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Faces in old portraits can reveal an astonishing amount of information. It doesn't take a psychic or AI to decode the meaning - science is showing us we all have the tools to read faces in old photos. Whether you are an aesthete or a family historian, careful attention to the visual image - and faith in your intuitions - will give you beguiling insights into lives past.  This 15th century Dutch portrait gives us clues about reading faces. The science of reading faces The science of reading faces is still in its infancy. But it is a science, and one that the government uses every day in police work and counter-terrorism. Psychologist Paul Ekman of the University of California San Francisco's School of Medicine is a leading expert in facial expressions and has written extensively about what the face can reveal. It's a whole lot more than men staring at goats… My mother's psychic My mother visits a psychic. She is asked to bring in a photograph of the people she cares about and by looking carefully at the people in the image, her psychic is able to reveal something about their future. Crazy right? I admit, I have a long term love affair with images. Old photos mostly, but really any photos at all, old or young. And art, of course. And I am not alone. But why are we so drawn to figures and faces? What can old images tell us anyway? Anything? In this hub I am going to convince you that my Mom's psychic is no charlatan. The reason why the human face so enthralls us is that we really can learn about people from still images of their faces. From psychics to time machines Old images are a peep hole into the past; a quick trip with a time machine where you get to peek out the window and glimpse a moment of a previous day, a previous life. How cool is that – traveling back in time? If you look very carefully at every inch of the image, the things on, or behind or beside the people, you will see all kinds of unexpected things: fashions, book titles, décor, other photos in frames, figures lurking in the background unaware they are in the shot, doors into other rooms… Medieval painters worked long and hard to incorporate all kinds of possessions and symbols of their subjects, seeking to locate them in their milieu and to tell a story. Look at the famous 15th century portrait “Arnolfini Marriage” (shown above). It's literally dripping with clues about the life of this intriguing couple: the little dog = loyalty; the green of her dress = hope, the red curtains = carnality, the scattered oranges on the left - wealth. Photographs can be equally as rich with personal and cultural detail, if not nearly as calculated as the Arnolfini portrait.  Faces reveal more about our current state - and our intentions - than you might think. Look past the clutter Catching a rare and privileged glimpse of a world lost by the passage of time is a big part of the allure of old photos. But it's not the only allure of old images or their best. Actually, the most interesting detail in a portrait comes not from the objects, and our chancy readings of their meanings, but from the people themselves. Look again at the old Dutch portrait above: Notice how the man is sided near the window – because as a 15th century medieval male he was out in the world. The woman is close to the bed, for obvious reasons. He looks at us, she looks at him. Noticing these details, we gain a whole lot of information about the couple as people, even though the picture is just a static, non-verbal, one frame representation. Photographs, which are not nearly as contrived as stiff old Dutch portraits, can tell us a lot more about the lives and the personalities of the people inside them. And modern, scientific research is confirming this.  Reading faces is a matter of noticing subtle patterns in the 44 facial muscles. 40 Muscles of Meaning Modern science is increasingly focusing on the over 40 muscles in the human face, and what their behavior and arrangement can tell us about human emotions - and even human intentions. Paul Ekman, of UC San Francisco's School of Medicine, is a leader in this field. He has applied modern psychology to facial "microexpressions" in consulting work with police departments and anti-terrorism units. His work, which focuses on small "tells" that can give away real (often dishonest or dangerous) intentions, inspired the popular Fox television series “Lie to Me”. Is that divorce on your mind? A study by Matthew Hertenstein from DePauw University analyzed the facial expressions of hundreds of old high school yearbook portraits with one question: what if anything could be predicted about the future success of these people in marriage? You're kidding right? Actually, the results were startling: the photos foreshadowed D-I-V-O-R-C-E. These results were confirmed when the study was repeated using even earlier photos: “Future divorcées...either didn't smile or, if smiling, tended not to contract their orbicularis oculi, producing the sort of look you might find on the face of someone who