Formats
Carte de Visite restoration
A carte de visite is a small albumen print on a calling-card mount, traded and collected in albums by the dozen. It is the most common Victorian portrait and often the only picture of a person born before 1850.
The prints fade to a pale yellow-brown, the corners are rubbed away by album slots and the thin card curls and delaminates. None of this is reversible on the carte de visite itself, which is why the repair happens on a scan while the original goes back into a cool, dry box.
Run Photo Restoration on the carte de visite scan first, then decide whether the result needs a second pass for faces or grain. A carte de visite restored at Pro or Max holds up better as a large reprint.
Original on the left, restored on the right; hover to see more of the repair. Made in the Studio from a scan of the print.
Print and file requirements
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Years in use | 1854 to about 1880 |
| Typical size | 2.5 x 4 in mount with a 2.1 x 3.5 in print |
| Process | Albumen print from a wet collodion negative |
| Appearance | Full-length or vignetted bust, sepia tones, plain or ruled mount |
| How it fails | Fading, yellowing, rubbed corners, curl and delamination |
| Scan tip | Scan at 1200 dpi or more; the image is tiny and the detail lives in the grain |
What matters for these photos
- Fading, yellowing, rubbed corners, curl and delamination on a carte de visite
- A carte de visite scanned once, badly, and never touched again
- Faces on a carte de visite that are too small or too soft to enlarge
- A reprint of the carte de visite for a frame, needing more pixels than the scan has
Suggested order of passes
- 01
Run Photo Restoration on the carte de visite
Written for the way a carte de visite fails: fading, yellowing, rubbed corners, curl and delamination.
Photo Restoration - 02
Clean up the carte de visite scan
Removes scanner dust, borders and the color cast a flatbed adds to a carte de visite, and straightens it.
Scan Cleanup - 03
Restore the faces on the carte de visite
Recovers eye and skin detail at natural strength; small faces on a carte de visite are plausible reconstructions.
Face Restoration - 04
Upscale the carte de visite for reprinting
A carte de visite is small to begin with; the upscaler adds the pixels a frame-sized print needs.
Image Upscaler
Questions
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