Historic And Archival Photo Restoration Services

Preserving and Restoring Historic Photographs

Old photographs are more than just images—they’re windows into the past. However, time, environmental factors, and handling can cause these invaluable records to fade and deteriorate. My professional photo restoration services can help preserve and revive historical and archival photos, ensuring they remain accessible for generations to come.

The Importance of Restoring Archival Photos

Historical photos provide a tangible connection to our past, documenting important events, people, and places. Restoring digitized or scanning images helps to:

• Preserve history – Protecting fragile, one-of-a-kind photographs from further deterioration by digitizing them.

• Enhance details – Bringing out faded faces, textures, exposure, and elements that may have been lost over time.

• Ensure future accessibility – Digitizing and restoring images for museums, historical societies, and family archives.

How My Restoration Process Works

Using my over 20 plus years image editing experience and advanced digital techniques and editing software like Adobe Photoshop, I carefully repair and enhance archival photos while maintaining their authenticity and original. This includes:

• Repairing any tears, cracks, and stains

• Correcting fading and discoloration

• Sharpening details and contrast

• Colorizing black-and-white images (optional)

• Digitizing, enlarging, and preserving high-resolution copies suitable for printing

Perfect for Museums, Libraries, Non Profits, Documentary Film Makers, and more…

Whether you’re a historian, researcher, a film maker or producer, or just someone looking to restore a beloved family memory my professional restoration services will help ensure these irreplaceable photos continue to tell their stories. To be clear, I restore and repair digitized versions of old photographs, not the original hard and physical copies.

Using Public Domain Photos

This includes restoring, enhancing, and editing old historical photographs that were published prior to 1926 and are in the public domain in the USA. These photos have no legal copyright restrictions and consequently can be edited, remixed, and used freely for a variety of purposes including publishing projects, historical documentaries, web marketing, etc. There are many resources to access and download old photos that are in the public domain. A good example is the famous photo of Butch Cassidy’s “Wild Bunch” gang I found on Wikipedia (see above in the header of this post) that was captured in year 1900 that I enhanced and colorized .

Old West Photos

Being located in Arizona and being a lover of “American Old West” history , I do happen to especially enjoy restoring old and vintage photographs from the mid 1800s to 1900. This is considered to be the the golden age of the “Old West” period and marks the height of westward expansion, following the Civil War, and includes iconic events such as the settling of the frontier with wagon trains, major conflicts with native American tribes, the rise of lawlessness and famous outlaws, cowboys and cattle drives, and the establishment of railroads.

Turn Old Historical Photos Into A Movie or Documentary

I have the skill and experience to transform old still images or photos into an animated and compelling video. Whether it be a simple slide show, or a more sophisticated “Ken Burns” style documentary. The “Ken Burns” effect is when you take still images and animate them by zooming in or panning across them using video editing software platforms like Adobe Premier Pro or Davinci Resolve. You can also add sound effects, music, test, narration, b-roll clips, etc. to these videos. You can see some samples of this technique below.

Costs:

I charge $35 .00 per hour for standard photo restoration work and offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee with no deposit required on most projects. In general, most projects with low to moderate damage take 1 to 2 hours to complete. I can provide a free quote for photos that have severe damage or more complicated requests to edit including colorization, etc. . Please contact me to send your photos today for a free and no obligation review and quote to repair.

Contact Info

Contact me now if you have any questions or want to get started on a project!

Other Creative Services I Offer: 

Video Editing: View info here about my affordable video editing services 

Photo/Image Editing: See info here about my freelance photo editing services

This is an example of old public domain photograph from 1923 that I edited and colorized that was captured at Lee’s Ferry, in Northern Arizona. These brave men were members of a US Geological Survey party that headed down the Colorado River to explore and survey the Grand Canyon. In this sample I added some background music, b-roll and sound effects from the Colorado river at Lee’s Ferry. In the last frames of this sequence I placed the group in a different background using an image that I personally captured along the river at Lee’s Ferry.

This is another public domain photo from 1873 taken at the mouth of Paria river entering the Colorado river at present day Lee’s Ferry Arizona that I enhanced and colorized. When I colorized old black and white historic photos I always reference recent photos to make sure the colors are as accurate and realistic as possible in the landscape and clothing worn if individuals are in the scene.

This is a quick slide show made from an old photo from the 1930s I believe of a group of women making traditional Navajo Rugs in Northern Arizona,

This is an old public domain mug shot of the famous old west outlaw Butch Cassidy that I restored and colorized.

This a public domain photograph from 1900 of the notorious “Wild Bunch” gang that I restored and then colorized. The Sundance Kid is siting on the left with Butch Cassidy sitting on the right.

This is an example of an animated slide show I made using one old photograph of the famous American explorer Major John Wesley Powell. The photo was believed to be captured in 1869 in Northern Arizona near present day Lee’s Ferry, AZ. I restored the original photo where Powell is seen chatting with a Paiute Indian (name unknown) and then inserted new landscape backgrounds from some of my own personal images I have captured in the Lee’s Ferry area.

This is a short clip from a much longer “This is your life” movie I made for my Mom. It was created totally by using old photos that I restored and animated with motion. I also added sound effects and music. The music cannot be played because of copyright restrictions.