Fire-Damaged Church Photos

When fire damage reaches a church photo, the result is charred and curled edges, a brown scorch gradient, soot in the grain and areas lost entirely. The cause is nearly always a house fire, a smoke-filled room or a print that sat too close to a heater, and church photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the fire-damaged church photo as a repair job: it removes the fire damage and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the architecture, the vestments and the steps as photographed. Faces of a congregation on the steps, a robed choir or the church building itself that were lost to the fire damage are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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