is tired of talking to you at a cocktail party.” (“The Tell: The Little Clues That Reveal Big Truths About Who We Are”).” The ability to draw important conclusions from ostensibly thin data like a facial expression was termed “thin-slicing” by Malcolm Gladwell in his popular book “Blink”. Beginning to see You can begin to see the application of this new science of "face reading" to old photos. I have based a good part of my business on repairing and restoring old photos – for my personal history work and as a standalone exercise - and often wondered about all those people staring back. We now know that a lot can be learned about those people - too long dead for us to actually talk. And that is a reason for all of us to treasure those images just a little more.  It's not that hard to read the moods and personalities in these 1911 Merrimac Mill workers. Back to that psychic and those old photos Maybe it's not such a stretch after all for my Mom's psychic to predict people's future from their faces. (She did, after all, predict months in advance that I would call and tell her I was pregnant for the first time - my mother wrote the prediction on a slip of paper to prove it to me.) It may not be any kind of extrasensory perception though, just an exceptional reader of faces. Another recent reader of people's faces is AI software. When using AI to restore old photos, it does not always read people's faces correctly if the photo is damaged or low resolution. If the face is not too obstructed, then AI is capable of recovering people's faces with good results - although there is a risk that the new face will look slightly different than what the person actually looked like. Most of us will not be nearly as adept as Mom's psychic at reading old photos - or rather, the faces in old photos. But I think we are doing the same thing. I think we are both “thin-slicing” and getting real information about people from their images in photographs. And for all of us, that might be the real fascination of old photos. If we look real hard, I think we can learn more about them and their lives than we would ever think at first blush. Just what that is is only as far away as that old box of images.  Faces aren’t like granite - they do come alive. More resources
Paul Ekman has written more than a dozen books, many of them available on Amazon. "Emotions Revealed" might be a good first read. Mac Fulfer is the author of "Amazing Face Reading" and three seasons of "True Lies”. I am not aware of any long works specifically devoted to reading faces in old photos - but would be more than glad to hear of any. Postscript Do the actual faces in the Arnolfini portrait - not the objects and configuration of the people - reveal anything? For me, it's confidence and complacency on the face of the man, and possibly just a hint of suspicion. The face of the woman shows good old fashioned subservience. Both appear comfortable in their surroundings. He seems a little cool and superior; she looks more cheerful and interesting. Would a photograph be superior? It does freeze an actual moment; but then a sensitive painter should pick up personality traits and render them in the work. My guess is that is what happened in this famous painting.
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Choosing a photo for the Your Story Here holiday card a few years back, I came across this old Library of Congress image: "Poor children playing on sidewalk, Georgetown, Washington, D.C." I have walked the streets of Georgetown, and the houses still look very similar - although their prices have risen quite a bit. (The poor now have to go somewhere else to be poor.)
As part of FDR's New Deal, FSA photographers fanned out across the country to document the plight of the poor in America. The images captured then have now entered our consciousness as defining the Depression. And those images - or 165,000 of them at least - are now housed in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress. Every last one of them can be looked at on-line. Can you imagine a bigger treasure? What strikes the modern viewer most about the image above is the total absorption of the children in the simple wooden toy. (It's hard to tell, but it looks like a figure on a horse that can be pulled along on wooden wheels.) The children are almost reverential in their regard for the object - as if they are nervous about touching it. And it doesn't plug in, you may be thinking.
Not much else is known about the image of those Georgetown children. But the economy did recover, eventually. Too young to have been involved in WWII, most of them would easily have found jobs in the post war boom. (Discrimination, which held many back, should not have been a factor for these white children.) And if these kids had survived the Korean conflict (several of the boys would certainly have been caught up in the "Selective Service" military draft which started in 1948) then their economic lives should have improved immeasurably over their parents' - with the general prosperity of the 1950s.
