Help restoring a 145 year old photo

JasonM

JasonM

JasonM

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I'm looking for advice or even help on the following.

A friend has passed me a very old photo that dates to 1875, the task is to scan and then restore a digital copy of it. The problem is the photo is in really poor condition, parts of the photo are damaged by the sun and badly faded.

The problem I have is although i'm a software developer, graphics work like this is not my area. I've uploaded a scan of the photo and put a link below. One advantage I have is I own one of the professional Epson scanners, and the photo below I have already increased contrast to help reveal more of the background, I can of course rescan the image and upload without any correction.

The photo is below for anyone who wanted to look, and offer any advice. Many thanks Jason

https://photos.app.goo.gl/78JDJFGwD748Xpf4A
 
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Hi Donnie,

Firstly it's very good of you to work on the photo, and you've already done quite a good job on the photo I uploaded, i'm really impressed to even see it like this. Some background on the photo, it's an old photo of Crewe Cricket Club, taken on front of the original cricket hut. I'm helping a friend who was a cricketer and his father was involved in the club.

Tonight I've re-scanned the image, I've actually scanned it 10 times, all with various levels on contract and colour curve settings. Everything has been scanned in 48 bit colour, 600dpi and stored as a bmp.

The first number is everything at default settings, then as the number increase I have put the levels higher to try and force out more detail. Images 002 to 010 where scanned exactly the same size, so the images will match pixel on pixel if images were layered on each other, for some reason 001 has been cut different.

The files are hosted on a server inside my house, I only have a connection with 10 Mbps upload, however they should still download.

http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket001.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket002.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket003.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket004.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket005.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket006.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket007.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket008.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket009.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket010.bmp

Again very grateful of any help or work you can do on the photo. Many thanks Jason.
 
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Donnie Fisher said:
Jason,

I'll have a look at them and have a bash ... cant promise the world though !
Click to expand...

Hi Donnie, not expecting a miracle just very grateful for any improvement you can make!

I looked again today at the actual (hard copy) photo, it's so faded it's amazing that the scanner has revived what is has. The photo apparently was hanging on a wall and it's very faded by sun light, the image with 001 is close to how it looks in real life.

But again very appropriate of anything you can do to improve it, thank you.
 
Hi Donnie, I've only just seen your last post.

What you have done is amazing, i'm so grateful. You've done an incredible job recovering detail from the photo, as you say in places there was almost nothing there. For example the person on the right in the original photo there is almost nothing left it's faded that bad, it's truly amazing you got his face back to how it currently is. I've ever noticed you have managed to recover the numbers on the score board! You have done a really good job repairing the areas that where missing completely, the original photo had actual hole in it!

The thing that could possible be changed is perhaps change the tone, make it a little more black and white, so it's closer to the first you produced, but other than this it's amazing what you have done. I'm going to send a copy now to the person who's father was was involved in the Crewe Alexandra Cricket Club, I know he will be extremely pleased.

Just one thing, I can't download the full version on your link, i'm getting a network error, is it possible you could email this to [email protected] ?

Many thanks
Jason
 
Donnie,

thank you

EDIT. Also i've managed to download your high-resolution image from your google drive, the problem was DOS settings on my router that was blocking large downloads, so it's fine for you to upload the new image to your google docs again now, thanks Jason.
 
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Hi Donnie, once again thank you for producing those, i'll send these to person who's father was included in the original cricket club. I did already send him the original one you produced, and he was over the moon and incredibly grateful, he is going to have your corrected picture printed onto photo paper. When he first gave me the photo he presumed nothing could be done with it. For many many years the photo was hanging on a wall, and it had become bleached by the sun, sections of the photo had almost no detail remaining.

Mcnumplty2323, Yes I totally agree. When I held up the original picture next to the computer screen it's amazing the detail that's been recovered.

Thank you again, Jason
 
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