Old Damaged Photos Repair Service

At Futura Photo, we pride ourselves on having a team of professionals with years of experience and thousands of images restored. We apply a personal and artistic touch that no machine can ever match. As tools, we use the latest technologies and most advanced digital tools.

Photo retouching has been around for a long time. Recently, thanks to the development of multifunctional software and increased access to powerful hardware, digital restoration has gained ground. Futura Photo uses the newest digital restoration tools to improve the quality and repair the damage of the digital version of your photo deteriorated by time. Our goal is to return a picture looking as true to the original as possible.

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Restore your damaged photos

Once you place an order, we analyse the age and type of photography to establish the necessary work to achieve optimal results.

The age of the photograph

It is useful to have parameters such as the time, context, and location of the photo for the restoration process.

It is valuable when the client informs us of the date and place where the photo was taken. By doing so, we can be more realistic representing missing, or not well-defined elements, i.e., hairstyles, fashion accessories, jewellery, furniture, etc. In the case of recovering colours that have faded, knowing the age of the photo is useful to estimate the tones and colour saturation of vehicles, clothes, or other decorative elements.

It is not always possible to find this data. Still, an approximation exercise such as the one carried out by a detective is useful to achieve the most precise results.

To decide the format, colour (if applicable), design, and typography of the final product, the parameters related to the age of the photo are of great interest.

Photo types

The type of photo is another vital element in the restoration process. Old photographs can be categorised into three main groups, sepia, black and white, or colour. Each type is subject to different wear and tear and requires a tailored treatment.

Sepia

Many relate sepia to an aesthetically pleasing photographic filter commonly used. What many do not know is that in the origins of photography and its development, the reddish-brown pigment of sepia was used (common cuttlefish in Greek). Its chemical composition reacts during the photo development process.

Since the mid-1850s, it was used with great success as a toner resulting in photos with higher quality and image durability.

Preserved photos have a characteristic degradation pattern that has brown flakes created by the toning of the sepia colour. Exposure of the photo to moisture can cause cracks, embedded dust stains, or mould.

Black and White

In chronological order, black and white photos are more recent than sepia images.

If the photo is aged, we treat normal progressive degradation by the passage of time. When it is more recent, the defects should be analysed individually.

Depending on the type and quality of paper and products used for developing, the wear and tear will be different, and therefore the plan of attack to be considered will be different.

Colour

The introduction of colour in photography took place in the 1950s. Its use slowly gained followers in the mid-1960s. Obviously, the restoration of these photos has a crucial parameter in the colour and its shades. In addition to the degradations we have commented on before, the old pictures with colour are going to need other corrections.

These improvements are delicate, depending on the level of colour imbalance, fading, over-saturation loss, etc.

Correct colour management is crucial to achieving harmonious results.

One must consider that each photograph is unique. The delivery of an exquisite restoration needs a balance between technique and sensitivity that a person with an experienced eye will make use of with tools and adjustments in one way or another.