Water-Damaged Childhood Photos

When water damage reaches a childhood 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 childhood photos kept in albums, frames and boxes were all exposed to it.

The restoration reads the water-damaged childhood photo as a repair job: it removes the water damage and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the toys, the clothing and the expression as photographed. Faces of you or your parents as children, in the yard, at the table or on a bike that were lost to the water damage are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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