My customer John G wanted to get his grandfather with his two brothers together in a single photograph with a Scottish background.
Here are the three individual photographs and below the final result
Here’s the review John left for me on Yell.com
“Please accept my wonderful thanks for the restored colour job you did to the photo of my late grandfather and his two brothers.
I was very pleased to be awarded Best Photograph Restoration Specialists for 2019!
SME News were delighted to present the annual UK Enterprise Awards, proudly encompassing a multitude of exciting and vibrant business industries from across the UK. As a business community, the UK, is renowned for its ability to thrive in diverse conditions and strive through times of economic uncertainly. For this reason, SME News celebrates and showcases some of the triumphs from those among the UK’s strongest and most innovative businesses and business owners within the UK Enterprise Awards each year. We are delighted to award Best Photograph Restoration Specialists 2019 to Photographs Forever for the outstanding quality of their work and efficiency
This photograph started out as a faded and dull black and white transparency in a cardboard mount.
My customer Lesley was very pleased with the outcome.
She messaged me:
“I have just received the photos and I am totally delighted. You are so clever I can’t thank you enough. I will be sending you more things through once I have moved house. Please let me know where I can leave a review for your business. As I said previously you take such a chance when choosing a service from the internet and I am so glad I chose you.”
I often get asked to reproduce family photograph albums so that various members of the family can share the family history.
I was asked by Moira to recreate an important family photo album so that both she and her sister could have a copy of the book with the historic photographs and handwritten descriptions.
Below is the original and the new lay-flat photobook I created.
Moira said “My sister and I are just glad that we have this marvelous record to share and that you could bring it back to life for us”
Old album and new photobook
Moira told me
“My father signed up for his national service because the Essex Regiment were going to be posted to India. He had a place a medical school but deferred it to go to India. He loved it there, a complete culture shock from Chingford. The army taught him to drive, allowed him to play hockey and he was upset to leave India having fostered a dog there that he had to leave. My father was a doctor so army life was far from ideal but he appreciated the opportunity he was given and never forgot his time there. He was a keen photographer and you can see the care he took to display each photograph and carefully write an inscription.”
Photographs Forever
This photo belongs to my customer Jeanne.
She said “The photo of my mum was just an ordinary one, but when she passed away five years ago I decided to put it in a frame on my window sill and it’s been there ever since. I noticed it had been faded by the sunlight so decided to ask Photographs Forever and see if it could be restored. I then tried to remove it from the frame, it was well and truly stuck to the glass, when I finally got it out (with the help of a knife) my mum’s face was left on the glass, in a wafer thin layer, totally ruined! I was so upset I threw it in the bin.”
I spoke to Jeanne and told her all was not lost. She fished it out of the bin and sent it to me. Above is what I received and the finished restoration below
My customer Isobel P had a photograph of her mum and dad but there was an extra person between them that she wanted to be removed so she could have a nice photograph of her parents together which she could give as a special present to her dad. I only had a skewiff photograph of the original photograph to work with so had to correct the perspective and then manipulate the image to make a good result. Below is the before and after of the photograph in question followed by the review that Isobel kindly left for me on the Yell.com website
From distorted three person photo to a corrected portrait of the happy couple
YOU CAN CHECK OUT ALL MY OTHER YELL.COM REVIEWS HERE
I am increasingly asked to either correct really badly faded colour photographs, or add colour to black and white photographs.
Here are some recent examples of work I’ve done.
This first one is one I did for customer Marianne M, see her story below
“My uncle now 91 was Captain of St Mary’s Golf Club on St Mary’s and used to play with Harold Wilson and other members where he could have a round of golf without being followed by the press and simply trusted all of the members not to gossip. He knew all of the members and any strange faces he was quite wary of although apparently always very polite. The photo was taken just outside the club and the beautiful uninhabited Island of Samson is in the background . There are beautiful views all over the course. By the way my uncle is still the best player and at the age of 91 only 3 months ago got another “hole in one” So it’s great to have this photo as it most likely appeared years ago. The photo is fabulous, I am sure my Uncle will be delighted with it”
Here are some more examples
A very old and badly defaced and damaged print restored and colourised
A badly faded photograph thought by my customer to be beyond repair.
A faded photograph that had lost it’s sparkle brought back to life
This customer knew the original colours of the photograph taken in black and white at the time
A very old black and white photograph restored and colourised
A badly faded poster restored
Removing the unsightly shadow
Restoring both photographs and then making a montage so the couple are in the same photograph, then colourising
A very old black and white photograph brought back to life by restoring and colourising
A badly faded colour photograph restored and printed on archive paper to prevent the same fate occurring in the future
I found a very small framed old photograph of one of my family members with his family and wanted to see the man more clearly so I restored that section of the photograph that is just (1.5cm x 2.5cm) which I’ve printed A4 and it looks very good! Above is a photograph of the original photo alongside the A4 print. Below is the restored file.
I was thrilled to be asked by BBC Breakfast to help them make a photograph of the pilots suitable to be shown as a 6ft high photograph on the breakfast show on the 75th Anniversary of this occasion today.
Here is a close up of the airmen on the only photograph available for the programme, viewable only A4 size
So I was asked to increase the file size and restore the photograph to create an image capable of being viewed that size with no pixilation.
Here’s the result
Here’s the whole restored photograph as used on the programme
Here’s the BBC link to the whole story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-47323045
And here’s the story on the Telegraph site https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/02/22/pensioner-tends-memorial-us-airmen-saved-arranges-flypast-honour/?WT.mc_id=tmg_share_em
Here are two restorations I completed recently.
A distracting background changed for a more appropriate one
….and a very small, badly damaged oval photograph that’s now been printed 12″ x 9″
Here’s what my customer Sheila B said “Thank you Richard for restoring the very old and battered photo of my mum you made a beautiful job of it I’m so thrilled forever grateful”
