Sun-Bleached Prom Photos

When sun bleaching reaches a prom 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 prom photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the sun-bleached prom photo as a repair job: it removes the sun bleaching 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 sun bleaching are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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