An Edwardian Child Portrait in Colour
Seeing a child from a hundred years ago in colour is the moment most clients tell me they had not expected.
Drag the handle to compare the original with the restored version.
The photograph
A formal studio portrait of a young child wearing a large hair bow, almost certainly Edwardian, printed dark in the fashion of the period.
The damage
Age had darkened the print considerably and a heavy scratch ran across the lower right. The surface was speckled with dust and small losses, and the whole image had sunk towards a muddy brown that made the child's features hard to read.
The work
The tonal range came first — lifting the shadows enough to recover the face without flattening the studio lighting the photographer had set up. Scratches and speckling were removed by hand. For the colourisation I kept to what the period supports: a cream silk bow, a pale dress with subtle embroidery, small pearl earrings and a soft grey studio backdrop. Restraint matters here. Pushing the saturation would have produced something that looks modern rather than Edwardian.
This was a black and white photo colourisation job — see more on black and white photo colourisation.
| Service level | Restoration with colourisation |
| Price band | £30+ |
| Turnaround | 2 days |
Other Restorations
Torn Baby Portrait Rebuilt from Fragments
One of the most damaged photographs I have worked on, and proof that a print in this condition is not beyond saving.
A Colour Print Lost Under a Yellow Cast
Colour prints from the 1970s and 1980s fail in a very particular way, and it looks far worse than it actually is.
Surface Cracking Across a Studio Portrait
When emulsion starts to lift, the damage spreads across the whole print rather than along one line. It needs patience more than anything else.
Have a photograph like this?
Send me a scan or a clear phone photo. I will tell you honestly what can be recovered, and what it will cost, within three hours.
