Restoring old Photos

Restoring old photographs can often bring out a lot of hidden detail. Lots of people keep family photos in old albums and rarely ever look at them.

Scanning and repairing old photos is a great way to pass on information about the past.

Cheerful Beach - (Felixstowe, Suffolk, 1939)

This is an example of the local print scanning, cleaning and reproduction services offered by Northlight, in Leicester. Unfortunately we now only offer this as a local service. However, many other people specialise in such restoration.

Contact details :

Northlight Images, 86 Harrow Road

Leicester, Leicestershire, UK. LE3 0JW (Maps)

Telephone +44 116 291 9092

You can e-mail us:

Repairing photos - digital restoration

Felixstowe beach, Suffolk, 1939 The original contact print was first scanned at high resolution.

If you are looking to enlarge an old photo, you should work at the highest optical resolution of your scanner.

There is often considerable detail in old contact prints, which can easily withstand enlarging to 10"x8" or more.

This may produce very big image files, so if you are not wanting a lot of enlargement, you can reduce the amount of detail. This also helps ease the requirements for a quick computer with lots of memory. It's all to easy to produce huge scan files that cause your computer to slow to a crawl.

Before scanning check the photos for dust and carefully clean them with a soft brush (-clean- makeup brushes are good for this)

Check that the glass on you scanner is clean - no point in adding to your photo cleaning work later. Ordinary glass cleaner is fine, but spray it on the cloth, not your scanner.

Learn what tricks your scanner software can do and decide if they are any use. We use Vuescan (see below) since it works with over 700 different models of scanner and produces excellent results.

Scan as much of the image as you need, and save yourself more work by making sure the photo is lined up correctly.

We always use Photoshop for all our photographic work, and we usually suggest Photoshop Elements as a cheaper alternative, that will do virtually everything you need.

In many ways the old photographs are 'digitally cleaned' (scratches, creases, dust and fading) after scanning.

More work is required to fill in missing areas, but with practice it become almost impossible to see where this has been done.

Once prepared, we enlarge and print scanned photos using the same printer and inks we use for our fine art prints.

If you are copying and printing your own photos then do remember that whilst the pigment inks that we use may last several hundred years, many cheaper printers use inks that may only last 10-20 years.

Copy your files on to CDs, and remember that CDs will also probably last a few tens of years. In fact it is quite likely that if you just put everything away for twenty years, the original photos may still be in better condition, especially if they are in black and white... Not a problem for most people, but something to think about if you want to pass on your albums.

One other tip - write down what you know about the photo. In the future you might not be around to say who that man with the hat is, in the back of the picture... :-)

Image restoration resources and info

- if you want to do it yourself

Restoring old photos - good overview of what you need to consider

Vuescan - excellent scanner driver software (we use it)

Restoration tips - good guide to the subtlties of fixing lost parts of images

Using PS Elements - simple tips when using Photoshop Elements

Caring for your original photographs - useful advice

Other areas of our site that may be of interest...

NEW -- Create your own customised A3 size wall calendar from a choice of 90 of Keith's images. Choose your own images for your own custom printed calendar - 12 months starting any month of the year - many all new images not yet in our main gallery.

Digital Black and White. Keith was recently interviewed about digital black and white photography for a magazine article. We have an expanded version here covering some of his thoughts, techniques and tips for those thinking of trying black and white.

As well as our Commercial Photography services and Training there is a growing collection of photography Articles and Reviews on the site aimed at helping you get the best out of your own photography. We also have a growing collection of Photography related information and links that we hope you find useful.

New site features and some of Keith Cooper's latest work are always covered in the What's New page.

Visiting Leicester or wondering where it is? We have views from the Leicester traffic cameras.