The children of these Georgetown ragamuffins should also have fared well enough (comparatively anyway). It remains to be seen though how the grandchildren of these Georgetown tykes will weather the storm of our current economic woes. They will have more toys than their grandparents ever did, toys that do plug in, but they may have a less rosy future. Let's all hope that the New Year rings in a turnaround in the fortunes of this great country. And keep in mind that it's not just historical images that give up their secrets with a careful viewing. Every image I see, be it as a part of my video biography business - or as part of my more recent foray into photo restoration - contains a universe of information within its borders. Technical note: The Georgetown image above is pretty much as it appears in the LOC archive (aside from the text which many may say now defaces it!). I did remove some rubbish that was gathered at the kids' feet, and I obviously colored the toy to make it jump out. I also lightened the area surrounding the toy to separate it even further. Lastly, I added a slight sepia tint. (I beg the indulgence of the original photographer Mr. Mydans, one of this country's greatest photographers who passed away in 2004, who had no such tomfoolery at his disposal.)  A lot of our work here at PhotoFixRestore is working on really tough images: water damage; photos torn into pieces; radical color shifts into magenta; fading so bad that features have disappeared from faces and color that is all but lost; we are even asked to remove people who are no longer in the family! But there is another category of our photo work that is not so much photo repair as photo enhancement. You may have a favorite photo that is not in terrible shape - but it is just not what it could be. It might be crooked; or perhaps the central figure is too remote. Maybe you had some slides scanned and they came out dark - or pocked with dust. Sometimes you just need some wrinkles removed or some skin smoothed - nothing too dramatic or fake of course. But poor lighting can make features look worse than in reality they really are.
1. People Falling Out? Reorient and Straighten  Crooked horizons can be fun, especially if you want to add a touch of zaniness or even intrigue to an image. But, otherwise, it's just plain disorienting in a photo; or worse, your subjects look like they might slide right out of the photo entirely! One of the quickest and most powerful fixes is to adjust the rotation of the image so that the horizon - or the flat surfaces of furniture if you are inside - align with the top or the bottom of the image. 2. Flat Gray Images: Correct Contrast  Some images look flat and lifeless - lots of grays but not much in the way of pure blacks and pure whites. Walden Pond at misty dawn is allowed to be gray, for most other images you want close to the full tonal range - which means you will need to adjust the contrast so that you have at least some absolute whites and some absolute blacks. If you are using Flickr's Aviary, it's the "Contrast" tool you will need, in Windows Live Photo Gallery its Auto Adjust>Settings>Exposure"; and in Photoshop Elements use Enhance>Auto Levels. 3. Drab Photos: Crank Up Saturation  Colors lose their luster over time, sun and ozone have a way of leaching the saturation out of images. Sometimes the loss is in one or two color groups; if you are lucky, it is an overall loss of saturation across all the hues in the photograph that can be fixed with a simple movement in your photo editor's saturation color slider. In most photo editors, this fix can be found under the "saturation" adjustment. In Photoshop Elements use Enhance>Adjust Color>Adjust Hue/Saturation. 4. Fuzzy Photos: Sharpen If your photo is out of focus, there is no 100% effective cure. But by careful use of the "sharpen" tool, you can increase the contrast between light and dark pixels at the edges of objects - giving the appearance of a sharper, more focused image. This neat little trick can make up some of the lost ground in a fuzzy photograph - but by no means all. If you are using Flickr's Aviary, it's the "Sharpness" tool you will need, in Windows Live Photo Gallery there is no tool; but in Photoshop Elements use Enhance>Auto Sharpen or Enhance>Unsharp Mask.
6. Hue Shifts and Color Casts: Color Correction  Another common problem with old color photos is a differential loss of color (i.e. not even across all color channels) leading to a color shift or a color cast. Sometimes it was caused by using daylight-balanced film inside under incandescent lights and sometimes it's just color loss. Most photo editing programs give you a good shot at fixing the problem, by examining the overall balance between the red, green and blue color channels and making a correction if there is an imbalance. If you are using Flickr's Aviary, click the "Enhance" tool, then "Color Fix; in Windows Live Photo Gallery you have a choice between "Auto Adjust" and "Color" where you get to choose a countervailing color shift; and in Photoshop Elements use Enhance>Auto Color Correction or Enhance>Adjust Color>Remove Color Cast. 7. Dust, Scratches and Tears
This is really the holy grail in terms of amateur photo repairing - an easy to use tool that fixes dust and scratch marks. Luckily, we have now reached a level of sophistication in our quick and easy tools where these problems can sometimes be fixed by the part-time photo restorer. If you are using Flickr's Aviary, just click the "Blemish" tool and select the circle size; in Windows Live Photo Gallery the closest you can come is to use the "Noise Reduction" tool (which may not get you where you really want to be). Photoshop Elements is the most advanced of all the amateur programs and it really comes into it's own with dust and scratch repair: start with the Spot Healing Brush tool, or the Clone tool - both available in the tool panel on the left. I hope these seven quick and easy tool tips help you restore your precious old photos to their former glory. If you would like to see more examples of what can be achieved with old photos just click across to Photo Fix Restore's dedicated photo repair and photo restoration website and check out the extensive before and after gallery!
