A friend of mine traveled to Denmark a few years ago to do on-site ancestral research.
While preparing for her trip, she ran across a postcard-size photo taken in Denmark that showed several men on board a fishing boat. An “X” inked onto the photo marked which of the men was her grandfather. Because the picture was on the dark side, I asked her to scan and e-mail it to me to see if I could work some digital magic.
Later that day, I phoned her and asked “Did you know your grandfather was holding a dog in this picture?” “No,” she answered, surprised. But there it was–hidden in the deep shadows of the old photo–a dog who might have been a mascot, or just visiting the ship!
Losing details in shadows is common. Fortunately, there are some simple image editing software fixes. The first step is to scan the photo into your computer using 1200 dpi resolution. This will create a big file, but one in which detail is easier to see. In fact, when I saw the boat photo at a high resolution I could pull out far more detail than I could see in the original photo.
Once you have the photo loaded in your imaging software, put the software to work using automatic fixes. For example, most programs have an auto contrast enhancer, or a “slider” control to adjust contrast and brightness. Don’t be afraid to play with these controls until you’re happy with the results. In the case of the boat photo, simply adding more light via the contrast control helped immensely. (Caution: If you are working from a one-and-only digital file, be sure to make a backup copy before you start adjusting the photo.)
