Photo restoration and colourisation, done honestly
Faded, torn, creased, water-damaged or water-stained photographs, repaired by hand and returned as files you can print. Colourisation of black-and-white originals where it serves the picture.
£15.00 to correct, £30.00 to repair, £75.00 to reconstruct. Packages of ten from £125.00
Free assessment
Send a scan. I will tell you what is recoverable, what is not, and what it will cost, before you commit.
Print-ready output
You receive a high-resolution file suitable for enlargement, not a web-sized preview.
Bulk work welcome
Whole boxes and albums are normal. Packages of ten bring the per-photograph price down.
Send me a scan or a clear photograph of the print and I will tell you what I expect to achieve before any money changes hands. If a picture is beyond sensible repair, I would rather say so at the start than take the work and disappoint you at the end.
Your original is never altered and never kept. Restoration produces a new file for printing; the print you posted or scanned stays exactly as it is, because it is the object your family has held for eighty years.
Usually recoverable
Fading, yellowing and colour casts are routine, as are surface scratches, creases, dust, foxing and water spotting. Long tears through the middle of a print can be rebuilt convincingly, because the information either side of the tear tells you what belongs in the gap. Missing corners and edges are usually straightforward, and backgrounds are forgiving: wallpaper, sky, grass and fabric all follow patterns that can be reconstructed without inventing anything meaningful.
Sometimes recoverable
Damage across a face is the interesting case. If one eye survives and the face is roughly symmetrical, a great deal can be rebuilt honestly. If both eyes are gone, anything I produce is a guess wearing a familiar expression, and a guess is not a photograph of your grandmother.
Severe blur is the same story. Camera shake and slight misfocus can often be improved. A photograph that was never sharp cannot be made sharp: detail that was not recorded cannot be recovered, whatever the software claims.
I use AI tools in this work, and I am open about where. They are excellent at noise, damage and masking, and least trustworthy on faces, where they reconstruct from what faces generally look like rather than from what your grandmother looked like. How I use artificial intelligence sets out where I use them, where I am careful, and what I will not do at all. If you would rather I worked entirely by hand, say so and I will.
Colourisation is a separate decision
Repair and colour are different jobs. Restoration recovers what the photograph already holds; colour is an interpretation laid over it, and it deserves its own conversation. Colourising black and white photographs sets out how I approach it, what can be established rather than guessed, and when a picture is stronger left as it is.
Then make something with them
Restored files are worth printing. Most restoration work here ends as a heritage album: the photographs sequenced, captioned where names are known, and bound into something that gets handed round rather than filed away.
Priced per photograph, by what it needs
Every photograph is different, so I quote after seeing a scan rather than before. Almost all of them fall into one of three bands, and the assessment is free either way.
These are guide prices. Every job is quoted on a bespoke basis once I have seen the photographs, because condition varies more than any price list can allow for. Heavier work and colourisation are quoted individually. Send a scan and I will tell you what a picture needs, and what it will cost, before you commit to anything.
Albums I would suggest
Further reading
Tell me what you have, and what you would like made
Send me the photographs and a sentence about the occasion. I will come back with a recommendation and a price, with no obligation.