Sun-Bleached Funeral and Memorial Photos

When sun bleaching reaches a memorial photo, the result is a washed-out image with almost no contrast, sometimes with a darker stripe where the mat protected it. The cause is nearly always a frame on a sunny wall or a windowsill, where ultraviolet light broke the dyes down year after year, and funeral and memorial photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the sun-bleached memorial photo as a repair job: it removes the sun bleaching and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the face, the expression and the way they held themselves as photographed. Faces of the person being remembered, in the last good picture the family has of them that were lost to the sun bleaching are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

For sun-bleached funeral and memorial photos the order is sun bleaching first, faces second, upscale last, each step taking the previous result. Standard suits a memorial photo for a screen; Pro or Max gives a sun-bleached print more detail for reprinting.