Detail Photography

Old photographs fade and get damaged, but usually they can be digitised and repaired, and even enlarged suitable for framing.

As we know back in the days of hand-processing and printing, most photographs were actually handled rather well.

It is usually time, poor storage and a fair bit of neglect that ‘does-in’ most old photographs

Today’s photographs were competently taken, processed, and printed but have suffered light damage. At least half a century old, time has not treated it well. There is little physical damage – often prints of this age are scuffed, torn, creased and suffered other ‘use’ marks, however there is a lot of less obvious collateral damage, the most obvious being the fading.

A deep scan to a high resolution will often capture back some of this detail (undetectable by the human eye).

My photographs today show two sets of before and after. I have also included a second ‘after’ print. Some onlookers mistake the browning of the paper for ‘sepia-toning. This is not the case. The originals have suffered aga and light damage of the chemical silver halides.

Back in the days of chemical printing sepia toning (as it was called) was not a colouring of the print, but rather a secondary tertiary chemical process which replaced the silver halide of the original print with a sulphide. The reason for doing this originally was to give the print a longer life as the sulphide compound was less susceptible to light damage. The warmer ‘brown’ tone was simply a pleasing side effect.

What do you think?



Photographs may not be copied, published, or stored without express permission of the copyright holder.

©2023 Pete Jenkins @ Detail - Photography – Old photographs fade and get damaged, but they can often be digitised and repaired.

Photographs from contact sheets – yes it can be done!

How many times have I started these posts with ‘I had an unusual request’? Can I make viable photographs out of 35mm contact sheets. Well, yes I can. If the original negative is clean and sharp when the contacts were made and then there is every chance that decent photographs can be ‘extracted’ from them

As with all film-based photographs there are many ways the picture or photograph that we see today can be damaged, therefore making any recovery more difficult. Light and chemical damage are common on prints, chemical damage (usually through lack of washing at the processing stage), dust trapped between film and print, often in the enlarger or on the film surface, and of course the ever so common physical damage on the print itself

Today’s featured photos show the starting originals and the completed images.

What do you think?



Photographs may not be copied, published, or stored without express permission of the copyright holder.
©2020 Pete Jenkins @ Detail - Photography Photographs from contact sheets – yes it can be done!

Revitalising old photographs.

Everyone who knows me understands my passion for old photographs. They are part of our history, and in many cases record important events for us as indivduals and our families.

Unfortunately, cheaper machine prints, especially those produced during the latter part of the last century have a tendency to discolour, partly through light damage (yes, extended exposure to sunlight degrades photographic images) and partly due to chemical damage, as early machine prints, in order to produce 'quickly' processed prints did not wash photographs clear of the acidic and alkali chemicals.

Both light and chemical damage tend to make prints turn brown.

Sadly, even the most carefully looked after prints could potentially suffer from these effects.

Fortunately, both light and chemical damage can be relatively easily recified.

Here is one I prepared earlier :-)



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