Photo Restoration and Preservation

 

This is a scan of an original photo taken in 1951.  The resolution in terrible and the colors are now altered due to time and acidic paper and improper storage.  While going through old photos I found it.  This is my brother Steve and me before our baby brother Gary was born in 1952 which helped me date it as nothing was written on the back.  I am trying to rescue and preserve photos like this for our kids and grandkids. 

If you are like me then you no doubt have similar photos tucked away.  The color photos are in particular jeopardy.  I do not know much about scanning or restoration of photos although I do some editing of photos, on iPhoto for Mac.  But I just couldn't fix the color on this one.  I asked a friend who asked his son and Peter who was able to save this photo for our family.  I am so grateful to him and want to learn how to do this.  Sometimes it helps to set a long range, large scale goal along the way.  I want to learn more about land records and tax records and also about military records this year in addition to learning more about photo restoration and preservation.  

I ran across a Rootstech class on how it is done and decided I wanted to make this a priority in the future months.  This class was taught by The Ancestry Insider of whom I have spoken before.  He has a really good blog on various aspects of Family Search and Ancestry.com.  He has worked for both companies and presents a very fair evaluation of both websites often comparing them.

The Link: https://rootstech.org/videos?lang=eng
Scroll down to the 6th video for this presentation.

Scanning and photo editing is a fascinating and essential aspect of preserving our family history. Did you know that we have a patron that is an expert at this skill?  Her name is Barbara  and she comes to the library often on Tuesday afternoons with her friend Pearl.  She is someone I'd love to learn from as she is very talented and willing to explain how she does things in a way that is understandable.  I'm adding Photoshop Essentials to my wish list for family history.  The ancestry Insider talks about a free program for windows in his presentation at the link above but I'm Apple so it means another alternative for me.  But if you have Windows check out what he demonstrates in the video for RootTech 2014.  It is free whereas Photo Shop Essentials is around $100.00

One of the things I love about Family History and Genealogy is that it is multi-faceted.  When you burn out on research you can take a break and go to your more creative side and do photos.  Or write a story, source your tree in Family Tree.  There are lots of options for a rich and full experience.  I like to learn something new each day and do something small once a day.  Those things add up over time.  Rome wasn't built in a day but I'm sure they did something consistently each day to make it happen.