Moldy Baby Photos

When mold reaches a baby photo, the result is fuzzy grey or white patches, brown foxing spots and a musty smell that comes with the print. The cause is nearly always years in a humid attic, a cardboard box on a concrete floor or a plastic sleeve that trapped moisture, and baby photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the moldy baby photo as a repair job: it removes the mold and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the christening gown, the fine hair and the blanket pattern as photographed. Faces of a newborn or toddler, sometimes with a parent's hands holding them up that were lost to the mold are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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