This is the only picture his family has

[Chepeleon Arguello]

Hi, I have a photo that I downloaded from Facebook and it needs restoration. The image is damaged and faded. This picture belongs to Luis Rodriguez Canales. Luis was killed June 6th 1979 during the war in Nicaragua, the body was never returned to his family and he is still missing in action. 10295001_640908259329398_7393159531426661081_o.jpg10295001_640908259329398_7393159531426661081_o.jpg. I would like to know how much will cost to restore this photo. I don’t expect miracles but, as you see, the image is almost gone and I will like to give his family a little of his memory back. Can you tell me how much will cost to restore this picture? I appreciate the help. Thank you.
Sincerely,

[Colin Southern]

Hi Jose,

I think the answer will be everything from "nothing" to "quite a few hundred dollars" (if not thousands), and the quality of the restoration will vary from mediocre to fantastic. So it's probably more a case of "how much do you want to spend" and "what kind of quality do you need".

Professional image restoration requires immense talent to do a superb job -- and the people who do those kinds of jobs will mostly want to be compensated.

My suggestions are:

1. Get the image scanned at the highest quality you can, or at a bare minimum, get the best photo you possibly can of it -- so that we have the best possible data to work with (and before the image deteriorates even more)

2. Lets have a look at that data if at all possible - I'm sure many here would be happy to try and help for nothing (myself included), but you need to understand that we're not professional photo repairers, so the job we can do won't be as good as people with "the magic touch" for doing this kind of thing.

3. You may have better luck posting on some photo retouching forums - you might find some gifted and talented amateurs who would be prepared to help for little or no cost.

Hope this helps.

[Bobobird]

There is another option is to get it "drawn".

I have seen amazing work done here and it does not cost very much, Under 100usd I would think for b/w. No idea what a colour version costs. The end product is almost photographic quality and on good quality art paper.

Unfortunately I am leaving here (Hong Kong) on 22nd and have no time to go around looking though I know where some can be found.

If you are interested PM me and we can work something out for my next trip here in late September.

See this pic - he is a street painter. The work of dedicated portrait artists is of much better quality though this guy is quite decent.

[dan marchant]

If creating a drawing or painting Dafen art village in Shenzhen, just across the "border"* from Hong Kong. The entire town revolves around creating and recreating art http://danmarchant.com/2012/04/copyr...ement-village/ - A gallery of images from Dafen http://danmarchant.com/gallery/galle...l-dafen-china/

Friends of ours would regularly travel up there to get artists to do work or frame it. Of course having said all that I am sure the OP could fine somewhere closer to home to do a drawing/painting.

* It's all China but we have a border because its "one country, three systems" (China, Hong Kong & Macau). I assume if they reunite with Taiwan it will be four systems.

[chauncey]

The idea of using a portrait artist would never have occurred to me...stellar idea guys.

[Bobobird]

* It's all China but we have a border because its "one country, three systems" (China, Hong Kong & Macau). I assume if they reunite with Taiwan it will be four systems.

True, but deep down, Hong Kongers like to identify themselves as of Chinese ethnicity but HK as their "country" and not China. Many are proud of China's progress. When a neutral foreigner reminds them of the "other side" of the party story they tend to withdraw and just nod their heads. Anything to make them more China results in mass protests eg Article 23, education reform, mainland visitors, etc, etc. So...

This is not a political forum so will stop here.

[Richard Lundberg]

>Hi, I have a photo that I downloaded from Facebook and it needs restoration. The image is damaged and faded. < Why do you have to start with a Facebook download? Get the original or the scan of the original if you can, and if it wasn't scanned properly get it done again.

[loosecanon]

Old and faded monochrome images - copy using UV light - this can bring back a surprising amount of detail and contrast. nIt is a techique I used a lot in the past for archive images.