Digital Meltdown

I took up photo restoration in 2016 when I finished work and moved to the Lake District, it was one my retirement projects to scan all the old family photos, restore them and publish them for all the family.

I learned the craft of restoring from many hours of watching Youtube tutorials and practising with Paint Shop Pro, never liked Photoshop. After about a 1000 photo's I started to develop some expertise to the point where I was taking on commissions for family and friends.  I thought about a cottage industry to supplement my pension but the economics did not stack up.  Sometimes a photo will take all day to fix, others only 20 minutes. What I couldn't do was estimate how much work it was and ended up working long hours for a few bob.

So its more of a hobby now and I tend only to give my valuable time for special occasion restores.  

Colorisation (as shown) is an entirely separate restoration skill.  Creating palettes, masks, layers and blending them to create natural results is an art which I am getting the hang of but still have a long way to go. I don't have any artistic flair, as does my wife, I simply look at it as fixing job and do my best.
 

I love bringing old photos to life, sometimes when I see a worn-torn old photo on one of my Facebook groups I will do a 'ghost restore' and publish it them - this has won me critical acclaim on occasions, which feeds the ego and progresses the art to more professional levels.