passion for what they’re doing – and from reading your posts (and others) a chap such as yourself.

Thank you, I don't tend to get involved in the photography/photoshop threads on this forum, but it's what I do

If you are interested I’m guessing it would be sensible to send you a sample negative to see what’s possible and then for me to make a decision as to whether it’s worth getting the whole film done?

Don’t feel obliged or pressured in considering this – it could be that you're swamped with work. I will fully understand if you don't/can't want/do the job. I appreciate the help thus far and it would seem fitting to pay you to do the job if you wanted it (or at least pay for a sample for me to assess etc..)

More than happy to take a look at the original negatives, and I don't charge for assessments, so don't worry about that. If you want, feel free to contact me via the "trust" button and I'll give you my details.

 

[Plec]

More than happy to take a look at the original negatives, and I don't charge for assessments, so don't worry about that. If you want, feel free to contact me via the "trust" button and I'll give you my details.

Great and thanks - i'll press the trust button and see what happens...