Scratched Prom Photos

When scratching reaches a prom photo, the result is fine white or dark lines across the emulsion, often clustered in one direction. The cause is nearly always loose storage in a shoebox, a drawer shared with keys and coins, or a print dragged across scanner glass, and prom photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the scratched prom photo as a repair job: it removes the scratching and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the corsage, the dress color and the backdrop as photographed. Faces of a couple posed under an arch or against a painted backdrop that were lost to the scratching are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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