Creased Graduation Photos

When creasing reaches a graduation photo, 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 graduation photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the creased graduation photo as a repair job: it removes the creasing and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the tassel, the diploma and the school crest as photographed. Faces of the graduate in cap and gown, often with a parent standing just behind that were lost to the creasing are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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