Very Old Family Photo Restored and Then Colored: One day my oldest sister and I were looking through old family photos she has of our family . I have restored many family photos for...

kubota king Loc: NW , Pa.

One day my oldest sister and I were looking through old family photos she has of our family . I have restored many family photos for her , my other sister , and brothers and myself. She found this old photo that was printed on a metal plate 2 inches wide and 3 inches high . She told me this was a great uncle of our mother back in civil war time . And then she said lets see what you can do with this photo with your magic using PS . I took one look at it and said it looks like someone dragged this photo back and forth across gravel by the amount of scratches I saw . But I was willing to give it a go , not knowing how it was going to turn out . I scanned the photo , saved it to my computer . Opened it up inside PS . First thing I did was to lighten the photo a lot to see what I had to work with . Then I started to repair the photo using all the skills I had learned up to this point , about two years ago . After repairing the photo as I seen fit to . I started to slowly add color to the different parts in the photo . When I was done , I added a new sky to the photo which I have seen many times in real life when I was taking a lot of nature photos . And since no one can say what is right or wrong for a photo this old . I felt that I was the artist and it's up to me what I decide to do restoring and coloring with out changing the main theme . I also changed the photo to a 8 by 10 for printing . My sister was so excited to see what I came up with when we met at a cafe in our little town . I had the photo in a box the photo paper comes in to protect it while moving it from place to another . I tried to fool my sister after we sat down , I told her the photo restoring and coloring didn't come out very well , I'm sorry. All this time I'm knowing she was going to frame it and hang it on the wall with some of the other family members I restored and colored . I could see on her face at this time she didn't know whether to believe me or not . But I know my sister very well and I know she was thinking I am trying to maybe fool her since she has seen many photos I have done already for her , family , and customers . The look on her face when she pulled the print out of the box was worth a million dollars . Her mouth dropped open , I almost seen a tear in her eyes . That made it worth all the time I spent restoring and adding color . I have told her many times after doing a family photo , I bet our family never , ever , gave it a thought that one day someone would turn these photos into color photos , not even in a hundred years ..I wish they could see them and see the look on their face . This is why I do this ........................

L-Fox

kubota king wrote:

One day my oldest sister and I were looking through old family photos she has of our family . I have restored many family photos for her , my other sister , and brothers and myself. She found this old photo that was printed on a metal plate 2 inches wide and 3 inches high . She told me this was a great uncle of our mother back in civil war time . And then she said lets see what you can do with this photo with your magic using PS . I took one look at it and said it looks like someone dragged this photo back and forth across gravel by the amount of scratches I saw . But I was willing to give it a go , not knowing how it was going to turn out . I scanned the photo , saved it to my computer . Opened it up inside PS . First thing I did was to lighten the photo a lot to see what I had to work with . Then I started to repair the photo using all the skills I had learned up to this point , about two years ago . After repairing the photo as I seen fit to . I started to slowly add color to the different parts in the photo . When I was done , I added a new sky to the photo which I have seen many times in real life when I was taking a lot of nature photos . And since no one can say what is right or wrong for a photo this old . I felt that I was the artist and it's up to me what I decide to do restoring and coloring with out changing the main theme . I also changed the photo to a 8 by 10 for printing . My sister was so excited to see what I came up with when we met at a cafe in our little town . I had the photo in a box the photo paper comes in to protect it while moving it from place to another . I tried to fool my sister after we sat down , I told her the photo restoring and coloring didn't come out very well , I'm sorry. All this time I'm knowing she was going to frame it and hang it on the wall with some of the other family members I restored and colored . I could see on her face at this time she didn't know whether to believe me or not . But I know my sister very well and I know she was thinking I am trying to maybe fool her since she has seen many photos I have done already for her , family , and customers . The look on her face when she pulled the print out of the box was worth a million dollars . Her mouth dropped open , I almost seen a tear in her eyes . That made it worth all the time I spent restoring and adding color . I have told her many times after doing a family photo , I bet our family never , ever , gave it a thought that one day someone would turn these photos into color photos , not even in a hundred years ..I wish they could see them and see the look on their face . This is why I do this ........................

One day my oldest sister and I were looking throug... (show quote)

Super job...

UTMike Loc: South Jordan, UT

Great work!

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Most people would probably have given up at stage 2 (I know I would have

).

NJFrank Loc: New Jersey

Wow way above my pay grade to produce these results.

joehel2 Loc: Cherry Hill, NJ

Wow, beautifully done.

jaymatt Loc: Alexandria, Indiana

Excellent!

Red Sky At Night

Wow, nice nice nice nice job. 👍

raymondh Loc: Walker, MI

DaVinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, Kubota King . . .

Marg Loc: Canadian transplanted to NW Alabama

Wow! That’s amazing. I think I’d have shed a tear or two myself.

Horseart Loc: Alabama

Beautiful work!

Dannj

WOW!
That’s all I can say.
WOW!

Fotoartist Loc: Detroit, Michigan

Nice work. Looks like it could be a great book illustration. I only give you a 95 out of a hundred though because of the blurry hand. I would fade the clouds out as they approach the horizon also.

StanMac Loc: Tennessee

Removing the scuff marks and missing emulsion is one thing I’ve not been able to do in the few attempts to restore old photos. You’ve done very well with this one.

I’ve loved your past work you’ve shown on here, Kubota. But, FWIW, the coloring in this restoration reminds me of the old color postcards - too intense to be realistic. Also, I would have kept the painted canvas backdrop whole rather than replace part of it with the landscape image. Just my thinking.

Stan

letmedance Loc: Walnut, Ca.

Magic.