Will a great-great-grandparent nobody alive ever met still look like themselves after the cracked emulsion is removed?

The prompts keep every face, age and expression in the cracked ancestor portrait as photographed. Where the cracked area covered a face, compare the result with other ancestor portraits and with family memory before you print.

Do I need to scan cracked ancestor portraits?

A flat scan is best, but a phone photo of the cracked ancestor portrait works too; run Photo-of-a-Photo Fixer first to crop and remove glare, then repair the cracked emulsion.

How many credits does a cracked ancestor portrait take?

The 4 free credits on a new account cover one Standard restoration of cracked ancestor portraits. Pro and Max return more detail on the features, the period clothing and the studio props where the cracked emulsion was heavy; see pricing for the current amounts.

Can I colorize the ancestor portrait after fixing the cracked emulsion?

Yes. Repair the cracked ancestor portrait first, then run the Photo Colorizer on the result. Colors are inferred from the era and the materials in the repaired cracked ancestor portraits, so type any remembered colors into the hints field.

Ancestor Portraits

Cracked Ancestor Portraits

A cracked ancestor portrait is a common case: a print that dried out and stiffened before it was bent, or a plate whose coating crazed with age leaves a web of fine dark or light lines across the surface, with flakes lifting where the cracks meet, and ancestor portraits from the 1850s to 1910s were rarely stored well enough to escape it.

Scratch & Tear Repair is the tool for cracked ancestor portraits: it targets a web of fine dark or light lines across the surface, with flakes lifting where the cracks meet and leaves the rest of the ancestor portrait alone. Output follows the shape of the upload, so the features, the period clothing and the studio props end up where they always were in the cracked original.

Scan the cracked ancestor portrait flat, or photograph it and run Photo-of-a-Photo Fixer first, so the cracked emulsion is the only thing left to repair. The ancestor portraits come back in seconds, and the 4 free credits on sign-up cover the first Standard pass at the cracked emulsion.

Open with these settings Scratch & Tear Repair

Cracked Ancestor Portraits, the original print

OriginalRestored

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.

What matters for these photos

The features, the period clothing and the studio props, hidden under the cracked emulsion
Cracked emulsion from a print that dried out and stiffened before it was bent, or a plate whose coating crazed with age, on ancestor portraits from the 1850s to 1910s
Small faces of a great-great-grandparent nobody alive ever met that the cracked emulsion has taken the detail from
Cracked ancestor portraits that a copy shop refused to touch

Suggested order of passes

01
Remove the cracked emulsion
Scratch & Tear Repair targets a web of fine dark or light lines across the surface, with flakes lifting where the cracks meet while keeping the features, the period clothing and the studio props in the ancestor portrait untouched.
Scratch & Tear Repair
02
Repair the rest of the ancestor portrait
Tintype & Daguerreotype Restoration addresses the usual wear on ancestor portraits, silver mirroring, a tarnished tintype surface and cabinet-card mounts that have gone brittle, once the cracked emulsion is gone.
Tintype & Daguerreotype Restoration
03
Upscale the ancestor portrait for reprinting
Adds the pixels a wall print needs after the cracked emulsion repair, with the shape of the cracked ancestor portraits unchanged.
Image Upscaler