My Story

My archiving skills come from personal experience. In 2015 I shipped over 600 pounds of photo albums and family memorabilia from Upstate NY to my home in Portland, Oregon. As a photogrammetrist and passionate photographer I had the skills with digital photography to archive our rich family history in superior quality. I knew this was a huge undertaking and I certainly would not get paid for my time and effort but I thought of my grandparents and my great grandparents. I thought about how they passed down hand written family trees and photo albums from generation to generation. A person today can take 100 images per minute with a memory card, but in the late 1800's and early 1900's each photo was cherished and people put a lot of time and effort into capturing their life in imagery and then preserving that memory in a photo album. I wanted to digitally preserve my family history with the same loving care. I worked on the project after workdays during the rainy months of the Pacific Northwest with the encouragement and understanding of my very patient wife. Two years and 30,000 photos later my ancestry has been preserved in a digital format that won't fade, rip, or burn. Six hundred pounds turned into a half pound hard drive (multiple copies) and photos that were stamp size can now be seen clearly on a 26" 4K computer monitor and can be printed 4x their original size. Details not visible to the eye can be seen clearly seen in the imagery and they have been fully restored to their original colors and contrast. Instead of sending them off to a cheap scanning site on the web I took the example of my grandparents and instead put the same loving care for quality into this project for my family. The photos below are from my family. If you want someone who TRULY UNDERSTANDS the value of your family photos please contact me for availability and pricing to digitize your memories in archival quality.

Restore Contrast

Even the most high quality photos fade over time. Some of my family photos dated back to the dawn of consumer photography around the 1880's. These photos were often so faded that it was difficult to see the individuals in them. Using post-processing skills I've developed over the years I was able to adjust the contrast and other key settings to restore details within the imagery that otherwise would be lost after another 20-50 years. In digital format the photos are now timeless.

Repair

Your old family photos have been through a lot. They have often been handled by many people, transported without proper protection, or simply poorly developed in a dusty lab. Over time this wear and tear becomes visible in the photograph and ruins that care that was put into taking it in the first place. Damage to the photo can distort faces, cover up important subject matter and even make the photo susceptible to further wear. Through my own photography as well as having scanned over 30,000 family photos, I have discovered many tips and tricks to repair damaged original prints. Advanced algorithms built into post-processing software have also allowed for the repair of damaged areas by interpreting surrounding subject matter but it is important how that subject matter is chosen. Let me use my own experience and skills to repair your old damaged photos for preservation in a digital format. Sometimes it takes a little human touch and loving care. Below are some of the common blemishes of old prints that need tender loving repair while digitizing.

  • flashes illuminating the eyes poorly
  • tears, scratches
  • water damage
  • dust
  • spotting
  • bright reflections

Restore Color

The colors of old photographic prints tend to wash out over time. Old negatives also lose their color. Hue, saturation and vibrancy can be restored in post-processing once the photo has been digitized, and repaired. Let me help you restore your old photos to their original full color in a digital format that you can put on that super vibrant smartphone display to share with your family.

Restore Details

Digital photography software has become very advanced over the years. Software can now rapidly scan a digital image with advanced filtering algorithms to enhance details. These filters have a variety of names such as "high pass", "nearest neighbor", "bilinear", etc. The trick is choosing the correct filter based on the subject matter of the photo you are working on. Bulk photo scanning websites don't have the manpower to do this properly so they often apply the same filter across an entire photo set which could adversely affect the quality of the imagery. Let me use my own experience and skills developed over the years with my own photography to choose the best way to bring back the details of your family memories on a photo by photo basis.

Image Enlargement

Unlike the big box scanning sites you may find on the web that only scan your photos at a maximum resolution of 600dpi which only allows for 2x enlargements of the original image, I scan at 800 - 1200 dpi and if an image is a high quality print like the one here I will scan at even higher resolutions. That is the difference between having a real person care for your precious memories rather than a large machine that has the potential of damaging your originals as well. Feel free to use the magnifying glass on the image, click the button below to see the full size scan (click picture when page loads) or simply scroll down.

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