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Archive for Photo Retouching – Page 6

What To Do When Your Favourite Photograph Is Lost or Damaged

This is Jennifer and Frank’s Story as told by Jennifer

“I first contacted Richard at Photographs Forever to see if there was anything he could do with a photograph that had huge sentimental value to my partner Frank as it was the only one he had of his two daughters at that age. The photograph had accidentally been very badly damaged by falling from a car window in the rain and being repeatedly run over by several cars, here’s the photograph in question.

Richard said that unfortunately there was nothing he could do as the photograph was too badly damaged to restore.
I knew there was one other photograph of the two girls that was one of those tiny photographs in a key ring fob.

So I sent this to Richard to restore and also to ask if there was anything he could do to recreate the original photograph of the two girls with hi-vis waistcoats and hard hats. This is the resulting photograph that Richard created and sent to me

Richard sent this photo of the girls, to be signed for, and as I am at work, I missed the postie, got a card through the door to pick it up from the sorting office in West Bromwich. I did not know where it was so I asked Frank to take me. (I have not lived in West Bromwich very long). When I collected it he could see it was photos by the packaging, I told him that I had got you to do “something” to the picture of his girls but I would not tell him what because it was to be a surprise for his birthday, he seemed quite uninterested.  He has since told me that he thought you had just made the photo bigger and made it oval, why he thought that I will never know! ANYWAY, when we got back home I opened it, I got goose pimples!
I said “You have got to see this, I cannot wait for your birthday”
He replied “No, put it away somewhere and I will have it for my birthday”.
I pulled it out the envelope again and said “No I cannot do it, you have to see this”.
When he saw it, well……………….. He is SO HAPPY, his bottom lip started to quiver and I have never seen him like that, he was astounded.  I was afraid that he may not like it as it has been manipulated, it is not actually a memory, as photos normally are but no  – he LOVES IT! We cannot believe the attention to detail, I thought that the girls were wearing hi-vis COATS on the original photo but they were not, they were actually waistcoat hi-vis’s, and the hard hats -on the original  – the oldest girl has a blue hat and the youngest a white one, Richard is SO GOOD. AND the pen in the hi-vis on the youngest, AMAZING. WHAT MORE CAN I SAY……….. WE ARE SPEECHLESS, totally, I cannot thank Richard enough, he has made Frank’s day, his year, his birthday! I told Frank I would buy him a frame for it for his birthday, he said “No way, we are getting a frame on Saturday”.

Any ideas what I can get him for his birthday now please Richard??????????????????”

Photographs Forever Featured in Newspaper

Last week I sent out an email to my customers and this was seen by Sam Satchell of the East Grinstead Courier and he thought the story of Lucy Dixon’s photographs was a very interesting one and consequently called me for more details.  The full page article was published today!

EG-Courier-Article

Passport Photograph Required!

My grandson Monty is now 5 months old and as he is off to Tuscany in July he needs a passport! I was called on to do the honours and here is the photo I took and the resulting passport photo – straightened and with supporting hand removed.

Monty

While I had my camera out I took a series of portraits and made a montage of them,

Monty Montage 650

Historic Photographs Restored for Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club

A couple of months ago I was asked by the Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club to restore some very old deteriorating photographs which the club wanted to use to feature in their refurbishment program. Last week I got the opportunity to take some photographs of the finished project.

Ashdown Golf Montage 650Senior member of the Golf Club is Colin Strachan and this is the story behind these original old photographs:

“I began collecting old photographs to include in my book Fair Ways in Ashdown Forest  to celebrate the 125 years of Royal Ashdown Forest Golf Club 3 years ago.These came from albums of the 1890s and the image resolutions were not up to the standard the layout designer requested.

I searched online for help and was pleasantly surprised to find that the site which appeared to offer the best service for enhancement and photographic restoration was Photographs Forever at nearby Chelwood Gate.

In June 2014 Richard Haines of Photographs Forever was asked to restore a further sepia 30 images which now grace the walls of the Clubhouse.

The largest of these is 1.8 m across.They look superb and the members of the Club have been fulsome in their praise of the new hangings.

Meanwhile the book and its many old photographs has won the coveted Murdoch Medal for the best contribution to the Heritage of Golf in 2014”

 

Special Photograph Created From The Only Photograph of 1935 Couple

I recently received a photograph from Bridie F asking if I could remove the extra person from the photograph of her Mum and Dad. This I did and created her Mum’s right arm at the same time! When this was done Bridie asked if I could gently colourise it in a way similar to those hand coloured at the time of the original photograph. Here is the original photograph, the  manipulated version, the colourised version and finally the framed print in situ.

Photographs Forever - Photograph Restoration Example

Photographs Forever – Photograph Restoration Example

Here’s Bridie’s story of the photograph:

“This photograph taken in rural Ireland on a sunny afternoon in 1935 shows a happy, smiling young couple, full of the joy of young love and the happiness of youth.  In this photo Richard has created the picture of my parents that I have always wished existed, and that now holds pride of place in my sideboard family gallery.

