If you could turn Back Time
Bring your treasured memories back to life with Andover Picture Framing’s digital scanning and restoration service! We fix faded, torn, or water-damaged photos, carefully restoring every detail. We will expertly scan and repair your old pictures, bringing back their original tone, colour and vibrancy.
We also create high-quality copies you can frame, gift, or save—perfect for family keepsakes, old black-and-whites, or those spontaneous snapshots.
At Andover Picture Framing, we treat your memories with care. Ready to brighten up your damaged photos? Let’s preserve your past in a sharp, clear digital form!
Recovering a Cherished Family Memory
Take this old colour photo of a much loved individual. It’s from one of our customers that originally bought a scanned and printed copy of the damaged photo along with some of the original uniform decorations (as worn in the photo). They wanted us to mount and present them all in a frame to celebrate this much loved family member.
We really enjoy memorabilia framing and employed our usual care, attention and conservation focused efforts to present the precious photo and items in an new quality bespoke picture frame.
By all accounts they loved the finished product. It finally gave them something tangible to remind them of their loved one proudly displayed on the wall.
We asked the customer if they still had the original photo and if the did, how would they feel about us seeing if we could scan and digitally repair the creases, tears, scratches and discolouration - Giving them a fresh photo where the ravages of time and handling were reversed!
They said yes and so we set about turning the clock back...
Image Editing Technology
We use up-to-date image scanning and editing technology as part of our digital reproduction service. Our CCD scanner allows us to capture every colour detail of the old photo (the good image information as well as the damaged portions).
We have the experience to know when a picture is so badly damaged, perfect recovery may not be possible. However (as was the case with this particular photo), in most situations, there is enough good information in the picture to interpolate a reasonable repair of the damaged information.
This particular photo had several elements that needed attention.
Discolouration and Focus
As is common with old photos, the colours have yellowed and tarnished with time. A rebalancing is needed to improve tone and contrast of the image. Time can also be taken to sharpen the image up to improve faces and important details (sometimes somewhat out of focus on the original photo)
Contamination
With no protection (like a picture glazed picture frame for example), over time, photo’s are easily contaminated with moisture. Drops of liquid landing on the photo causing discolouration and fading. They often become more pronounced over time. Digital recovery needs to endeavour to eliminate this damage, matching the underlying and surrounding tones and colours.
Damage and Loss
And of course, the most visually obvious problem - Creases, tears and scratches that need picture information added back in. We can never know exactly what was there, but we can use digital image repair tools and our own creative intuition and skill to fill in the gaps!
The Outcome
All these processes and approaches do take an appreciable amount of time to do well. The advances in digital image editing software does speed up aspects but we still take the time to deliver a polished result. Recovering that cherished photo to its former glory and turning back time!
If you would like us to see if we can help recover your time damaged photos and images, do bring them in to our shop. We can assess the item and the likely time it will take to recover things. Our pricing is always fair and transparent.
Before - The original photo (badly damaged)
After - The final digitally repaired photo
(reproduced with permission)
Once recovered, we have a variety of photographic and fine art papers to reproduce the new images using our Giclee printing capability.
Intelligent Improvements
Contemporary digital image (and video) editing software has advanced considerably of late. One novel aspect that can really help image recovery is “Generative Artificial Intelligence”. A neural network software technology that is trained to understand the data and information aspects of a digital image. Significantly, it can be used to both remove and fill-in recognisable elements of an image.
When this particular photo was taken, the very top of the uniform cap was missed. We can use this technology to generate the missing information (in this case adding in the top of the cap, some brick wall and white slatted background image information). The results can be quite remarkable!
Generative AI enhanced photo
(reproduced with permission)
"We know how much this photo means and we would like to thank our customer for giving us permission to publish the article. Whatever your picture or memorabilia frame needs, we hope to see you soon! :)" Sharon and Andrew
(Owners of Andover Framing)