Can this photograph be fixed

Question

Can you take a look at this photograph --  the light areas are too light, etc.

I don't know how it got that way -- years ago when I scanned it into my computer -- and I no longer have the original -- nor do I have any decent photographs of him.

https://www.wikitree.com/photo/jpg/Prickett-125

Pat

 

Comments

You might want to talk to a portrait artist to see whether they can work with what's there. It seems like James face would have more features to work with than the lady's face where there's not much indication of her chin.

Answer 1

This particular image can not be fixed.

Its been "posterized" -- meaning there are only three different colors of pixels in the entire image: yellow, light brown, and dark brown (actually, there are more colors in the image, but but only due to the jpeg compression and still not enough for any level of detail). All the other details have been thrown away when it was edited.

Without either the original photo, or the original untouched scan, there's nothing that can be done.

1st law of image editing -- you can remove pixels (details), but you can never add them.

Answer 2

According to the file information you entered at upload, the file came from Picasa 3. Versions later then 3.0 have hidden file backups. You may have to dig through a labyrinth of folders and backups, but it might still be there. I can't seem to find the documentation for recovery, but I know it exists. I'd start at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picasa#Backup for details but I know there are better resources.

Comments

Well, I think I scanned it in before there was ever a Picasa.  Thanks, anyway!

Pat

Answer 3

Here's the response I got from an artist who I checked with:

"No, there's not enough detail. It looks cool though, like an old movie poster."