Wet photos that have become stuck
Water damage to photos due to storms, broken pipes, inadequate window or door flashing, garage or basement flooding, storage in high humidity environments, or just accidental human spillage, can be very serious. But if the problem is addressed while the images are still wet and if using the AIC recommendations then there is a strong likelihood that many if not all the images will be saved. Although, there may still be a need for some remedial photo restoration work. Once photos or negatives have become stuck in a block then specialized separation protocols are called for. PhotoFixRestore has had some experience applying these protocols and would be more than happy to discuss their applicability on a no-obligation basis.
Assessing a ripped photo: The 5 key questions
Finally, once we have made the repair and carried out other necessary restoration steps, we ask: What is the appropriate paper for the final print? We don't just print everything on high quality gloss paper (although sometimes that is the wisest choice). We like to do our best to match the original. For example, for the 16" x 20" oval portrait of the young lady above we used a cotton based, archive quality, slightly textured matte paper - and it looked totally gorgeous!
We then bring the pieces into Photoshop and carefully trace the outlines of the emulsion, taking care to avoid selecting any of the substrate. We then mask otiose details and arrange each piece on its own layer. We carefully maneuver each piece into place (using the transform tool as needed) - similar to assembling a jigsaw puzzle. Once the torn bits are aligned we then clean up the joins with the cloning or healing brush tools. We then attend to the other issues facing the photo - like color tone or dust spots then we prepare and send a "before and after" preview. Once we have your approval, we make the print and send that along together with a digital copy of the image! No torn images is beyond repair Here at PhotoFixRestore, we like to say that no torn or ripped image is beyond repair - but some images may be beyond budget! While we have astonishing photo restoration tools at our disposal, those tools are wielded by meticulous, flesh and blood artists and most repairs just take time to make the restored photo look convincing - as you can see by the samples on this page. To get a fast and free estimate to repair your torn image just contact Peter.
Poof! Annoying people and objects edited out of your precious photo in a single tap. Google’s Magic Eraser tool makes it easier than ever to edit photos on your handheld device. How does it do that? Thanks to new advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Google’s machine learning, this new feature makes what used to be an intensive job a much simpler exercise. Of course, not every photo can be restored by machines. For best results with more serious issues on that precious, one of a kind photo contact us and see what a human photo restorer can do! Is it really that simple? Yes, it is as simple as drawing a circle around whatever you might want removed. It gives you a preview, where you can decide what to remove and what to save. While it is not perfect how it crops background objects, it is quite impressive!
Does it really work that well? While it is not as perfect as a professional photo editor, it can be a handy and convenient tool! Artificial intelligence already has many useful features for photo editing technology. Auto-brightness, filters, and auto-color are some tools that iPhone or Android users might already be familiar with. But the Magic Eraser takes it to another level - removing pesky objects like telephone poles, strangers at a crowded beach, or maybe even facial pimples. Is Google Pixel the only phone that does this? Yes, while the Google Pixel is the only phone at the moment that comes with this auto-removal function, there are other ways to achieve similar results. The Magic Eraser can also be accessed through Google Photos. Snapseed has a ‘Healing’ option which colors over objects you want removed. And the TouchRetouch app offers an Object Removal function. Android police explains these alternatives in more detail. https://www.androidpolice.com/best-magic-eraser-alternatives/  What are some other options for restoring my photos?
