Touching Up Your Roots

If you’ve spent any time with vintage family photos, you’ve probably noticed colors in them that show signs of wear. Perhaps a red or blue haze has settled on those 1960s family vacation snapshots. Or fading hues have dimmed Grandma’s cheerful wardrobe.

Maybe you’ve wished for rosier tones in your black-and-white or sepia images. It’s more difficult sometimes to feel a connection to relatives when you can’t see the warm tones of their skin, hair, eyes or clothing. Photo backgrounds can seem equally unreal when they’ve been reduced to shades of gray.

Fortunately, the technology now exists to put bloom back in the cheeks of your ancestors in family photos. You can restore original colors and even inject color into black-and-white images. While you’re at it, you can address other problem areas, such as blurry patches or uneven lighting.

It’s easy to say yes to some of these options, but some hesitate to tinker with color. In this article, we consider the same