Nostalgia is one of my favorite feelings. I love certain times of the year (fall in particular) when my mind seems to be flooded with happy memories of years past. For me, memories are a guide for my path through the world, like a tailwind that is always behind me, but still pushes me forward.
When I founded Memories Kept I wasn’t sure if others felt the same way, but after several months converting old VHS tapes, paper photos, slides, and camcorder cassettes into long-lasting digital files, I realize that I’m not alone.
I’d like to share one particular project I recently worked on.
This is a portion of a World War II-era photo that I received as part of a larger order, and it was the one that was in the most need of love. The photo was torn completely through and arrived in two pieces:
There was significant fraying of the edges and some very, very old tape holding the two pieces together. The tape, while helpful in keeping the photo in one piece, had ultimately damaged the photo more than it helped. The adhesive left stains on the photo and as I carefully removed the tape, I could see small bits of the photo coming along with it. Not good.
I used our large Epson professional photo scanner to make digital copies of the image in a very high resolution, and then set about repairing the damage and creating a single, cohesive image. Several hours later, I had a near perfect digital repair:
The image above is a low-resolution version (for the purposes of this blog) but if printed out at the resolution I was working with, the photo would have covered the side of a small house. It takes some pretty serious computing power to work with files that large, but the results are worth it.
I was also able to provide the client with a false color version of the image that I generated using professional AI tools that study the image and compare it to millions of other images to assess where the various colors belong:
I had a lot of fun working on this project, and the client was thrilled with the results. I love bringing old photos back to life and preserving these precious moments in time for future generations.
If you have some old photos that could use a little bit of TLC, visit the Memories Kept website and get in touch with us via email (mike@memorieskeptfdl.com) or phone (920-212-8477).
