Irish Roots Magazine Article, June 2009
Photo-Stories - Give Your Old Photographs
a Make-over
By Maureen Taylor
The digital age of photography with scanners and photo editing software offers another option—digital restoration. The original remains intact and the owner or a professional restorer using a high resolution scan of it, digitally enhances the image erasing all the deterioration. Gilleran, who lives in the United States, elected to hire a digital restorer to not only eliminate the damage, but to colorize the image to make it look like a painting. Lorie Zirbes, of Retouching by Lorie www.retouchingbylorie.com, started her career as a retoucher in a fine arts portrait studio, then worked with photographic negatives. Now, she uses Adobe PhotoShop to turn photographic scans into artistic renditions suitable for framing. In the image of O’Neill, she colorized his entire appearance from facial features to clothing. The black and white ambrotype shows that O’Neill had light colored eyes which Gilleran interpreted as blue. Zirbes kept the colors of the brocade vest that the original photographer used, then added white to the shirt and colored the tie a dark color, both appropriate for the era of the picture and the visual evidence. It’s unknown if O’Neill had light colored hair. The dark backing of the image makes the hair look dark colored. The fabric of his suit coat looks like it could be a color other than black.
If you’d like to attempt this type of restoration, the full version of Adobe Photoshop is intended for professionals, while their less expensive Photoshop Elements is for the average user. As long as you keep the original safe from future harm, experiment with restoration using a high resolution scan (more than 300 dpi), but make sure your descendants know that while many details can be seen in an image, there is also an element of artistic license at work. Mark the artistic rendering with a date and your name so that it isn’t accepted as the original.
In Gilleran’s case, Zirbes gave him a realistic colorized portrait of a treasured immigrant ancestor. It’s a stunning portrait of a young man settling into life in a new land.
Maureen Taylor
The Photo Detective