I received this email from John P which I have to admit, because of his clever writing style, I actually found very amusing –
“I recently found an old photo of my Grandfather, 5 x 3 inches. It was in remarkable condition except for an orange stain under his nose which extended across his face towards his left eye. Under a magnifier this looked like surface food material which I thought I could remove by gentle washing with minimal quantities of water wet tissue. I appeared to be winning, then horror. I noticed that small specks of the image had been removed – see under his nose and to the left and left lower cheek. I was extremely lucky that was all that was damaged, it could have been much worse.
Then, I stupidly thought I could repair this “slight” damage by applying scrapings of pencil lead!!! What an idiot. Anyway this photograph now desperately requires the attention of an expert.
I attach a digital image of the photo so that you can see what is required. Please note there is a very small scratch, me again, on his right shoulder which also had my lead pencil treatment.
If I send the photograph to you can you restore the damage and clean the image up i.e. remove the stain and repair the bits I removed and include taking the lead pencil material away? I would also like you to make digital enhanced reproductions, on paper, of the same image. Thank goodness there are experts like you that twits like me can turn to.
Here’s the evidence and the results after restoration-
I am pleased to give you permission to use my plea for your help. It will hopefully make others decide to leave the required expertise to the experts like yourself. Thanks for asking.
Thanks for everything. I have other photos which are in a far worse state, not due to any of my doings this time, for you to consider their rescue. I will be in touch in due course as I need to search them out.