Photo Restoration: From Snapshots to Great Shots

5. Repairing Physical Damage

Building on Success

Don’t let the prospect of trying to repair physical damage scare you. Although it can be more challenging than covering lint or removing a few specks of dust from the surface of a photo, the principles are largely the same. Find clean, undamaged material that matches the area that has been damaged, then use the good stuff to hide the damage. At times, you’ll use undamaged material to re-create missing elements of the photo. Build on the skills you learned in the last chapter as you attempt to repair damaged photos.

Poring Over the Picture

This photo of my wife’s grandmother, taken in the mid-1920s, ...