Jim Terman sent this example of his restoration of a photograph of his great-great grandparents which is very meaningful to him. I suspect that many of us have or have access to similar family photos that could benefit from restoration.
I have inherited a fair number of tintypes, vintage prints, negatives from snapshots, and cartes de visite, some with identifications, many without. It is a real challenge to restore not only the images but also the information they impart. For the latter, careful comparisons with known images can help as well as information on borders and backs of studio images. I have been most fortunate to learn about and come to know three bright , intelligent, and (mirabile dictu) computer-savvy 91-year-old cousins who have enormously helpful. Other resources include the book Dressed For the Photographer, by Joan Severa, former costume and clothing historian at the Wisconsin State Historical Society, and Ms. Leslie Bellais, her successor, a willing e-mail consultant. I have heavily used the staff of the Johnson County (Indiana) Museum of History, since my family roots are there. Finally, I use Ancestry.com –which is where I met my senior cousins -- and for family tree and profile graphic display, Geni.com.
This is one of my prizes, obtained from my 90-year-old cousin Annabelle McAlpin Spencer of Cape Girardeau, MO, after repair. This photo shows my great-great grandparents, James William Terman (my accidental namesake), and Martha Cutsinger Terman, with their daughters (2/14 children) Bertha and Flora, Oct. 10, 1904, their 50th wedding anniversary. This is also meaningful, because Nancy and I are nearing our 50th, Sept. 2. They are on the lawn of their farm home in Johnson County, Indiana, 4 ½ miles east of Whiteland and 17 miles south of Indianapolis. Their home, sadly, burned in the 1920s, but the farm still exists, and their horse barn has been converted to an ample and beautiful home. A decade ago, I barely knew the name of these ancestors and despaired of ever seeing a photo of them. Annabelle (their granddaughter) has actually given me the original, a print permanently adhered to a back, badly faded so that the people and the home could barely be seen. I brought it to this stage in Photoshop Elements 1, including repairing a large crack, still partly visible in the house siding. The fuzzy, blotchy surface is typical of vintage prints as the emulsion is very thin over the paper fibers and represents one of the limits of print restoration.
Byron
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