Ancestor Portraits
Creased Ancestor Portraits
When creasing reaches a ancestor portrait, the result is a white line where the emulsion broke along the fold, very often straight through a face. The cause is nearly always a print folded into a wallet, a letter or a pocket, then flattened again decades later, and ancestor portraits kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.
The restoration reads the creased ancestor portrait as a repair job: it removes the creasing and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the features, the period clothing and the studio props as photographed. Faces of a great-great-grandparent nobody alive ever met that were lost to the creasing are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.
For creased ancestor portraits the order is creasing first, faces second, upscale last, each step taking the previous result. Standard suits a ancestor portrait for a screen; Pro or Max gives a creased print more detail for reprinting.
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 white line where the emulsion broke along the fold, very often straight through a face, spread over a ancestor portrait
- A creased ancestor portrait that is the only copy anyone has
- The features, the period clothing and the studio props, hidden under the creasing
- Creasing from a print folded into a wallet, a letter or a pocket, then flattened again decades later, on ancestor portraits from the 1850s to 1910s
Suggested order of passes
- 01
Remove the creasing
Scratch & Tear Repair targets a white line where the emulsion broke along the fold, very often straight through a face 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 creasing is gone.
Tintype & Daguerreotype Restoration - 03
Upscale the ancestor portrait for reprinting
Adds the pixels a wall print needs after the creasing repair, with the shape of the creased ancestor portraits unchanged.
Image Upscaler
This subject, by damage type
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