Water-Damaged Anniversary Photos

When water damage reaches a anniversary photo, the result is brown tide lines, blotches where the emulsion swelled and prints stuck face to face or to the album sleeve. The cause is nearly always a flooded basement, a burst pipe, a leaking roof or a damp garage, and anniversary photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the water-damaged anniversary photo as a repair job: it removes the water damage and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the cake, the banner and the couple's faces as photographed. Faces of a couple cutting a cake decades after their wedding, surrounded by their children that were lost to the water damage are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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