Torn Prom Photos

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

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

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