Michelle Schwartz

After finding a disintegrating paper bag full of hundreds of old photos in my parents’ basement, I felt inspired to try my hand at digital photo restoration. My grandfather had taken to creating photo albums by haphazardly stapling decades worth of photos into spiral notebooks. I resolved to undo some of the damage he had done. My original goal was to restore a photo of my grandmother as a teenager as a gift to my mother, but the process became addictive.

All photos were scanned and then edited in Photoshop. I was using my father’s scanner at the time, and it couldn’t handle higher resolutions, so I didn’t get the detail I would have liked. I would love to get a new scanner and try again.

“Agnes, 1928″ March 3, 2007

This was my first attempt at restoration. I used the healing tool to even out the creases and some stains on the paper, and sharpened the image.

View larger version.

“Bathtub” March 4, 2007

This is a photo of my mother and her brother, I’m guessing from some time in the early Fifties. This time I had to remove both creases and staple marks. The rest of the photo was in pretty good shape.

View larger version.

“Group Shot” March 15, 2007

This photo of my family and their friends took considerably more time to restore. It was dirty and wrinkled and the staples had torn holes through body parts and the checkerboard tablecloth. In addition to the healing tool, I also used the brush tool to paint in some of the missing pieces.

View larger version.