There are lots of other services you can find online to help transform your old photos to their former glory. Repairing serious issues like rips, fading, or discolorations is best achieved by a professional photo restorer. It is also possible to colorize a black and white portrait to make it feel like a contemporary image. For more information on colorization, follow this link for a more thorough explanation: colorize a photo For more information on how useful the magic eraser tool is, check out this article by Tom’s guide: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/google-pixel-6-magic-eraser-tested-how-good-is-it For step-by-step instructions, see it explained by PhoneArena here: https://www.phonearena.com/news/how-pixel-6-magic-eraser-works_id135993 Bored Panda (with a whopping 120M monthly readers) reached out to us earlier this week, curious about our photo colorization work (https://www.photofixrestore.com/colorize.html) for a story they were doing (https://www.boredpanda.com/colorized-black-and-white.../). These are some extracts of the published interview which appeared this morning. We are happy they reached out to us to get an expert’s view on how colorization works, and why people are so excited about it.  Why colorize a black and white photo? Old photos are the closest thing we have to a time machine. Looking at an old photo is like peeking through a small hole in the dark blanket of time. Colorizing an old photo makes that experience even more real. To see an old black and white photo carefully colorized is always an emotional experience because it makes us realize that we are really like those people, separated by years but not by our humanity. Adding color brings the people and the surrounding items back to life with an immediacy and an impact that can be truly stunning. Colorizing old photos really is a way to make them come alive. You feel like you might have known them.  How does colorization work? In the old days we used paints and pencils applied directly to the photographic print, first applying a spray lacquer to create a “key” for the paints or pencils, then going to work like you would with a coloring book. These days we scan the image in high resolution then open it in Photoshop. Next, we restore any tears or scratches, and apply a very light sepia tone – this helps later get the right skin tone when we apply color. We then go to work applying color, digitally painting each item individually on a separate Photoshop layer. Sometimes we end up with 50 or more layers! But the real secret is getting the tone right.  Does colorizing damage the original? In the days of manual coloring, there was the high likelihood that the original would have to be replaced. However, using modern photoshop methods, the precious original can be kept safe while a new copy is digitally authored. To learn more about why people are colorizing old photos, check out this article in the Paso Robles Daily News: https://pasoroblesdailynews.com/should-you-colorize-your-old-family-photos/128928/ For more explanation on how colorization works, take a look at the colorization page on our website! 
 The work we did restoring and colorizing old photos for Coca Cola is the same as we do for all clients: We accessed and assessed the images, we then restored them in black and white by eliminating dust and marks, tweaking tone and contrast, lightening dark areas and darkening light areas. We used a very light touch though. With historical images the adjustments need to be nuanced and subtle. Next, we researched colors for nurses and soldiers uniforms, brands, patches and insignias and created a library of reference images. We then got to work with our digital paint brushes. Once we were satisfied - and that is not easy to do - we sent previews to the team at Coke who consulted their higher ups and pronounced themselves very happy with the work. We worked to a very tight timetable and the photos went out on Veterans Day 2019 to Coke's 3.5M followers.
If you need help with an old photo restoration or with an old photo colorization just click through to our contact page
and speak to Peter. With PhotoFixRestore you speak directly to the owner who is also our master restorer!
Lamar State College is also a school that remembers its history, and its modest beginnings in the former Tilley Elementary School (then an extension of Lamar University). Tilley Elementary commemorates a heroic young man named William Tilley who heeded his Nation's call and enlisted to serve in WWII. Tragically, lieutenant "Bill" Tilley became the first fatality from Orange, Texas in that terrible conflict. The school needed a formal portrait of Lieutenant Tilley to grace their halls - but none was to be found. There was an old monochrome portrait – but it was not in great shape. Could the old photo be restored? Could it perhaps (gulp) be colorized? Which is where PhotoFixRestore came in! Working with Lamar State College we were able to make the photo restoration and, after some research to confirm colors for his Army uniform, add color to the old photo and bring it back to life. The College chose to have us print the portrait at 16" x 20" on super premium Epson "Exhibition Fiber" paper.  It's not all hard work and study at Lamar State College of course. The school just welcomed its first athletic team. And this being Southeast Texas and the school being located just above the gulf - with all its rivers and lakes and estuaries - that team is, of course, the fishing team. And their mascott? Tilley the Gator! Many thanks to Amy Moore at Lamar College for allowing us to share this wonderful story.
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