Water-Damaged Class Photos

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

The restoration reads the water-damaged class photo as a repair job: it removes the water damage and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping each child's face, the name board and the teacher as photographed. Faces of thirty children in rows with the teacher standing at the side that were lost to the water damage are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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