Photos with Water Damage

Keeping photos in a cool, dry place is very important if they are to survive long term without damage. But sometimes this is not possible. Damp conditions can introduce many types of damage to a photo. Once a photo has been damaged in this way, it makes a lot of sense to scan it so that you have a digital image that will not deteriorate further with time, because the original photo will probably continue to deteriorate.

But water damage is no different than any other type of damage from the point of view of restoration. How difficult a restoration will be depends only on how much damage there is and what parts of the photo are concealed by it. If important areas like facial features are damaged, obviously that is a lot harder to repair than damage to a plain sky background.

  This photo had small areas of mould
all over it as a result of damp conditions.

In any restoration, there is always the
 danger of
over-restoring and losing
the sense of period in a photo.

Here the important thing for the customer
was to get the facial features clear but
not to make the photo as new.

Approximate cost; £20
 


 Sometimes a damaged photo doesn't need
to be wholly restored. It may make more
sense to only restore part of it. Obviously,
this helps to keep down the cost, while
focussing attention on the important part.

 


Sellotape Damage

Photos that have been held together by sellotape in the past can provide similar restoration challenges as water damaged photos. The sellotape may be invisible when it is first applied, but gradually becomes coloured. It is not possible to remove it physically without damaging the original photo, so digital restoration is the only avenue open.

 
A large part of this photo was
covered by old sellotape that
had yellowed over time. 

 


 
 This is another photo where a bad tear
had been repaired with sellotape. And
clearly there has been a lot of other
damage over the years.

But, as you can see, these problems
can be succesfully dealt with. There is
no chance of physical restoration,
but a digital restoration is certainly possible.
 



   Contact us:editor@photovalet.co.uk

  Get your water damaged photos repaired by PhotoValet.

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