Water-Damaged House Photos

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

The restoration reads the water-damaged house photo as a repair job: it removes the water damage and rebuilds what was underneath from the surrounding grain, keeping the porch details, the windows and the house number as photographed. Faces of the family home with someone standing on the porch or out in the yard that were lost to the water damage are plausible reconstructions, so compare them with other pictures.

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