Document Restoration

Throughout the process of presenting this material for the internet, it was necessary to repair the ravages of time (frail, brittle newsprint, faded and 'solarised' prints), enhance with technology not even dreamt of in 1910 (family 'snaps') and in general show the images in their best light for the general viewer and researcher alike.

Saying this it was necessary to not destroy the 'look and feel' of the images, especially the 'family snaps' which have an important place to play in documenting any historically important event. As such, defects not critical to the body of the image were left untouched - edge stains and tears etc. Where damage was severe (as with the first image below), the original is also made available 'as found' so that at some later date an even more creative enhancement might be done.

The general process was as follows

1. High resolution scan - not presented here - impractical - some 25 Mb

2. Compression of the scanned image to make a workable file size - available as a download - 216kb

3. Straightening - in this image, only minor - not shown

Working file ready for repair - shown reduced in size to fit on web page

Image at stage 3

Repaired file - shown reduced in size to fit on web page

Image at stage 4

6. Colour correction on claibrated monitor

repaired file - shown reduced in size to fit on web page

Image at stage 6

8. Subfiles created at (a) low, (b) medium and (c) high resolution for (a) screen display (fast), (b) primary (fast) download access and (c) secondary (slow) download access

Image at stage 8
300 or 350 pixels wide @ 72dpi - low quality, fast load time

Image at stage 8
450 or 500 pixels wide @ 72 or 150 dpi - medium quality, medium download time