Moldy Holiday Photos

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

The restoration reads the moldy holiday photo as a repair job: it removes the mold and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the decorations, the wrapping paper and the tree lights as photographed. Faces of the family around the tree, the table or the menorah that were lost to the mold are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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