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[kiska]

Great job max!

[Ziaphra]

Great job! Perhaps OPR could contact the owners to confirm what Richard actually wrote...just to be sure?

[glennab]

Max, you did a wonderful job (for someone who claims to be a "beginner" - although I'd attest that you're WAY beyond that. This looks to me as if it were restored by a pro!)  It's probably something quite precious to the owner, since there are personal messages on it.  What a special gift to them. You're the best!

GG

[RosyBijou]

Just awesome!  Very nice job!

[marylou]

Beginner? It looks great!

[kstruve]

I have to be perfectly honest ... this restoration project bothers me (and other autograph "restoration" projects).  Max, this has nothing to do with you or the work you've done at all, so don't take this personally.  But what we're dealing with is a photo that was actually signed by the actors themselves with real pen ink.  After we convert that to digital information, forge in signatures with pixels, then print it out on different paper, all of it's meaning and worth as an autographed image is gone.  Anyone can search the internet for the same poster, download it, then sign it themselves with the brush tool in Photoshop, but that doesn't make it a legitimate autograph.  It's different when we're dealing with a photo of a person that was damaged and then repaired digitally.  The worth of that photo is the image of the person itself.  Restore the image and you restore it's importance.  The worth of an autograph isn't the image of the signature, but the actual and original ink that flowed from the pen the person wielded with their own hand.

Well that's my rant.

Kurt

[glennab]

Hi Kurt,

I find your comments especially interesting, because I was discussing this restoration with one of my associates at work this morning, and she felt the same way you do.  I'd never considered it in that respect.  I guess what we can hope is that they keep the original and use the restoration as a representation of the damaged piece.  Definitely thought-provoking!

GG

[OPRAng]

The restoration still holds lots of value--sentimental value (not monetary). There are a lot of visual items that were damaged in the storm--the majority of them are photographs, but not all of them. I just packaged a letter from a senator to a family. It was obviously damaged and held sentimental value to the family--that's why they brought it to us. We have sent home newspaper clippings, letters, certificates, and other non-photo items. If it held no value to the family, they wouldn't have brought it to us.

We also make sure that we only attempt to replace what the disaster took away. So we don't make duplicates, or enlargements or anything like that. We only try to restore the memories that the disaster tried to take away.

OPR's slogan: "Insuance doesn't restore memories, but we do".

So how's that for a corny ending to a post???

Angela

[Ausimax]

HI Folks,

Thank you all, for your comments, it appears that you consider it is OK, so I will send it home.

Ziaphra, I am 99% sure that was what was written, there was just nothing else there, and I doubt OPR would really be interested chasing it up, Actually this is the sort of info that should be gathered with the photo, I have spent so many hours tracing out and copying these signatures I feel more like a Forger than a Restorer.

Kurt, I agree in principle with what you say, however there must be some reason the owner wanted this photo restored, you would think she could contact them and get a replacement, who knows, that option may no longer exist.
As such I don't feel it is my right to question what they want restored. It would seem to have more validity if it was a photo signed by somebody now dead, but again that would only be a copy, as would the original of this had it been scanned and reprinted before it was damaged.

That is the thing that grabs me about this job, look at the photos we are being asked to restore, most of them are not great studio photos, most of them are just run of the mill "snapshots" complete with poor focus, bad lighting and red-eye and these are the only photos they have left, that is what drives me to try and do the best I can for them.

Thanks again for all your input on this project, it is that sense of having all that help available that keeps you trying.


Max