Any one have any proficiency in bringing old photos back to life? I have a few (over 40 years old) pictures of the car that I'd like to see if someone can work their magic on. Please advise and thanks in advance!
Brett what format ? Is what you have a print or film ? if it is film the best thing to do is try and get someone to digitally scan it or take it to a place and have prints made from the film. If it is a old picture or print have someone scan it at a high res this will give you data to work with. Software can recover some of the image but everything has its limits. If you email me pics you want done I can try and work on them for you to get them cleaned up. I have done this for a very very long time. I was a 4 color scanner operator many years ago as well as a professional photographer for over 30 years.
It's probably EXPENSIVE and it may not be what you want, but I hear an ad on the XM radio that talks about saving your old media; VHS, negatives, photos, etc.... Company called Legacy Box, they send you a box and you load it up with all your stuff and send it back to them. They will convert it all to a digital form of some sort and send it back to you. Preserved forever...at least that's what the ad says. Caveat Emptor: I've never used them nor do I know anyone else who has either. But I heard the ad around Christmas and my wife wants me to do something with our wedding videos so I may try them.... Good Luck! Philip T.
I always worry about sending irreplaceable items through the mail. I would hate for all my old photos, negatives & movies to get lost.
I've heard that ad. About 10 years ago, a coworker put a bunch of old Super 8 film on DVD for me. I made two copies, too - one for my parents and one for me. Think either of us can find them now? Which stinks because there's a couple good shots of my mom's old 71 GS in the driveway....
I bought a super 8 projector on ebay, played our movies on the screen and set up the video recorder and recorded the image on the screen. Came out very good and that was 10 years ago and the recording tech has gotten much better since then. There is one movie roll I want to have professionally converted, its a commercial for '68 GS, had it recorded once by a coworker 12 years ago but his projector did not have sound so you can't hear what they are saying. I put it on youtube 12 years ago without sound., some of the people did not like the fact that there was no sound as you can see from the comments...
I converted all my slides to digital a few years ago. I purchased the converter for ($$??), slow but worked well. It will also convert 36 mm film. U could use a scanner to convert your pictures to digital. Then use photo editor software to fix the digital picture and rename.
Finding a place that will work with film is going to be tough. There was a place in Franklin, MA that was fantastic, but with digital photography taking over, there just wasn't enough business to keep them going.
Slides or prints? My experience is with slides. I used a fine modelers brush and gentle compressed air to remove loose dust. Then had mate scan the slides. Once they were digital, I'd 'clean' them up using the paint program on my PC. That was about 10 years ago. Areas of sky were the easiest to clean, flesh tones the hardest. Chris
