Torn Immigration Photos

When tearing reaches a immigration photo, the result is a ragged white line where the paper fibers show, sometimes with a missing corner or a whole strip gone. The cause is nearly always a print pulled out of a frame or an album, an argument over who keeps it, or a small child's hands, and immigration photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the torn immigration photo as a repair job: it removes the tearing and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the luggage tags, the clothing and any writing on the back as photographed. Faces of a family at the dock, at a ship rail or in the doorway of a first home in a new country that were lost to the tearing are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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