Cracked Prom Photos

When cracked emulsion reaches a prom photo, the result is a web of fine dark or light lines across the surface, with flakes lifting where the cracks meet. The cause is nearly always a print that dried out and stiffened before it was bent, or a plate whose coating crazed with age, and prom photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the cracked prom photo as a repair job: it removes the cracked emulsion and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the corsage, the dress color and the backdrop as photographed. Faces of a couple posed under an arch or against a painted backdrop that were lost to the cracked emulsion are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

For cracked prom photos the order is cracked emulsion first, faces second, upscale last, each step taking the previous result. Standard suits a prom photo for a screen; Pro or Max gives a cracked print more detail for reprinting.