We restore and repair Old Photographs. All sizes. All types. Our
goal is to replicate your print to the finest quality - we strive for
Museum standards - and Yes, our restorations are on display in Museums!
(But we still want to be included in your home, as well!)
The photo restoration uses skilled techniques and artists
to stabilize and repair your treasured family heirlooms to make them
enjoyable now and into the future. Clients have included the archives
of Coca-Cola Bottlers Association, Several History Museums, and
discerning individuals. Our business dates back into the 40's and moved
to the current location in the early 1960's. Previously known as Harden
House of Photography, our archives not only includes thousands of
photographs but also awards and commendations from over the last 50
years!
Your Restoration Project
Our restoration
concept is simple. To retain the look of an aged photo (placing it in
its proper historical context). To stabilize the image in its current
condition through creating a new repaired version both printed and
archived on CD. Our goal is to avoid
over manipulation - we want the image to look like an older picture
that has kept very well, rather than some kind of fake and crude over
painted picture (we are after family heirlooms and historical
documentation, not Folk Art!)
In
this picture, the restoration covers several problems, underexposure
from the original picture taking, faded color due to aging, cracks, and
writing (it looks like the race car driver took the prints with him
during his races!)
This is where the discerning eye and sensitivities of professionally trained fine artists comes into play! We do repair image damage, cracks, stains, discoloration, fading and other deteriorations.
We offer great repairs of pictures made in the Sixties.............................
Glass plate images
and tintypes from the 1860's can be impossible to scan. We use a
professional camera copy techniques - allowing very good reproduction
of tintypes, daguerreotypes, and ambrotypes.
As can be seen in the Ambrotype below, some of the aging of these old
images is often left in, this gives an authentic look to the
photographs. This image is reproduced showing the original case. This
project included prisoner release papers from the Confederate Surrender
at Vicksburg, as well as the young mans obituary after continuing
fighting with his Alabama Infantry Division at Chickamauga, Lookout
Mountain, and the Battle of Atlanta.
We offer great repairs of pictures made in the Sixties.............................
Color Photographs
made in the 1960's are fading badly - and this fade is going to get
worse quickly. We can copy and reproduce these images and advise that any picture that is important to you be copied as soon as possible.
Modern color photographic prints are substantially more stable, in
fact, the color prints that we offer have a life expectancy of 100
years.
Look at your color photographs from the late fifties through the
sixties. This is the most AT RISK era as the color prints made in that
time frame were of very low stability and are well past their life
expectancies. Now is the time to stabilize and color correct these
images. An evaluation of which images are the most important - The
family at Christmas in 1963, Vacation at Marineland, The Wedding
Portrait - should be made and restoration considered. The least damage
the better - making exact facsimiles of images that have not faded is a
very affordable project! Why wait until major repairs are needed!
If you are
unfortunate to have the print stuck to the glass (particularly, as in
this case, with the glass broken) it can be challenging to reproduce.
We use camera copy as well as scanning and can usually get great
results!
Photography Center of Atlanta offers digital repairs that are printed
by a variety of methods. One method which we participated in its
pioneering is making a large negative from the computer image file and
contact printing the image in the darkroom. The Century Print is the result for which the owner, Bill Gillespie, owns the TradeMark. The Century Print
is a toned print on conventional archival grade photographic paper, of
the types which are in museums worldwide. These prints have the best
proven record of longevity and have a guaranteed life expectancy of 100
years, with 150 - 200 years expected if stored in favorable conditions.
If you have the honor of preserving pictures of your ancestors from the
1860's 70's or 80's, then you know how enriching it will be to future
generations for these images to still be around in 100 years!
Picture Links to Larger Version!
New
processes include high quality "gliclee" prints, which can give an
elegant watercolor quality to your projects (we have created some
beautiful facsimiles of old Civil War era documents for framing using
this process). Fuji Crystal Archive is a color printing material which
offers very high stability at a very competitive price. This process
offers great value and as long as the images are archived on CD and
retained can be an acceptable method of preserving and sharing your
families historical photos.
Do you still have a collection of Black and White Negatives? We offer
custom enlargements and reprints, Hand printed by a Master Printer on
Real Black and White photographic paper. Black and White Film Developing also available.
We can make prints and enlargements of any size black and white
negative up to 8 by 10 inches! Black and White prints are available in
both good (Standard, 50-75 years) and better (The Century Print, 100 -150 years) grades.
The Century Print is a TradeMark of Bill Gillespie,
exclusively available at Photography Center of Atlanta, and is
registered with the State of Georgia, Secretary of State. Unauthorized
use in the United States is illegal and subject to legal action.
