Family Tree Photo Restoration 101: Photos That Belong in a Tree

Which photos deserve the effort first

Family tree photo restoration is mostly a triage job. A box of two hundred prints does not need two hundred repairs, and spreading the work evenly usually means none of them end up good enough to identify anybody. Start with the photographs that answer a question you already have, then work outwards.

• Faces you can already attach to a name, since a known face becomes the reference for the unknown ones beside it.
• Group photographs with a date written on the mount or the back, because the date does the anchoring for you.
• Studio portraits carrying a photographer imprint, since the address narrows the year range.
• Photos of one person at two clearly different ages, which let you track that individual through a household list.
• Anything already damaged badly enough that another ten years will finish it off.

Everything else can wait in a folder. Restoring a photo nobody has a question about produces a nice picture and nothing else.

Naming and filing so the photo survives being copied

A restored file is only useful while it stays connected to a person. Most family archives lose that connection somewhere between the cousin who copies it and the forum where it gets posted. Fix the name before you fix the pixels.

Keep one master scan and one working copy. The master never gets edited, and every repair happens on the copy, so a bad restoration never becomes permanent.

Damage that hides a name or a date

Some damage is cosmetic. Some of it destroys the only evidence in the frame, and that second kind goes first.

• Creases running through faces. A fold across the eyes removes the feature you were going to compare.
• Mould and foxing along the lower edge, which is where studio imprints and photographer addresses usually sit.
• Faded emulsion in the background, holding the door numbers, shop signs and street furniture.
• Torn corners that took an inscription with them. Scan the fragment separately before trying to join it.
• Silver mirroring in the shadows, which flattens features. Rescanning with light from the side beats any software repair.

Stop once the face reads. Over-restoring smooths away the skin texture and bone structure that keep two people distinguishable, and a family tree needs them to stay distinguishable.

Where a restored photo belongs in the tree

A photograph earns its place by agreeing with a document. Attach it at the point where the two support each other, and record what the agreement actually was.

• Put the image on the person record rather than a general gallery, and note who else is in frame.
• Write down why you think it is that person, including the second detail that agreed with it.
• Keep the date as a range when the evidence only supports a range. False precision is worse than none.
• Save the negative conclusion too. Knowing which Sarah the photo is not saves the next researcher weeks.
• Share the master file and not only the repaired one, so the next person can do better work than you did.

Family tree photo restoration FAQ

• Should I restore every photo before building the tree? No. Fix the handful that answer a question, attach them, and let the tree tell you which photo to do next.
• Is it safe to enhance the only scan I have? Repair a copy and leave the original scan untouched. Enhancement is not reversible once it is baked into the pixels you keep.
• How much resolution do I need for a face I want to compare? Around 600 DPI on the original print. That leaves enough pixels to crop to one face without the file falling apart.
• Can I use a colorized version in the tree? Keep the colorized copy for sharing and the monochrome one for comparison, since added colour invents detail about fabric and setting that no record supports.

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