[pure-silver] Re: Restoring faded prints
----- Original Message ----- From: "Nicholas O. Lindan" <nolindan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
To: <pure-silver@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, March 27, 2008 2:44 PM
Subject: [pure-silver] Restoring faded prints



The idea that faded prints are not recoverable has always
annoyed me.
The silver is still the in paper. It may have combined with other less savory elements, but it is still there. The image 
has not gone away.
If one can't recover the image chemically then it should be 
possible by other means.  There must be an absorbance band
in the UV or IR (or even in the visible) spectrum. I would think it is possible to scan it with a laser or photograph it with a narrow band filter (narrow being 1 or 2 nanometers) and get the image data back. I am sure Raman imaging could recover it but that is not (yet) practical. 

A blue or green filter is traditional for photographing
stained prints for restoration as it recovers density
in the yellow-brown stained silver.

In today's digital post-modern age the original no longer
has cachet and an improved copy should be considered just as good. Though 'improvement' is often anything 
but.

==
Nicholas O. Lindan
Cleveland Engineering Design, LLC
Cleveland, Ohio 44121
There is a chemical method which was published in one of the Kodak books but I am frustrated at not being able to remember which at the moment. The method was not republished because the images were found not to be permanent. However, the method would be useful in bringing back stained or faded images for long enough to scan them. I will cudgel my brain about this because I never actually forget anything but sometimes my disc access time gets very long. 

---
Richard Knoppow
Los Angeles, CA, USA
dickburk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
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