Here are just some of the many things we have restored, retouched and manipulated recently – do you have something similar that will benefit from a bit of attention?
Photograph Restorations, Retouching and Manipulation
Photograph Restorations, retouching and Manipulation
Favourite Photographs Scanned and Optimised
This is a great opportunity to get a quantity of your favourite photographs scanned and optimised for just 99p each.
The normal cost of this service is £3.50 each or £2.50 each if there are more than ten photographs.
Other Scan/Optimise Packages Available
50 Photographs @ £1.35 each
25 photographs @ £1.75 each
WHY YOU SHOULD I GET MY PHOTOS SCANNED AND OPTIMISED?
You can show the finished images on your computer screen and TV
This is an example of before and after scan and optimisation
RECENT TESTIMONIALS
“My goodness, they look amazing! Very many thanks, how clever you are!” KC
“The photos are fab! You are a genius! Many thanks” PC
“Excellent and thanks! I’m actually really thrilled with them and will promote you to everyone” SW
“I’ve just received the photographs, they are perfect thank you very much indeed, you are a gentleman.
As I said before I shall be back to you in the future with some more work” JC
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!”
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!
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.
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
Photographs Forever specialises in photograph restoration, photo editing, photograph retouching and photograph manipulation and has just improved the EXAMPLES tab of the website and has now been updated so that the different types of work undertaken are separated and examples are easier to see and evaluate. There new restored images, retouched photographs, edited photos, and other types of manipulation.
Before – Mud behind wheels, traffic cone, lamppost, man behind car roof
After – Clean car, no traffic cone, no lamp post, no man behind the car
Often people think of restoration as just rectifying old damaged photographs from many years ago.
What is sometimes overlooked is the number of improvements that can be made to any photograph of any age.
How often have you taken a photograph that was basically great but spoilt by something or somebody being in the photo that you don’t want in?
This is where photograph editing and photograph manipulation are extremely useful.
We can manipulate your photographs so they are what you want them to be so as well as improving fading, restoring colour we can increase the resolution so that the lower resolution photographs can be printed without pixellation.
Click HERE to take a look at some manipulation examples
Incidentally, the convertible Jaguar is available to hire for weddings and other celebrations. CLICK HERE for details
If you’re a regular user of Genes Reunited, you may already have investigated our Keepsafe feature, which allows you to upload treasured family photographs and documents. It’s a great way to ensure your digital legacy – a carefully curated and preserved archive that you can share with your family. But what about all those old photos that you keep meaning to scan in, but just haven’t had the chance? Photos, like any archive material, can degrade over the years – have you checked on those shoeboxes and old albums recently?
Richard Haines of Photographs Forever specialises in restoring old photographs, and says “Unfortunately photographs don’t age well and over time their quality deteriorates. Because photos are printed on paper, things such as handling, light, moisture, dust, and scratches often affect them. Regrettably, these factors can ruin our photos and prevent them from lasting through future generations. Poor storage, such as keeping photos in attics or basements or allowing photos to be exposed to sunlight, have all contributed to the poor condition of most of our photo collections.
“It is a very good idea to restore your special photographs or even entire photo collection in order to stop the unavoidable destruction that will take place no matter how carefully the photos are stored. Once you have digital copies you needn’t worry about further damage because digital images do not change at all.”
Faded photograph restored
You can even get enlargements made of restored photos – perhaps you’d like to present your parents with a framed version of their favourite photo on their first holiday, or give all the grandchildren a copy of an old (but badly scratched and folded) family photo. Richard comments “Since old photographs have a tendency to degrade over time, professional photo restorers have developed digital techniques for restoring your old photographs and they can eliminate scratches, cracks, tears, and fading as well as repairing other damage. Many precious old photographs, often the last copy in existence, are good quality but too small to see the detail. Restoration not only captures the image electronically but then allows the restored photograph to be enlarged so prints and enlargements can be made or framed so they can be truly enjoyed in all their glory.”
Tattered portrait photograph of soldier rescued
Once you can see the detail in those old photos more clearly, they may even hold valuable clues to aspects of your family history – who’s that woman standing on the edge of the family group? What’s that landmark in the background? Richard says “Deteriorating photos may provide important historical links in your family or possible clues about your ancestors. When rebuilding your family tree, it is possible to determine certain aspects of your ancestry, such as weddings, landmarks of geographical nature and important occasions. Enhancing your old photos may reveal details you had not noticed before.” Remember, when you upload your photos to Keepsafe, you can choose to make them public to other Genes Reunited users and invite others to help you investigate them further – someone else might have the answers you’ve been looking for.
Take some time this week to look over your old photographs and create safe digital copies of them – you may even find precious photos you’d like to see restored. And if you have any questions regarding preserving old photographs then Richard would be happy to help you.
Try Keepsafe now
by Richard Haines of Photographs Forever
Click HERE to see the Blog entry on Genes Reunited’s own website
I picked up an old Eagle annual while wandering around Rye bookshops recently and as I flicked through the pages I realised how things have changed with comics/magazines etc. The way the characters are drawn, the type of characters, Dan Dare’s trademark eyebrow, the speech bubbles and what they said – all very nostalgic.
I thought it would be interesting to restore some of the images. After I had done the work I made an enlarged print and the quality is superb and will make a great wall decoration or poster
Here’s the before and after
As well as restoring damaged and faded black and white photographs there are other types of restoration I thought you may be interested to know that I do.
I’ve recently restored a newspaper article dated January 1966 which was very fragile and about to fall apart. Here’s the before and after, having combined two parts of the newspaper:
Then there’s the terrific artwork that our children have done at school on awful quality paper that fades and tears so easily.
Still retaining all it’s original charm this painting is now saved forever, can be printed and framed, any size, and it won’t fade as the prints are on archive paper :
I can digitally restore and make huge improvements to all your:
