Preserving a Lost Photo, Artificially.
- Oct 5, 2024
- 1 min read
Updated: Mar 4
When I last moved house back in 2006 I lost quite a number of images that I’d burned to CD. I'd learned the hard way about backing up securely! The wrong box was thrown out.
The image above was a shot I'd always liked. All I could find was the tiny 370 x 550 copy I’d used on my first website. It was taken on the Canon EOS 300D (see below) during a visit to the Ulster Folk Museum in summer 2004. This lady was reenacting life in the late 1800s by making bread the old fashioned way, and very tasty it was too!
I wondered if I could rescue this image by using modern upscaling software. I nearly got there, but the result was disappointing. It's the hair and busy blouse detail that let it down. I experimented with fake grain to mask the obvious effects of all those unconvincing pixels added by Topaz Gigapixel.
But, all was not lost. I offered the image to AI and asked it add appropriate detail throughout the frame. I've decided that the small finger of the left hand can't be seen. It's not an AI mistake.
