I acquired digital copies and set to work cleaning them up. There are hundreds of them. Many amazing shots, but all dusty, dirty, and/or scratched. Some worse than others. Most of them washed-out or faded. It'll take months to clean them all, but so far I think they're turning out really well, considering I'm no expert.
Eventually, I'll probably pick out my absolute favorites to print and frame.
I haven't edited any of Grandpa's photos yet, but here are some of my favorites of Grandma that I've already worked on.
Wasn't she stylish?
To give an idea just how dirty, scratched, and washed-out or faded the photos were, here's one in its original state:
Check out those scratches and smudges.
A close-up to see the dust and dirt:
Look closely. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of tiny specks that aren't visible unless you lean in.
It's a time-consuming task. Completely worth the effort though, don't you think?
5 comments:
wow, those are beautiful! Nice job. You must have a great program for them to clean up like that. And ITA I love the style. It amazes me how woman in that era all looked like movie stars. I have some of my grandma like this and you could put her in any film.
I can't believe how you were able to brighten/shearpen the pics, very nice!
I've just got Photoshop Elements, the "cheap" version of Photoshop. Brightening and sharpening is easy. It's the getting rid of dirt, smudges, etc. that takes hours. There were so many smudges and scratches on the one of her looking out the window that I had to reconstruct half of the trim work on that door. It was actually kind of fun though.
Two and four are my favs!
She looks so beautiful and elegant. I can certainly see where you get a lot of your style from! So neat to see grandparents as "people"; people who traveled, and lived, and loved. I think so often we only see older people through a certain paradigm--seeing them only in our relationships with them, and disregarding their lives, their pasts. So glad I saw this, especially as today would have been my paternal grandmother's 89th birthday. Thanks for sharing!
That's definitely true, Laura! I was a teenager the last time I saw this particular grandmother and it never occurred to me to wonder what she was like before she was my grandma. These photos put her in a whole new light for me.
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