Family Portraits
Cracked Family Portraits
Family portraits showing a web of fine dark or light lines across the surface, with flakes lifting where the cracks meet have almost always met a print that dried out and stiffened before it was bent, or a plate whose coating crazed with age. The cracked emulsion sits on top of the image of three or four generations posed in a studio or on the front steps, which is still there underneath.
Nothing in the family portrait is redrawn for effect; the cracked emulsion is treated as a layer to remove and the image of three or four generations posed in a studio or on the front steps as the thing to keep. If the cracked area covered every face, the seating order and the clothing, the fill is inferred from what survives around it.
Start with Scratch & Tear Repair on the cracked family portrait, then chain Face Restoration or the upscaler in the Studio if the family portraits need it. The 4 free credits on a new account cover one Standard run on cracked family portraits.
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
- A cracked family portrait that is the only copy anyone has
- Every face, the seating order and the clothing, 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 family portraits from the 1880s to 1990s
- Small faces of three or four generations posed in a studio or on the front steps that the cracked emulsion has taken the detail from
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 every face, the seating order and the clothing in the family portrait untouched.
Scratch & Tear Repair - 02
Repair the rest of the family portrait
Photo Restoration addresses the usual wear on family portraits, a crack through the middle from a broken frame, silver mirroring in the shadows and a lost corner, once the cracked emulsion is gone.
Photo Restoration - 03
Sharpen the faces of three or four generations posed in a studio or on the front steps
Recovers the eye and skin detail the cracked emulsion softened; keep it at natural strength on family portraits unless the faces are tiny.
Face Restoration - 04
Upscale the family portrait for reprinting
Adds the pixels a wall print needs after the cracked emulsion repair, with the shape of the cracked family portraits unchanged.
Image Upscaler
This subject, by damage type
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