3 Quarters Today

My Life, my photography, my passions

1960's

Photo Restoration: 1960’s Era

by

Photo Restoration 1960s
Photo Restoration 1960s

I’ve finally removed hundreds of old photos from nearly a dozen “magnetic” glue photo albums. Not quite acid free. My Mother thought she was doing a good thing in the 1980’s by organizing and putting them into albums, when in actuality they would have been better off in the desk drawer in the original envelopes.

There aren’t many photos of me when I was little, so I want to preserve what few photographs I have of my childhood. They were so stuck I had to use the pointy end of a fondue fork to pry them off and carefully unstick the back. The paper came off on some, but at least now the family memories are back in a shoebox, in a cool dark location in the closet so I can start on the photo restoration part of the project..

At first glance the photos look to be in pretty good shape, but it only takes one scan and a white correction on levels to see how far these photos have faded. I am using Photoshop to adjust the color and white balance to bring back the vibrancy. The white border is the perfect point to select in either layer curves or adjustment levels.

I have just started scanning the snapshots, but the really old photos from the late 1800’s and early 1990’s I’m going to have professionally scanned at Hamilton Color Lab, where I work, they do professional photo restoration. My home scanner will only capture so much detail and they are too important to trust to a Best Buy over the counter scanner.

Photo Story: Here I met my brother for the first time. We were both adopted through Children’s Services of Connecticut. As you can see, although my brother Lance was a baby, he wasn’t a newborn when he went to our parents. My birthday is Sept. 21, 1965, yet I didn’t go to my adoptive parents until January 20, 1966.  Along with photos I now have my adoption records, certificates, and letters from the agency. Still don’t know if I will search or not. Even after witnessing my husband and his son’s adoption reunion.

Related articles