Photo Restoration Tutorial: Removing Mould From Old Photos

My Dad invited my around yesterday to look through some old photos he had taken down from the attic. He said that some were in bad need of restoration, which increased my interest.

I was quite excited to look through them as they were old family photos I had not previously seen, and there were some really beautiful old photos in the collection. Most of them dated from the early 1900s and it was interesting to note how some looked as though they had been printed just yesterday, whereas others were so badly faded as to make saving them quite difficult. A few of the old photos also had mould growing on them.

Mould loves the conditions prevalent in many attics and basements - a dark, humid environment with warm, still air - and photographs make an ideal surface for it to grow on. Removing the mould is essential as it can easily infect your other photographs and negatives.

Here are some tips for dealing with mould damaged photos

• Separate infected photos from the rest of your collection.


• Never use water or detergent to clean your photos.


• Always remove mould outside. Removing spores inside will just transfer them from one place to another.


• UV light/sunlight kills mould and dries it up - but also fades pictures, especially any that are already faded. So limit the time your infected photos are exposed to sunlight to about an hour.
  
• Mould spores can cause severe allergic reactions - so wear a mask and gloves as a precaution.
  
• Gently brush the dried mould away with a very soft brush.


• Place cleaned photos in separate inert polyester archive envelopes.


• Keep cleaned photos separate from your collection for several month

It is a good idea to store photos away from light in an archive box, but keep the box in a room that gets a small amount of sunlight each day and whose humidity is relatively low. The sunlight will kill any spores in the room and keep them from getting to your photos.

Yesteryearmemories have an interesting article on removing mould and mildew from old photos which is well worth a read if you come across this problem.

Historic Photo Restoration Project

I recently picked up a very interesting old photo in bad need of restoration. It depicts the start of the 1930 Monaco Grand Prix in wonderfully sharp detail. There's so much detail in this photo that it is actually possible to use it to verify parts of the historic record of the race.



I am only aware of the existence of a couple of other photos taken at this Grand Prix and both of them feature just a single car, where as this features almost the entire field of cars.

As you can see there is quite a bit of water damage and staining on the photo, as well as a few creases, punctures and a missing corner. It is also twice the size of my flatbed scanner, so high resolution photography was the only way to capture it for restoration!

The photo was taken by a Monte Carlo photo reporter by the name of Raoul Barba about who I know very little. I have seen several other photos taken by him around the same time but they are all of ballet, not motor racing! So if anyone has any other information about Raoul or the photo I'd love to hear from you.

-Mark.

Photo Restoration Tutorial: Top 10 Scanning Tips

1. Spend more than $100 on a new scanner. You get what you pay for.
   


2. If you have a lot of 35mm film/slides to scan don't expect great results from a flatbed scanner. A dedicated film scanner will do a considerably better job.
   


3. No amount of retouching can make up for a poor scan, so don't be afraid to scan a second time.
   


4. Scan at an appropriate resolution. 300ppi if you plan on printing your restored photo at the same size as the original, 600ppi if you plan to enlarge it. Also scan at 300ppi even if you plan to resize to 72ppi for web use later.
   


5. Crop your preview scan so as not to include any of the background/mount/border in the scan area. I will throw the level reading off.
   


6. Always scan black and white photos as 24bit RBG Colour and not greyscale. 24bit files have 3 times the colour depth of an 8 bit greyscale file and so capture much more tonal subtlety. If your photo is badly faded you might want to scan at 48bit then adjust the levels before returning to 24bit mode.
   


7. Photos printed on textured or embossed paper are generally not suitable for scanning. Try photographing them with a digital camera instead.
   


8. Always save your scans in a lossless format like TIFF. Only ever use JPEG as a final, save-once format.
   


9. Always view your scanned images at 100% when assessing them on screen.
   


10. Right-click your scanned files, choose Properties>General and check the "Read Only" box so you can't accidently save over them.

Do you have a favourite scanning tip? Why not share it with us.

-Mark

Pen tablets and Photo Restoration

If you've never used a pen tablet instead of a mouse for your photo restoration projects, you simply can't imagine the difference it can make to your work.

There are tremendous subtleties of movement, gesture and pressure that you can make with a pen that are simply impossible with a mouse. And despite nearly 20 years of mouse use, I still feel like I'm drawing with a bar of soap when I'm forced to use one.

A good pressure sensitive pen tablet feels totally natural to use after a bit of practice. The marks you make on screen change in density or size depending on the amount of pressure you put on the pen and strokes become much more fluid.

Although larger tablets are expensive you should avoid buying the smallest sizes as they just don't give you enough space to gesticulate as freely as you would if you were using pencil and paper. If you can afford to, go for an A5 (6x8") sized tablet or larger, you won't regret it.

There are several makes of pen tablet available but Wacom are generally regarded to be the best and I don't hesitate to recommend their tablets.

-Mark

Are eBay sellers destroying our photographic heritage?

I'm seeing it more and more often lately, and it worries me greatly. People are buying up old photo albums then cutting them up and selling the pages or photographs separately on eBay.

Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the sale of old photographs. I firmly believe that if someone is prepared to bid enough to secure an interesting old photo then they more than likely will have enough interest to look after it. I've even picked up a few excellent old photos on eBay myself. What I strongly object to is the butchering of Victorian or Edwardian photo albums for profit.

