More Photo Restoration

I have been working with some more old photos. The first, below, isn't really all that old. I took that shot in 1973 when Butterfly was about a year old. This one was my effort from start to finish as I developed the negative and printed the picture myself. I only experimented with my own developing briefly. I really like the photo, but the original had some stains and scratches, so it was a good candidate for restoration. If you do go to see the original, you'll see a lot of darkness on her face that was very hard to get rid of. It was very painstaking work, but I like the result.

Once I had got this photo to where it is now (see below), I went through the exercise of tearing it up, scanning the torn pieces and putting it back together digitally. Some of you who dabble in photos might like to view the various steps here on Flickr.



The photo below is another of my grandfather and his fellow construction and/or bricklaying workers. I posted a similar photo taken in Montreal in an earlier blog, but this one was taken in New York City in the early 1920s. The family moved there for a few years because that's where grandpa found work. They later moved back to Montreal. My mother wondered why they did, but I expect it was for family reasons, and I wouldn't be here if they hadn't come back. There likely would have been another human in my place, but it wouldn't have been me.

This restoration was mostly about getting rid of the penned notes that were on the original. Strangely enough, most of them disappeared just by using the blue channel. Most of the marks didn't show up there but only on the red and green channels, so I discarded those. I include this information for some of you who will know what I'm talking about. Don't fret if you don't; it's not important. The original is also on Flickr.