What restoration
can and can't fix.

What we fix, easily.

• Scratches, creases, and folds — even a long crease across the face is straightforward.
• Fading and yellowing from light, time, and acidic paper.
• Foxing (the orange-brown spots from acid migration in old paper).
• Mild water damage — uniform spotting, not active mould.
• Loss of contrast in shadows and skin tones.
• Old-print blurriness — most photographs printed before 1990 are slightly soft by modern standards; we can sharpen this thoughtfully.

What we fix with care.

• Tears, especially through faces. Reconstructible if the tear is clean and the underlying detail can be inferred. We'll write to you with an honest assessment before any work begins.
• Missing corners or torn edges. Reconstructible if the missing area doesn't include identity-critical detail (the face, a specific hand-held object).
• Black-and-white originals we can colourise into period-appropriate palettes; we use family description as our guide where possible.
• Severe sun damage on parts of the photograph. We can rebalance, but heavily-faded areas are inferred work, and we'll flag what was inference vs. recovered detail.
• Low-resolution digital scans. We can upscale meaningfully, but a 200dpi scan of a 4×6 photograph has only so much information; we'll always work from the highest-resolution source available.

What we have to decline.

• Active mould or chemical damage. A photograph showing active deterioration shouldn't be sent through Royal Mail — it can damage other items in transit, and the restoration only addresses the digital image, not the original artefact. We'll point you toward an archival conservation specialist.
• Adding a person who wasn't there. A common request — "could you put my late brother into the family photograph?" — that we decline as a matter of principle. The photograph then becomes fiction, not restoration.
• Removing a person without all relevant parties consenting. Estranged or deceased relatives — we'll talk it through with you first. Sometimes we'll do it with a specific edit you've approved. Sometimes we won't.
• Photographs we can't authenticate the rights to. If a photograph appears to be of a celebrity, a public figure, or someone whose estate has documented rights of publicity, we'll need to know how you have authorisation to restore it.
• Voice-clone work without documented family agreement. A separate process — see our memorial concierge tier.

What an AI tool will do that we won't.

• Smooth a scar away. An AI restoration tool can't tell the difference between a scratch on the negative and a scar on a cheek. They smooth both. Identity-critical features stay unless you ask us to change them.
• Hallucinate a face. When a face is partly obscured or very low-resolution, AI tools invent missing detail — sometimes plausibly, sometimes producing a stranger. We'll reconstruct only where we can do so honestly, and tell you what was inferred.
• Standardise expressions. AI tools have a habit of softening unusual expressions ("she looks too serious"). We don't.
• Over-colourise. AI colourisation runs hot — orange-tinted skin, electric-blue uniforms. We aim for hand-tinted, period-appropriate, muted.

If you're not sure whether a particular photograph is workable, send it. The honest assessment is free. hello@keptandkin.com.