Restoring a damaged photo: what fills in, and what stays broken
Physical damage to a print, a tear, a crease, a web of cracks in the emulsion, a corner that is simply gone, looks worse than fading but is often easier to deal with. The picture on either side of the damage is usually still there, and a lot of repair is filling a narrow gap from what surrounds it.
The question that decides everything is where the damage runs. Across a wall, a sky or a coat, it is a fill. Across a face, it is a reconstruction, and that is a different kind of decision.
Before any software: flatten, piece together, copy
Do not tape a tear on the front of a print, and do not use household glue on the back. Both do more harm over time than the tear itself. If a print is in pieces, lay the pieces on a dark, plain surface and push them together so the edges meet.
Copy it like that, flat, in soft daylight, with the phone held straight above. For a curled or creased print, a sheet of clean glass laid over it holds it flat for the photo, as long as you angle the light so the glass does not reflect into the lens.
Creases, cracks and tears across the background
Clara has a Remove tool, built for erasing people and objects. It does not know the difference between a person and a crease: anything you paint over, it replaces with what surrounds it. That makes it usable on a crease line across a plain background, a tear through grass, or a crack across a painted wall.
- Enhance the photo first (Render on the web), so the fill is built from the sharpened picture.
- Open Remove and paint along the crease or tear with a brush only slightly wider than the line.
- Work in short sections. A long crease across the whole frame comes out cleaner in a few passes than in one.
- Zoom in and check each pass against the original before painting the next one.
Missing corners and chunks
A corner torn off a print takes the image with it. Painting over the gap with Remove fills it with something believable, continuing the backdrop, the floor, the edge of a dress. That is invention, and for a corner of background it is usually the right call, because nobody looks at the corner.
The other honest option is cropping. A slightly tighter photo with nothing invented in it is often better than a full-frame one with a fabricated quarter.
When the damage runs through a face
Do not paint a face with Remove. It will fill the gap with something face-shaped, which is not the same as that face. For a tear through an eye or a mouth, the better route is a human retoucher who can work from another photograph of the same person. The photo restoration services guide covers when a person is worth it.
Damage near a face, rather than through it, is fine to fill. Stop the brush a little short of the face and check the edge closely.
More guides
Questions
Can Clara remove scratches automatically?
No. Clara has no automatic scratch removal. The Remove brush fills whatever you paint over from its surroundings, so you can paint out a crease or a scratch across a plain background by hand, one area at a time.
Should I repair the physical print first?
Only if a conservator does it. Copy the damaged print as it is, store it flat in an acid-free sleeve, and do all the repair on the copy. The preservation guide covers storage.
Is a torn photo worth restoring at all?
Usually, if the tear runs through the background. If it runs through the face of the person the photo is about, you are choosing between a reconstruction and a person who can work from another picture of them.