You guys are doing an incredible job on your finished pictures and also the quantity of pictures that you are returning. A few of us are forgetting some of the guidelines that are listed in OPR’s FAQ>Restoration Guidelines
The image is sized and cropped. Basic color corrections are great, but don’t worry too much as we will put the final correction on them to calibrate to the printers. Please do not crop, size or change the filename other than adding something at the beginning or end to mark it as being restored (an r, your initials, something along those lines).
Do not add what was never there. Adding an interesting background may make for a better photo, but it does not serve our purpose. We've also found that while adding a gradient background can look good at times, placing items on a new gradient background can make the textures look too different.Concerning the first, I’m having a problem uploading pictures back to my gallery that no longer carries the file size in their extension. I can tell that if it has been changed because of the new extension with your name minus the file size. Please let me know if there is a reason why you need to crop, other than it’s convenient. Because I have no idea what size the photo is now, I am forced to download the picture to my computer to check the size. For an example, if you have a picture that was 8x10; it is better to leave it at that size than cropping it to a 7.973 x 9.92.
I am totally impressed with the talent displayed on some really difficult pictures. There are pictures that really do not have much if any background to work with. On those, I’ve have no problem with how the background is blended out. However, lately I’m seeing a trend to get creative and change the photo to something it’s not. If a photo was not hand tinted in the beginning, please do not make it one now. It may look nice, but there is a huge risk that you are changing a black and white to colors that never existed.
Okay, I will now get off my soapbox.
Merry Christmas!
Margie
