I know for a fact, that after I have gone, my kids will never keep a thing. I have every single birthday card I have ever been sent by anyone. My sons says, I chuck them in the bin the next day. I was a hoarder of ALL their old stuff. Toys, books, drawings. old school books everything. Kept them for years. We made a great move to Switzerland from South Africa in 1999. We did not unpack the boxes for many years. When we finally did, they did not want to keep a single thing. It broke my heart. Saving all the stuff for so many years. I left South Africa in 1978 when I got married and went o live in Malawi for 2 years, then Switzerland for a year. When I went back home in the 80’s. my parents had bought a house, moved, AND got rid of all my old dolls, (but yet kept my sister’s big doll that had only one eye, left, I had the same one, only mine was blond, and her’s had black hair) and kept it forever after sitting on the pelmet of my sister’s room long after she had left home. My real tin tea set and pot and pan kitchen tin set. I got that when I was 5. I loved it. I also used to draw and paint For years. Forever actually. I had numerous paintings I had done. All gone to the trash. I could not believe it. I still have my son’s first real painting. He was 9. He copied a pair of parrots perfectly from the image. He is artistic as I am. He is a graphic designer now. Still, does not want his old drawings. I would love to have my old ones back. To be honest, my son cannot draw as well as could, not boasting, but it’s true - but has he graphic knowledge how to change it. What I don’t have. Hey, I’m 66, just paint and draw physically. And have never been in graphic school. PS: I am not jealous of my son. I’m proud of him. He has achieved so much- has had his own business since 2006.
That is really sad. I’ve never had a fall out with my mom. She is 87 now, I’m nearly 66. Hated her sometimes in my early teens, as I was quite rebellious. But that all came to an end when I was 21. Started going out with them even. Then met my husband of today. We were all such good friends, and used to go out forever after together. I would say - my mom was my best friend ever.
- I was taking the mickey out of myself using song lyrics. I’ll guess you are not familiar with them then
- Yes, zombies, really. I used to dress up as a zombie to raise money for a cancer charity at their events.
Just goes to show you should never assume before judging someone.
I understand your pain. My mother died when i was 7. I was put in the foster system…my biological family have not spoke to me and havent shared any photos but one of my mother. Not sure what i did to be so shunned by the group but honestly, its their loss!
What on earth can a 7 year old have done to be shunned ? Must have been horrible growing up and wondering that Meghann. Better off without a family like that, but it must have hurt.
Thank goodness that you have found love and have a great life with your hubby and children.
I really would love an answer…but it’s ok. Just helped me become stronger and truly value my lil family(well not so little-my oldest is 6 feet 5 inches and now am blessed with 2 more kids- so a total of 6 children!!!)
I’m very thankful for all I went through cause I see life differently!
I’ve been toying with the idea of ‘updating’ those Kodak Box Brownie family photos of family & friends, that we are all familiar with, by using AI for enhancement – to get rid of those blemishes, grainy faces, and so on. I’m doing this with software which I have bought and downloaded.
This is an original of me in 1947 sitting in my dad’s taxi cab in London, with the enhanced version.
Should I go for it?
I probably will, as a second album to the original, but wondered if there’s an opinion not to do any such thing!
What a wonderful old taxi 
I’d love to have one of those taxis here in France, renovated and battery powered!
I think only you can decide, some AI upscaling works well but it can easily produce an overprocessed look - as (IMO) here - your right leg looks strangely dissociated from the rest of you, for instance.
The original has a moire pattern - was it scanned from a newspaper?
I think that was the texture of the photographic paper. Can only confirm once I locate the original again.
The “silk” thing that was in vogue for a while, yes, I remember that.
The first step is to get rid of that - there are frequency domain analyses which can do it but the only package I have which (I think) has the tools is ImageMagick which is not exactly the most user friendly set of widgets.
Photoshop can sort-of remove it by applying a Gaussian blur - here is your photo which has just had a Gaussian blur then a bit of sharpening applied in Photoshop (I only have an old copy of CS5, the modern versions probably have better tools).
Personally I think that looks a bit more natural - the moire isn’t totally gone (but neither does the AI remove it) but take it too far and it gets too blurred.
Whichever way you choose to process the images start with the best quality/highest resolution scan you can generate.
I’m new to AI and will so persevere with it and with all other tools available to me until I find what pleases me.
I agree with you that my right leg is as you say - I have another nursery school photo of a group of kids where the faces have come out surprisingly sharp, smooth and lifelike, but the clothes and surroundings are just as fuzzy as before, looking overall very silly!
Great old photo, and think the original has alot more character. The modified photo just looks far too clinical. Keep it original and natural would be my view 
I’m downloading…
I think I may aim for something somewhere between billybutcher’s photoshop version and my AI version with a bit of fiddling in photoshop as well until I like what I see. I certainly don’t what a clinical look.
Prefer the original. It is accurate for the era, and the other version looks artificial to me.
My sister found lots of old photos after my mum passed away. There are many that go back to the 1910-1925 era of family members that I knew but are no longer with us. I’m going to pick them up from my brothers when I visit in September and scan and archive them. May try to enhance some if they are damaged. @Bonzocat , what did you use to digitise the images ?
Might need to compile from source and make sure that the fftw library is available to the build.
Notes (including regular pattern removal) here
Once your photos are scanned, they are digitised. I photographed mine, with my first digital camera, onto an SD card in 2002.
A friend had sent me back then a clone of photoshop on a CD, not the full version, and I progressed from there.
What I did then was to iron out creases, spot out dust and debris and scratch marks, and enhance the photos by slightly adjusting them for better contrast, highlights and shadows and so on.
You will need a programme such as Photoshop Elements, which is what I currently use. A full version of Photoshop is expensive and is for the professionals, and I think you have to pay monthly to use it.
There is plenty of similar software you can download for free.
As an example of how an image can be retrieved, is this case using my old pirated baby version of 2002 photoshop, here is the original of my grandparents and dad as a baby, and the enhanced repaired version. I like both!
Added - I think I could do better now, 20 years on!
