This photograph is from a six-generational family album compiled by my great aunt, a documentary and photographic record of births, deaths, and significant family occasions.This photo offers multiple challenges as a restoration exercise: a torn corner, other tears and cracks, wrinkles, stains, fuzzy people, and yellowing and fading.

The image is probably an albumen print, the most common photographic technique of the late nineteenth century. Albumen images first appeared in 1850 and by 1855, these prints were coated with gold chloride, a preservative that enriched their color. Surface cracking is characteristic of albumen prints as they age and the images become increasingly yellow and brown.

The 1888 photograph was shot in Cary, Illinois. My great-grandmother, a midwife, holds my great-aunt Mary in her arms. Mabel, the second of her five children stands next to her, and my grandmother, Ruth, was born in this house two years later. The other child and adult in the photograph are identified only as cousins.

First, I worked with the image in grayscale and then restored RGB colors. Levels adjustment, clone, lasso, and dodge and burn tools all came into play. Lassoing the figues and using the levels adjustment gave better definition and emphasized structural elements in windows, buildings and fence rails.

The torn corner is restored by using the rectangular marquee to select a portion of the fence and copying that selection to the clipboard. I outlined the torn area with the lasso tool and then pasted the copied area.

I chose to crop the image in order to come in closer to the figures in the photograph, picking up the patterns in clothing and facial features to some extent. Of course, this destroys some of the spatial context of this Midwest farm community. The whites in the restored photo are overexposed, and I prefer the aged colors of the original to the new darkened tone which seems to lack richness.