E N T E R P R I S E S

Established 1983

DIGITAL PHOTO

RETOUCHING AND RESTORATION

E-mail: joelle@joellesteele.com

If you've got great old photographs that have fallen on hard times, I can probably fix them for you.

SERVICE AREA: Greater Olympia, Tacoma, and Seattle areas and worldwide.

EXPERIENCE: Digital retouching and restoration of more than 4,000 photographic images since 1994. I retouched or restored all the sample  images on this page.

CLIENTS: Individuals and businesses such as book, magazine, and newspaper publishers; genealogical and historical societies; film makers and television producers; libraries and museums; non-profit organizations; and university archives.

ORIGINAL PHOTOS: Your original photo will not be changed or harmed.

PHOTO SUBMISSIONS: E-mail your photo to me from a scan or from a photo of it taken with your digital camera. The file should be at least 300 dpi (preferably 600 dpi), or at whatever the highest resolution is that your scanner or digital camera can create.

FILE FORMAT: Your restored photo will be in a TIF file format which you can take to a photo finisher and have printed.

DELIVERY: You will receive a low resolution proof by E-mail. After you approve and pay, a high resolution photo will be E-mailed to you.

FEES: $35 to retouch or restore a single-person photo that does not require reconstruction of a facial feature. Group shots and all other photos are priced according to the extent of damage.

FREE QUOTES: E-mail a scan to me and I'll quote you a firm price for it, no obligation.

ADDITIONAL FEES: Scanning is $10 per photo. Photographing (for photos under glass) is $35 per photo. Burning a CD and mailing it to you is $5 plus postage. Returning your originals by mail is $5 plus postage and insurance.

PAYMENT: Credit card payments through PayPal over the Internet; personal and business checks.

Color Toning and Color Correcting

Old sepia tones originally had a very reddish-brown tint, and when they are badly faded they will look pink. Photos that have a yellowish look are just old black-and-whites in which the chemicals have gone bad. Old color photos can turn overly red or blue with age. I can correct the colors in any photo, restoring the original colors or making them into black-and-whites, or tinting them light brown, which is a popular color request for old photos. Above are examples of color correcting and conversions to black-and-white.

Repairing Damage to Photos

That antique photo of your great-great-grandmother didn't have all those spots, creases, and discolorations when it was taken. They appeared over many years of mishandling and poor storage. You might not be able to have her original photograph repaired, but thanks to today's technology, you can have it digitally restored to look just like it did the day she sat for it. And, once you receive the digital file of the restored image, you can share it with you whole family!

Most photographs that are damaged or unattractive due to age or injury can be digitally repaired. I've digitally restored thousands of black-and-white, color, hand-tinted, and sepia-toned (silver to sulfide conversion) antique photographs, including old studio portraits, snapshots, Polaroids, slides, negatives, and a vast array of antique Daguerreotypes (silver plates), ambrotypes (glass negatives), tintypes (a.k.a. ferrotypes, melainotypes, or iron plates), and gemtypes (miniature tintypes).

The majority of the images I have digitally restored were severely damaged by problems such as fading and discoloration; spots (mold and mildew, a.k.a. "foxing") and blotches; tears, scratches and scuffs; creases, cracks, dog-ears, and wrinkles; moisture and water streaking; and unwanted signatures or other writing. Most of these types of damage can be completely repaired or they can at least be significantly minimized to greatly improve the photo's appearance.

Reconstruction of Faces

Sometimes damage is so severe that it covers a part of the face, such as an eye or an ear. In the photo below, the acetate film negative was badly cracked and the ear was partially gone as a result. I restored the photo and reconstructed the missing part of the ear. This does not always work out well. I can only do so much, especially if I don't have much to work with or don't have anything to compare it to as I do the reconstruction.

Photos That Can't Be Restored

Sad but true, some photos are just too damaged for complete restoration. There may simply not be enough detail in a photo, so I can't make it look much better. For example, the photo below was not much bigger than a large postage stamp. It was yellowed and creased with spots. I could repair most of the damage, but it still isn't a good photo because the image wasn't good to begin with. The cellulose acetate photo negative that follows is badly distorted and missing information due to severe cracking of the film, and it would take a great deal of effort and expense to repair it completely. And the old Polaroid below is bad photo finishing and lack of a good lens.

To learn more about antique photos and restoring them, read my articles:

Digital Plastic Surgery

Antique Photographs and How They Were Made

A Brief History of Photography

How to Digitally Restore Your Antique Photographs

Preserving Antique Photos

SAMPLES OF JOELLE'S WORK

Before ...

After ...

1942 silver tone photo with severe tearing, spotting,

holes, and stains,  now restored, enhanced, and custom tinted

Photo of Carlos Espindola Pino courtesy of Alexandra Espindola.

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After ...

1890s sepia tone photo with severe fading, discoloration, and spots, now restored, enhanced, and custom

 tinted to brown

Photo of Albina Mallows,

 courtesy of Linda Lee Schulz Anderson

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After ...

1958 snapshot with scuffs, scratches, folds, and

graininess, now restored

Photo of Elvis Presley and girlfriend in Germany, courtesy

of Victoria Kazlauskas

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After ...

1948 acetate film negative with severe damage due to cracking, now restored

Photo of Hazel P. Otey, courtesy of the Scurlock Collection, Smithsonian Institution

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After ...

1960s color transparency (slide) with discoloration,

now color corrected

Photo of Martin Luther King, courtesy of the Scurlock Collection, Smithsonian

 Institution

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After ...

1947 snapshot with spots,

sun flash, and scuffs, now restored with the sun flash reduced

Photo of John Buzzini and Mary Franzoni, Joelle Steele's paternal great-grandfather and lady friend

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After ...

1875 carte de visite with damage across face and

 on lapels, now restored.

Photo of Cornelius

Vanderbilt by Howell

Before ...

After ...

1920s studio portrait with cracks, scratches, spots, and overexposure, now restored

Photo of Victoria Kazlauskas and her sister, courtesy of Vicki Kazlauskas