Chuck the Writer Repairs his Grandmother’s Photograph

It was a bittersweet day yesterday. My wife and I, along with my daughter Cassaundra (who had just come in to Albany the night before from Seattle) drove up to Boston to meet with my Aunt Elaine, for the specific purpose of visiting my grandmother's resting place.

My grandmother lived a solid, long life, but she passed away in March of this year. Without a doubt, she was one of the only older relatives I had that ever cared about me or supported me. So when she finally entered eternal peace after a long illness, I was devastated. I drove up immediately for the funeral, but there wasn't enough time to make arrangements for my wife and daughter to join me.

Eventually everything was taken care of, and we all drove off to Melrose, Mass. for a special remembrance. Elaine, who owns an antiques shop in New Hampshire, drove down to join us.

After our private ceremony, Elaine gave us some photographs of my grandmother, including a great one of her from the 1930's, just before she got married.

Unfortunately, the photo is marred by what looks like a red stained square. So what do I have to do to fix this up?

I scanned the photograph into my computer, and used my Corel PhotoPaint 9 to split the image into three separate color pictures (red green and blue) and then deleted the green and blue filters. I readjusted the color of the remaining filter to black and white… and got this:

Which I think looks much better. In a day or so I'll try to "clone out" the crease running down the middle of the photograph.

My grandmother was a good woman. It's nice to have a photograph of her like this, to always remember her by.