Which Photo Restoration company?!

Your taps are leaking, you flick through the local classified ads and find 20 different plumbers in your area, who on earth do you pick?! Who are the cowboys, who are the good guys in? So much choice!

You may be in a similar predicament with your Photo Restoration Specialist, you have a treasured old photo you want repairing, but you’re just not sure what way to go about it. Do you pick the one nearest to your location, do you pick the one with the most reviews? The answer is……..neither of these!

You see, Photo Restoration is in a similar field to fine art, there are many artists around the world, current and past. Many great, many equally [technically] matched , but the deciding factor in ‘good and bad’, are opinions and taste.

I bet you’re waiting for me to yell ‘pick me, pick me!’ to get your photo restoration digs, but this is not a preachy blog-post; This is more of an ethical one.Photo restoration today is mostly done with computer software, on a ground level, anyone can use these programs, but it is a matter of skill and finesse. I’m not going to lie, removing a few pock marks from a photo is no tall order, infact my dog is pretty good at it, he’s not quite mastered colourising yet though.

Choosing that Special company

When it comes to picking that special photo restoration specialist, there are a couple of factors you should take note of. Below you will find tips relative to what you may be looking for in the field of photo repair and restoration.

Looking for Colourisations

Take a good look at a few photo restoration websites’ colourisation sections. Colourisations are the closest things that can be related to fine artists; there are many methods to colourise a photo, but it is the end result that makes all the difference, and is down to your personal preference. There is no good and bad.

You may see some rather colourful, dare I say unnatural looking colourisations on your search journey; this is not necessarily bad, but down to the customers choice. Even The Prof has had some pretty funky colours in a black and white conversion of a photo, because they were asked of him! If you notice the same sort of pattern in their madness, it may be that particular photo restoration companies’ method of doing the colourisations. Just like a painter using a fine brush, or a thick brush! For the most part, Colourisations are educated guesswork, and the restoration specialist has a creative licence to do what they want with the colours at hand.

If the websites have before and afters, pay special attention to the lighting and contrast of the before and afters. Colourising can be quite abrasive and destructive to a photo in certain hands. If we have a full body shot of a person, their top half of the body may use the original tone/contrast of the photo, but lower down, towards the legs and feet, these may of been brightened via software to compensate for the dark areas.

I previously mentioned there is no right and wrong with colourisations, but I call this ‘playing god with photos’, lightening/darkening photos for the sake of a colourisation can sometimes leave a photo looking really strange. More often than not, a dark area doesn’t have much detail in the first place, so you may have a great looking upper body, in full colour. But the shoes will be a dark blob-mish-mash of pixels, and not much else.

Looking for Photo Repairs and Restoration

Repairing a photo is a different kettle of fish (yuck). Unlike colourisations, restoring the photo’s original content as best as they can should be the restoration specialists’ main mission. Remember when I said anyone could fire up some software and begin editing photos. This is true, but in the wrong hands, we can end up with some rather nasty restoration work!

I always think the best example of nasty photo restoration is terrain (grass, hills, rock, dirt). If we have a photo with lots of grass and plants in the shot, but there are many rips, tears, or even giant sections missing, it is very easy to botch these kind of restorations. A common ‘cheap’ way of restoring is to just duplicate the un-damaged parts (pixel for pixel!) and call it a day. I hear you say ‘But Prof, I thought repairing old photos was built on borrowing content from the photo’, this is true, but when you start duplicating exact sections of photos, then things get nasty.

So how do you spot these lazy photo restoration techniques? With eagle eyes of course; be on the lookout for ground, trees, anything with long expanses in the shot. Picture a cubic meter of grass, it has 3 leaves, and a twig. Now wouldn’t it be funny if those EXACT leaves and lone-twig were in the shot again, exactly where a giant missing section was.

Sure, to the untrained eye you wouldn’t see. But these lazy techniques can extend to more important things like clothing, furniture…anything. If you view some ‘after’ restorations and notice funny lighting, funny patterns, it is most likely down to some rather shady techniques. It’s corner cutting at it’s best, so be on the lookout for it.

Those clever little restoration people may also offer photo prints, so not only can you get your picture digitally restored, you can have it printed and sent to your door, incredible eh? This is all pretty good news, but like anything, there is a downside if you do not do a tid-bit of research beforehand. You can get prints done easily these days, pharmacies offer photo kiosks, as mentioned, restoration specialists offer prints, you can even pick up fairly reputable photo printers for sub-£100 and some photo paper pretty cheap on eBay for example.

So where does this leave you when it comes to deciding? Say you’ve found a pretty good looking photo restoration specialist, they say they offer prints, but they don’t specify what type/what it’s printed with/what weight of the photo paper and etc? This is a minor flag-up. That particular company could use a cheap photo printer, with cheap photo paper.

The digital restoration may look great….and to be fair, the print might look pretty good too! But the kicker is, with cheap materials; what are they going to look like ‘down the line’? The cheapy stuff tends to curl up around the edges over time, and quite often the colours are different on the print, when compared on the computer. This can be blamed on the photo restoration specialist, one for possibly not calibrating his monitor correctly, and two, for not setting the photo up correctly for print, shame on you mister photo man!

You’ve heard it a million times, but you do get what you pay for, which is also true in Photo restoration.

So how do we avoid the cheap and nasty stuff? Pretty simple really. Check the website for specifications on their printing equipment, and photo paper. If there isn’t any on display, simply call or throw them an email asking about it, i’m sure they will be more than happy to help.

In an ideal photo restoration world, you want to be seeing companies using professional printers/photo labs, with great quality fade resistant photo paper. I shall touch on this in another post on the site at a later date explaining the important of good paper (yep, indeed there is more to know!)

Looking for good, local service

There are many cheap ,overseas sites which offer photo repair at a really cheap rate. Wow, how can they do it so cheap?! The reason is because your photo is outsourced to somewhere thousands of miles from your current location. The person who is working on your photo is probably working for peanuts, and couldn’t give a monkey(nut) if it looks good or not, they just want their pay (of peanuts/monkey nuts/money).

Not to tar all outsourcing websites with the same drippy brush, but the chances are, you want to know what you have to pay, and you’d like to see a preview of the photo before you depart with your money, that sounds about right doesn’t it? You might not get such executive service with an outsourcing company, simply because they work through so many images, they don’t really care about you, other than your money.

My humble advice is to use a UK based photo restoration site, simply because, when you enquire or call, the company will be in the same time zone as you! So calling for advice on your photo repair at 2pm is no tall order. You won’t be waking up Ivan The Vosstanovlenie spetsialist in the far East at 3am, when he’s sleeping soundly!

Be sure to keep an eye out on any ‘contact ethos’ written by the photo restoration websites, or check reviews on customer service. If there are bad reviews due to poor contact and bad service, then steer clear! A good local company will keep you in the loop, provide you with quick updates, and give you a jolly good service!

Conclusion

These are the most important points covered. Be sure to check out multiple sites, send a few emails to test the waters, even ask for a small preview of restoration works if you have a photo scan, why not? Most sites are reputable, and each have their own style, but there still is a chance to cross paths with people who want to make a quick buck (or pound sterling) from your photographs. A bit of research goes a long way, happy hunting!