The original, taken by my mother’s sister on an outing as a foursome, also has another young man standing beside my mother.   Within weeks of the outing my aunt had sailed off to America to begin a new life, like so many Irish before her, and her young man went on to marry another local girl.  The blossoming romance between my mother and father was forbidden on the grounds that she, as the daughter of a respectable but peasant farmer, was an unsuitable match for this young man from a well to do land owning family.  Their relationship continued punctuated by meetings at the local dances and later by clandestine meetings in neighbouring towns for a few short hours at a time.  It was to be eleven long years before they were eventually to marry in May 1946, and even then it was against his family’s wishes and without their blessing.  Only my mother’s father, her friend and my father’s friend who had driven them over to the next town attended the ceremony.  After a few days in Dublin by way of a honeymoon, my mother returned home and her new husband, unable to return to his family, travelled to England and began to build a new life for them both.  He quickly saved enough to put a deposit on a small run down cottage, where they were reunited and spent the next fifty years together making a home and raising five daughters.  Only the death of my mother was to separate them again in all those years, and even then only for a short time.

Virtually no photographic evidence of this period of their lives exists, and although I am happy to have the original photo to record the day it is impossible to express how wonderful it is to have this lovely gently coloured picture showing a time in their romance that I have only been able to imagine.  This has only been made possible by Richards’s patience and skill for which I shall be forever grateful.”   

Together Again!

Couple-Before-and-After

I was asked recently to restore these two individual photographs. I then provided a new image with the happy couple in the same photograph for the first time. The scale had to be altered as the girl was larger than the man in the original photographs

Comic Strip Cartoons Added to Bluebell Enterprises Vintage Picture Range

A selection of Vintage Comic Strip Card and Prints

A selection of Vintage Comic Strip Card and Prints

I have recently restored images from comic strip books such as Dan Dare from The Eagle, Dennis The Menace, Desperate Dan, Bash Street Kits, Beryl The Peril and in conjunction with Ian Berry of Bluebell Enterprises. Ian has created from these images a series of greeting cards to complement his huge range of other vintage images which are available in local shops as well as on line.

Go to www.VintagePics.co.uk   to see the full range of handmade greeting cards and mounted prints, ready for framing, all with a nostalgic theme.

Over 2000 images available including Art Nouveau, Art Deco, early Vogue and Vanity Fair covers, Vintage Adverts, Motor and Travel Posters and a wide selection of town and village views from the 1700’s to the 1960’s.

Unique Photograph of World War One Red Cross Hospital Restored

Oaklands The Grange Red Cross Hospital 1918 Photograph Before and After Restoration by Photographs Forever

Oaklands The Grange Red Cross Hospital 1918 Photograph Before and After Restoration by Photographs Forever

This photograph of Oaklands The Grange, Clevedon – Red Cross Hospital was taken 18 November 1918

This residence was kindly lent to the Red Cross by Mr. & Mrs. Ernest Wills, of Ramsbury Manor, Wiltshire, completely free of charge for use as an auxiliary hospital in August 1914.

It came under the jurisdiction of the 2nd Southern General Hospital, Bristol, later being affiliated to the Beaufort War Hospital. The members of the men and women’s sections Voluntary Aid Detachment (VAD), Somerset 33 (Clevedon section) and Somerset 2 worked arduously in its preparation and by the time it was opened on November 9th 1914, they had furnished ten wards and a total of 45 beds, and also equipped the offices and kitchen.

Rush Job From Mexico Completed In 9 Hours!

I received an enquiry from a professional photographer in Mexico recently. He sent a scan of the image and, after I’d responded, he replied:

“A friend tried to restore this photo before, but it was AWFUL, they looked like plastic figurines! Please go ahead with the restoration. I will be very happy if you could do it fast, only if you can and it doesn’t affect the quality of the restoration. Please don’t make them like Toy Story!”

9 hours later he had the restored image for approval and replied:

“WOW, that was waaay faster than I expected. I am very happy with the result!”

Mexico

I was intrigued to know how he found Photographs Forever:

“I Googled photo restoration… I found a LOT, some in the US, some in India and a lot in the UK. And your site is the one I liked the most because your examples look natural, not as CGI as most.”

 So in recent months I have carried out restoration work for customers in Canada, Spain, Australia, South Africa, Isle of Man, Germany, USA, Italy and now Mexico!

 

Graffiti Art Retouched For Bof! CD Release

I recently was asked by Simon, accordianist with the folk/dance band Bof! to manipulate graffiti he had photographed to produce CD cover artwork for their forthcoming CD.

BOF!2013R2-Web

Here’s Simon’s story:

“I play traditional French and Breton dance music in a band called Bof! We have been going since 2000 and in that time have made three CDs. Earlierthis year we decided to make a fourth recording and, having recorded the music, we looked around for a suitable CD cover image. We looked at dozens of photos – some of idyllic scenes of the French countryside and others of people dancing. But then we came across a photograph I had taken while on a holiday in France some years ago. It was a picture of graffiti on a wall in the ancient, picturesque city of Quimper in western Brittany. The image expressed strong traditional Breton themes using the medium of spray painting favoured by graffiti artists the world over. The music Bof! plays is traditional but with a modern flavour, so this image seemed perfect for us.

Somehow, however, we needed to superimpose text on the image. How could we do this without spoiling the artist’s work? We came up with the idea of manipulating the image to include the name of the band, Bof! and the title of the recording, Bal (the French for dance).

So I sent my image to Photographs Forever to see if they could do what seemed like an impossible job. I have to admit I wasn’t very optimistic, but you can see the results for yourself. Needless to say we are delighted with how it’s turned out and this image will be the cover of our new CD which we hope to release in June.

You can hear samples of Bof! music at: http://www.myspace.com/bofanost