Shanghai Photo Restoration

Well, I undertook a project recently that is interesting but VERY time consuming! Several weeks ago I printed a nice collage of pictures of us (mostly Natalie!) with our Ayi. I framed it and gave it to her. She loved it so much she brought in pictures from her home of her family for us to look at together. I volunteered to scan some of them. I will write more later about these pictures as there are usually some great story that goes with them. Today, I am just showing the first one I started with, a picture of Ayi's mother and her two of older sisters. Ayi also a brother, but he is not in this picture. The picture was taken in 1955. It was not clear if this taken in Shanghai or near the "work farm" were the Ayi's family was relocated to in Jiansu province.

Original - 1955

I took it and started to edit it in Adobe Elements. It took some trial and error! My favorite part is being able to pull out the green dragon that was on the wall behind them. I put about 3 hours total into the restoration of this and it is not a great result. But I learned a lot about cloning and blurring.

Mostly Restored

 The Ayi was thrilled with the results. I am now going to get it printed for her. Her older sister in the picture, on the right, is 80 years old. Her younger sister, on the left, died not too long after this picture was taken. Ayi was born after her sister died. I will put the pics into a story starting in the next few weeks. Lots more pictures to clean up before I can tell it!