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Archive for retouching – Page 3

What To Do When Your Favourite Photograph Is Lost or Damaged

Posted by Richard Haines on

29 September 2015

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??????????????????”

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Tags : manipulation, Photo Editing, photo repair, photo restoring, Photo Retouching, photograph editing, photograph manipulation, photograph repair, Photograph Restoration, Photograph restoring, Photograph Retouching, restoration, Restoring Your Old Photographs, retouching

Photographs Forever Featured in Newspaper

Posted by Richard Haines on

16 September 2015

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!

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Tags : East Grinstead Courier, Photo Editing, photo repair, photo restoring, Photo Retouching, photograph editing, photograph manipulation, photograph repair, Photograph Restoration, Photograph restoring, Photograph Retouching, Restoring Your Old Photographs, retouching, Sam Satchell, The Courier

Photograph Restoration Montage – A Special Gift

Posted by Richard Haines on

9 September 2015

I recently competed an interesting request to combine two photographs in order to include and exclude all the right people.

Here are the two photographs beside the finished photograph montage . My customer’s touching story is below

Photograph Restoration Montage

“Earlier this year my husband and I made the decision to put our house on the market. It wasn’t just any old house. It had belonged to my grandparents since 1957 and we bought it from my mum and her brothers after Grampy passed away in 2008. Over the last few years we renovated the house and garden, but with a growing family we felt it was time for a change.

When we told my parents the news they were so upset at the thought of saying goodbye to the house, that they decided to sell up themselves and buy (back!) number 10!

My husband remembered an old photo of mum and dad outside the house and we thought it could make a wonderful housewarming gift. We trawled through album and eventually we found it! Only it wasn’t quite how we’d pictured it. There were 2 photos of the whole family, neither was perfect and we really only wanted mum, dad and my grandparents in the frame. Enter Photographs Forever! Richard restored one of the photos to it’s original condition and colours, removed the other family members and pets, took Grampy from the other photo and popped him right in behind nanny as if he’d always been there. He even gave him a body! My parents loved their gift, they couldn’t believe that it wasn’t an original photo. It now takes pride of place on their mantle piece. Thank you Richard!” Lucy D.

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Tags : family, family history, manipulation, Photo Editing, photograph editing, photograph manipulation, photograph repair, Photograph Restoration, Photograph Retouching, Restoring Your Old Photographs, retouching

Special Photograph Created From The Only Photograph of 1935 Couple

Posted by Richard Haines on

27 October 2014

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

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.”

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Tags : manipulation, Photo Editing, photo repair, Photo Restoration Example, photo restoring, Photo Retouching, photograph editing, photograph manipulation, photograph repair, Photograph Restoration, Photograph Restoration Example, Photograph restoring, Photograph Retouching, restoration, retouching

Rush Job From Mexico Completed In 9 Hours!

Posted by Richard Haines on

31 May 2013

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!

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Tags : Australia, Battle, Bognor Regis, Brighton, Burgess Hill, Canada, Crawley, Crowborough, East Grinstead, Eastbourne, Edenbridge, editing, fix photograph, Forest Row, Gatwick, Germany, Graffiti, Haywards Heath, Horsham, Isle of Man, Italy, Kent, Lewes, London, manipulation, Mexico, mid sussex, midsussex, newsletter, old photographs, Old Photos, Oxted, photo, Photo Editing, photo repair, photo restoration service, photo restoring, Photo Retouching, photograph editing, photograph manipulation, photograph repair, Photograph Restoration, photograph restoration service, Photograph restoring, Photograph Retouching, picture repair, Redhill, Reigate, repair my damaged photo, repair my damaged photograph, repair my old photographs, repair my photo, repair my photograph, restoration, restore my old photos, Restoring Your Old Photographs, retouching, Richard Haines, Sevenoaks, Simon Haines, South Africa, Spain, Surrey, Sussex, the family tree, Tilford, Tunbridge Wells, Uckfield, USA

Graffiti Art Retouched For Bof! CD Release

Posted by Richard Haines on

9 May 2013

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

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Tags : Accordianist, Battle, Bof!, Bognor Regis, Brighton, Burgess Hill, Colchester, Crawley, Crowborough, East Grinstead, Eastbourne, Edenbridge, editing, fix photograph, Folk Band, Forest Row, French Dance Music, French Folk Music, Gatwick, Graffiti, Gwendal Moele, Hadleigh Folk, Haywards Heath, Horsham, Kent, Lewes, London, manipulation, mid sussex, midsussex, newsletter, old photographs, Old Photos, Oxted, photo, Photo Editing, photo repair, photo restoration service, photo restoring, Photo Retouching, photograph editing, photograph manipulation, photograph repair, Photograph Restoration, photograph restoration service, Photograph restoring, Photograph Retouching, picture repair, Redhill, Reigate, repair my damaged photo, repair my damaged photograph, repair my old photographs, repair my photo, repair my photograph, restoration, restore my old photos, Restoring Your Old Photographs, retouching, Richard Haines, rummage, Sevenoaks, Simon Haines, Surrey, Sussex, the family tree, Tilford, Tunbridge Wells, Uckfield

