Low-Resolution Anniversary Photos

When low resolution reaches a anniversary photo, the result is blocky pixels, mushy skin and faces the size of a fingernail that fall apart when enlarged. The cause is nearly always a tiny contact print, a wallet photo, a heavy crop or a scan made at 72 dpi years ago, and anniversary photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the low-resolution anniversary photo as a repair job: it removes the low resolution and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the cake, the banner and the couple's faces as photographed. Faces of a couple cutting a cake decades after their wedding, surrounded by their children that were lost to the low resolution are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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