Ancestor Portraits
Stained Ancestor Portraits
Ancestor portraits showing brown or grey blotches with hard edges, sometimes a ring, sometimes a smear across the sky have almost always met coffee, ink, adhesive, fingerprints and whatever else was on the kitchen table that day. The staining sits on top of the image of a great-great-grandparent nobody alive ever met, which is still there underneath.
Nothing in the ancestor portrait is redrawn for effect; the staining is treated as a layer to remove and the image of a great-great-grandparent nobody alive ever met as the thing to keep. If the stained area covered the features, the period clothing and the studio props, the fill is inferred from what survives around it.
Start with Stain & Spot Remover on the stained ancestor portrait, then chain Face Restoration or the upscaler in the Studio if the ancestor portraits need it. The 4 free credits on a new account cover one Standard run on stained ancestor portraits.
Original on the left, restored on the right; hover to see more of the repair. Made in the Studio from a scan of the print.
What matters for these photos
- Small faces of a great-great-grandparent nobody alive ever met that the staining has taken the detail from
- Stained ancestor portraits that a copy shop refused to touch
- A stained ancestor portrait needed for a memorial, an anniversary or a reprint
- Brown or grey blotches with hard edges, sometimes a ring, sometimes a smear across the sky, spread over a ancestor portrait
Suggested order of passes
- 01
Remove the staining
Stain & Spot Remover targets brown or grey blotches with hard edges, sometimes a ring, sometimes a smear across the sky while keeping the features, the period clothing and the studio props in the ancestor portrait untouched.
Stain & Spot Remover - 02
Repair the rest of the ancestor portrait
Tintype & Daguerreotype Restoration addresses the usual wear on ancestor portraits, silver mirroring, a tarnished tintype surface and cabinet-card mounts that have gone brittle, once the staining is gone.
Tintype & Daguerreotype Restoration - 03
Sharpen the faces of a great-great-grandparent nobody alive ever met
Recovers the eye and skin detail the staining softened; keep it at natural strength on ancestor portraits unless the faces are tiny.
Face Restoration - 04
Upscale the ancestor portrait for reprinting
Adds the pixels a wall print needs after the staining repair, with the shape of the stained ancestor portraits unchanged.
Image Upscaler
This subject, by damage type
Questions
Related guides