Old Photos Revisted

So here's the thing. Sometimes I have no idea what to write about.

My kids have behaved themselves enough that there is no reason to make fun of them.

I wrote about my cats yesterday so I can't use that.

So here I am writing about nothing to write about.

Is that cheating?

Sometimes I click thorough other blogs trying to get an idea. But more often than not the blog fairy who is in charge of delivering the "Next Blog" seems to enjoy sending me "This blog is in Estonian... would you like to translate?"  five times in a row. At which point I give up and go on to something else.

I guess I could post a bunch of pictures since I spent the better part of  yesterday scanning and uploading to Facebook. My girls love to see pictures of themselves when they were younger and being the proud mama that I am, I dont mind showing them off.

I took hundreds of pictures and untold hours of videos when they were young. Unfortunately I didn't have the money to buy a good camera or even decent film. I guess when you buy 35mm film at the dollar store and get it developed by a send-it-through-the-mail bargain basement developing company you cant expect great results. But at least I was using 35mm older Nikon that worked most of the time with a nice telephoto lens.  My parents (who could have afforded something really nice) used a dime store 110 instamatic that took some of the worst pictures I have ever seen.

Everybody in the picture was about an inch high and depending on how long they had had the film laying around, the tint to the picture could be anything from deep pink to light green.

I have been trying to scan some of them into my Photoshop program and fix them to the best of my abilities....but herein lies the problem.... my abilities suck! The program is amazing and can do SO many different things but it has a mile high learning curve and I keep getting worn out trying to climb it.

I made some good progress yesterday and restored some pictures that were nearly unrecognizable but it took me the better part of 4 hours because I kept having to look up the how-to's.

So I guess I will end this less than thrilling post with some fruits of my labors. Please keep in mind how bad these were when I started. Just the fact that I was able to restore them enough to remember the moment a little more clearly is a really big deal! I love the pictures of Christopher with my dad. He adored Chris more than anything and my biggest regret is that he died when Chris was only 6 so any picture of them together means the world to me.

 Here are the girls in 1991 with my grandma who was about 86  at the time. The picture looked like it had been taken through a rose tinted filter..

Boy, Em loved that hat. It was a train engineers cap that used to be Christophers before she appropriated it.
Heres another from the same day. This pic was green. And so green that the girls looked like they were peering at you from behind an algae filled fish tank.

Here's a great shot of Chris with my dad in about 1988. This was so hazy and green that you couldn't see anyones face.

Heres a group shot  from the same day as the above pic. This shot was also green but when I removed that tint, a slightly pinkish one showed up. But at least I can see everyone.
This is my mom (on the left), her sister Margaret, me, Chris and Sarah.
Chris just loved those cowboy boots, I still have them!

I have several more that I will be adding to this post so stayed tuned.
I've got a photoshop job to put together for the hubby.
Keep your fingers crossed it doesn't take me as long as the last one.


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OK, so back to post a few more repaired pix from yesteryear

Here is Chris on his 1st birthday 1986 at my parents house... the photo was so dark you couldn't see my face

Here's Chris and my dad in late 1986.. this pic cleaned up pretty well but I had to crop it down because there was more pic of the room than the people in it!

Here is me and Chris in March 1987.... about 6 weeks before Sarah was born. Again the picture was green and dark so I was happy that Chris' face came out so well.