Moldy Class Photos

When mold reaches a class 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 class photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the moldy class photo as a repair job: it removes the mold and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping each child's face, the name board and the teacher as photographed. Faces of thirty children in rows with the teacher standing at the side that were lost to the mold are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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