One of my hobbies is restoring old photos & documents


Due to copyright issues I cannot show any of the documents that I have restored.
Some photos are from archives of different museums and those are copyrighted too, but still there is something to show.


What was done with pictures?


Over 30 years I have been working with 100s of thousands of photos, not overexagerating here. I was work mainly for advertising agencies, and later I have worked on different projects as photo retoucher, photo restorer. Below short explanation what I am doing with damaged photos.

  • 1. Scanning

    Using different scanners and dedicated software I am getting as much details as it is possible from materials that I have received. Scanners that I am using are for dia, negatives and for photo/documents.

  • 2. Enlarging & Enhancing

    Using Artificial Intelligence software I am enlarging photos (up to 6x) and enhancing them, so I can get the most possible details, after I am cleaning them. Sometimes I have to reverse process starting first with cleaning. AI can helps a lot, but sometimes inherits too many problem, so reverse order works better.

  • 3. Colorizing

    Often when photo is restored I am adding color, and here I need to work closely with person who knows what colors could be used as AI not always chooses the right color, which I will show you in one of the examples below in section Tata Muzeum.

Latest Works

All photos below were restored from very small files or photos.

Year 1937 slightly damaged photo
Passport size photo (real photo), after scan 13 cm x 17,77 cm, 300dpi

Same photo as on the left after full retouch
After restoration size of the photo:77,52 cm x106,12 cm, 300dpi

Below are few pieces that were retouched and enhanced, not shown in full resolution due to the size, but I believe that they are showing the difference.


Another photo from the same period.

Year 1938 slightly damaged photo
Passport size photo (real photo), after scan 10,36 cm x 13,82 cm, 300dpi

Same photo as on the left after full retouch
After restoration size of the photo: 62,18 cm x 82,91 cm, 300dpi

Below are few pieces that were retouched and enhanced, not shown in full resolution due to the size, but I believe that they are showing the difference.



Restoring photo for the Tata Castle

All photos below were restored from very small jpg files < 1 MB.

Ferenc Esterhazy B&W photo
File size 256KB - 8,47 cm x 11,55 cm, 300dpi

Same photo as on the left after full retouch
After restoration size of the file 14,9MB: 50,80 cm x 69,29 cm, 300dpi

Below examples are showing the restoring process from original photo (around year 1900) to retouched, enhanced, suggestion of AI regarding colors and colorized based on the archive information that I could find.

Original photo in JPG format
File size 1,1MB - 22,53 cm x 16,76 cm, 300dpi

After cleaning ~1200 points and AI colorizing
Here colors are suggested by AI (problem - lots of golden ornaments).


Manually applying real colors
As you can see some of the gold ornaments are still green.


Final version of the photo
After restoration size of the file 60,3MB: 45,06 cm x 33,53 cm, 300dpi

Interested in such restoring?

Please feel free to fill out the contact form Get in touch or contact me on LinkedIn (MenuBar).

WHO WE ARE

A small group of people that love to work, sometimes with old photos, listen to music, watch movies, and travel.

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AlmostCyb.org
Warsaw, Poland