Photograph Restoration, Editing, Retouching and Manipulation Examples Updated

Posted by Richard Haines on

10 April 2013

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

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Tags : Battle, Bedfordshire, Berkshire, blog, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire, Cornwall, County Durham, Cumbria, damaged photograph, Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, East Grinstead, East Sussex, editing, Essex, family, family history, Family Tree, fix photograph, Genes Reunited, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Haywards Heath, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Hull, Isle of Wight, Kent, Lancashire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, London, manipulation, Medway, Merseyside, Norfolk, North Somerset, North Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, old photographs, Old Photos, Oxfordshire, Peterborough, photo, Photo Editing, photo repair, photo restoration service, photo restoring, Photo Retouching, photograph editing, photograph manipulation, photograph repair, Photograph Restoration, photograph restoration service, Photograph restoring, Photograph Retouching, picture repair, repair my damaged photo, repair my damaged photograph, repair my old photographs, repair my photo, repair my photograph, restoration, restore my old photos, Restoring Your Old Photographs, retouching, Richard Haines, rummage, Shropshire, Somerset, South Yorkshire, Southend-on-Sea, Staffordshire, Stockton-on-Tees, Suffolk, Surrey, Tyne and Wear, Warrington, Warwickshire, West Midlands, West Sussex, West Yorkshire, Wiltshire, Worcestershire, York

Genes Reunited Blog About Photograph Restoration by Photographs Forever

Posted by Richard Haines on

5 April 2013

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

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Tags : Battle, blog, Bognor Regis, Brighton, Burgess Hill, Crawley, Crowborough, damaged photograph, East Grinstead, Eastbourne, Edenbridge, editing, family, family history, family search, Family Tree, fix photograph, Forest Row, free family history, Gatwick, Genes Reunited, Genes Reunited Blog, Haywards Heath, Horsham, Keepsafe, Kent, Lewes, London, manipulation, mid sussex, midsussex, my family tree, newsletter, old photographs, Old Photos, Oxted, photo, Photo Editing, photo repair, photo restoration service, photo restoring, Photo Retouching, photograph editing, photograph manipulation, photograph repair, Photograph Restoration, photograph restoration service, Photograph restoring, Photograph Retouching, picture repair, Redhill, Reigate, repair my damaged photo, repair my damaged photograph, repair my old photographs, repair my photo, repair my photograph, restoration, restore my old photos, Restoring Your Old Photographs, retouching, Richard Haines, rummage, Sevenoaks, Surrey, Sussex, the family tree, Tilford, Tunbridge Wells, Uckfield, uk records

Restore The Pictures From Your Favourite Comic Strip

Posted by Richard Haines on

22 March 2013

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

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Tags : Comic Strip, Dan Dare, Eagle, Eagle Comic, Nostalgia, photo, Photo Editing, Photo Retouching, photograph editing, photograph manipulation, Photograph Restoration, Photograph Retouching, restoration, retouching, Richard Haines

A Couple of Restoration Ideas That Aren’t Photogtraphs

Posted by Richard Haines on

16 March 2013

People that have had their special photographs restored will have realised the value of having had this work done.

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:

Damaged photographs
Faded black & white/colour photographs
Photographs that contain unwanted articles, backgrounds or even people!
Newspaper cuttings and photographs
Drawings and paintings
Children’s artwork
Documents
Virtually any printed material!

So do make the time to dig out those important photographs, paintings or newspaper articles etc and get in touch with me so I can restore them to their former glory or, in many cases, give you results better than the original ever was!

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Tags : Battle, Bognor Regis, Bradley Wiggins, Brighton, Burgess Hill, Crawley, Crowborough, damaged photograph, East Grinstead, Eastbourne, Edenbridge, editing, ezine, family, family history, family search, Family Tree, fix photograph, Forest Row, free family history, Gatwick, Haywards Heath, Horsham, Kent, Lewes, London, manipulation, mid sussex, midsussex, my family tree, newsletter, old photographs, Old Photos, Oxted, photo, Photo Editing, photo repair, photo restoration service, photo restoring, Photo Retouching, photograph editing, photograph manipulation, photograph repair, Photograph Restoration, photograph restoration service, Photograph restoring, Photograph Retouching, picture repair, Redhill, Reigate, repair my damaged photo, repair my damaged photograph, repair my old photographs, repair my photo, repair my photograph, restoration, restore my old photos, Restoring Your Old Photographs, retouching, Richard Haines, rummage, Sevenoaks, Surrey, Sussex, the family tree, Tilford, Tunbridge Wells, Uckfield

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Archive for retouching – Page 3

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