You can spot the offending sellers quite easily. The description of their lot will include something along the lines of "there is another photo mounted on the reverse side". The number of empty victorian photo albums offered for sale is another indicator of this highly questionable practice.

I suppose the main difficulty I have with the practice is that an old photo by itself has little meaning. It may be asthetically beautiful, or interesting from a 'fashions of the times' point of view - but so much more can be gained from viewing a photograph in context, and for album collections the album is the context. Seeing an old photo alongside others that were taken around the same time, maybe with notes or captions under each image, gives the viewer a far richer insight into the period that a photo by itself. I'm talking here about antique photo albums that range from 100 to about 145 years old! You can't easily recover the information that may be lost when one of these is uncerimoniously chopped up and scattered among the highest bidders...

Having had my grumble, you should still definately check out eBay>Collectibles>Photographic Images>Antique (Pre 1940) listings as there are some very interesting items to be had (that haven't been cut from an album). And it can be fun to restore something other than a mugshot from your own family tree every once in a while! Just be wary of what you bid for, many sellers are getting money for old rope and charging steep prices for junk. If you are looking to buy a photo to restore then you can look for ones that are maybe not in such good condition and get them for a reasonable price.

Let me know what you think about this, I'd be interested to hear the opinion of others.

-Mark.

Handling old photos - How to prevent unnecessary damage to old photos through mishandling

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are completely unaware of the damage it is possible to cause to an old photo just by holding it in their hands. Not just old photos either - any photograph or negative of any age can be irreparably damaged simple by coming into contact with your fingers.

I'm sure we've all seen an episode of CSI: Miami where the camera zooms in to show a close-up of a finger print on a glass or other object. Well, that's because we leave fingerprints on everything we touch, transferring acid, grease and general grime to that surface.

In the case of old photos, slides and negatives fingerprint acid can eat into the surface over time causing a lot of damage. You may not be able to see fingerprint damage to an old photo at first glance, but once you scan it and are viewing it on screen the damage will pop right out at you. This is especially apparent on small 35mm slides and negatives where a careless thumbprint could cover the majority of the image area!



Ideally, you should handle your old photos as little as possible, but when you do handle them, never grip them between your finger and thumb. Hold them by the edges so that you are not pressing on the flat surface of the image. Better yet, invest in a pair of lint-free soft cotton gloves for handling your old photos with.

Finally, if you allow someone else to hold your precious old photos(although I highly recommend that you don't), make sure you instruct them in advance how to handle them.

Mark

How To Store Your Negatives And Slides To Maximize Their Shelf Life

By Sam Zaydel

Whether you are still shooting film now, or you have many years' worth of negatives and slides sitting in a shoebox in the attic, the basement or the garage, it is time to organize and restructure your filing system. We often have some of our greatest photos stored with the rest of the "have-nots" in the less then desirable environmental conditions.

While more modern negatives and slides are very durable, and can stand the heat so to speak, nothing lasts for ever.

Film has many enemies when it is improperly stored. Moisture, heat, UV light, chemicals, acids, all affect the life of your film. There are many things you can do to prevent the exposure of your valuable film to any and all of these factors. First, lets talk moisture... Keep in mind, that any unventilated area tends to accumulate moisture, which does not necessarily affect your film directly, but it does lead to growth of mold, and encourages growth and proliferation of other micro-organisms. Film does contain organic compounds, traces of which may be of interest to micro-organisms. Of course, mold can grow on your film, and you certainly do not want that. Film should never be stored in shoe boxes, or other cardboard boxes not specifically built for film storage.

Scratches, exposure to heat and UV also decreases the longevity of your film. We all know that scratched film is not ever desired. We want to make sure that we get spotless, sharp scans every time, unfortunately scratches, unlike dust are much harder to remove. Exposure to UV causes long term damage to a lot of plastics, and synthetic materials from which film is made. UV causes color shits, and discoloration. Both UV and heat cause your film to curl up and even grow bulges, which will prevent flawless scans, or enlargements. It is easy to keep your film away from both. Simply avoid leaving your film where it will be exposed to sunlight, and any sources of heat, like a furnace, an AC, a water heater, etc. This is quite easy to do. It is a good practice to keep your film in an environment where air is well circulated, and the temperatures are fairly constant. Needless to say, film should be stored flat, and not folded, or rolled.

There are many products on the market today intended to preserve your negatives and slides. Different people find different products to meet their needs. However, after looking at several products on the market, I prefer Acid-free filing pages over the rest. There are several significant advantages to using them. First of all, these pages are Acid-free, and they keep your film safely sealed away from the rest of the world. The pages are meant to be filed in a standard 3 ring binder, which gives you a lot of flexibility due to the many different types and styles of 3 ring binders on the market. The biggest advantage to me is the ease of locating individual images. every page allows you to add labeling info, and you can number them, and create an index if you are really organized. These pages are available for many different film formats. All standard formats, like 35mm, 120, 220, 4x5, and even 8x10 are covered. Several vendors make this product. I am partial to Print-File brand, and Adorama brand. Both are quite affordable, and are well worth it. The film is well protected, yet easy to pull out. These pages are made of durable synthetic materials, and will last for a long, long time.
We do not know the value of things until we lose them. Protect your film, and it will last for many years.

Owner of a small photography marketing company. If interested in learning more about me, visit http://www.worldonpaper.com

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