Restoring old photographs

[pirate]

Don’t know about restoring old photographs. But for digital conversion of old photos, you can always get a flatbed scanner and scan them yourself. If you use a high enough resolution like 1200x1200 you will have a good quality digital photo. Some scanners even have negative/slide holders that allow you to scan negatives. After that, all you need is Photoshop. Actually, you can also use Photoshop to do minor restoration.

[floppy]

ammonite:

Does anyone have a good service provider to recommend for restoring old photographs? I have a fifties photo to restore, willing to pay for good work. Also have some old photos that will need less restoration work and digital conversion service. If anyone has a tried and tested place to recommend, please let me know. Thank you!

There are quite a number of providers in Singapore... e.g.:
https://www.ktcolour.com.sg, http://www.sgmedia.com.sg/singapore-photo-restoration.html

For old photos that need less restoration work, I would suggest buying yourself a flatbed scanner and touching up in Photoshop, Lightroom or Pixelmator (Mac only).

[ammonite]

Thanks, pirate and floppy! My to-do list is already overwhelming me as it is, it will be more efficient for me to outsource it to professionals.

[Angelsdontexist]

Can restore? I merely used my camera phone to take photos of the faded photos before they die out completey

[jjy76]

kiv

[icekarchang]

I usually just scan, trying to keep all my memories in digital form in thumbdrives.

[floppy]

icekarchang:

I usually just scan, trying to keep all my memories in digital form in thumbdrives.

Thumb drives?!

Possibly the worst option. Get a proper storage device.

[sharonkhoo]

floppy:

icekarchang:

I usually just scan, trying to keep all my memories in digital form in thumbdrives.

Thumb drives?!

Possibly the worst option. Get a proper storage device.

We don't trust any single storage device entirely as things can get damaged or lost, and deteriorate over time. Call us kiasu, but I maintain our photo collection on my computer and back it up on 2 different external hard drives periodically. And we replace the hard drives every few years. My husband also keeps a copy on his computer. We reckon that our photos are among the most valuable things we have as they are irreplaceable.

[Zeit]

I did use a flatbed scanner once to scan several old family photos whose negatives had been damaged.


1 EU or US trip of 3 weeks yielded 10-12 rolls X 36 images. 1 China/Japan trip of 1-2 weeks yielded 6 rolls X 36 images. 1 graduation - 1 - 2 rolls of 36 images. In the past, we even swopped negatives with friends who travelled alongside us. So it could be 2-3 more sets of negatives. There are some priceless 50s-60s family photos too but not under my custody.

I lost momentum after 3 days of hardwork some years ago. It was extremely laborious as I had to categorise them by ‘year_location_occasion_people’ manually. Then I had to touch-up some of them.

I’ve about 10,000 digital photos from my last holiday. Don’t think I’ll ever have the time to sort them out or blog about my visits.