Rescue a water-soaked photo

KC from Canada, using Photoshop Elements 2.0 with Windows 2000, writes in with:
[Quote:] I have a picture that was submerged in water and now is stuck to the glass and the glass has cracked. Any suggestions as to how to restore this photograph in photoshop? Thank you KC

Well, this is not quite an Elements (or Photoshop) problem, but experience tells us that the durability of photo finishing papers may survive re-soaking. Here are some thoughts...

First, We cannot accept responsibility for further damage to your photo, but we have seen similar situations where re-soaking the print will allow it to be released from the glass.

Be very careful, and test just a corner before submerging the entire photo

If that doesn't work, or you don't want to tackle it -- and if the cracks are still fairly tight, you can scan with cracks in place and then begin the tedious task of rebuilding the photo in Photoshop. Depending on the severity of breakage, you may have more success scanning by carefully slitting the photo along the cracks using a razor blade or x-acto knife. (Perhaps working from the back side.

Test the scanner settings to see which will produce the best image when attempting to scan through the glass.

Which ever way you decide to go, we strongly recommend getting a good digital photo of the picture before attempting any rescue. You might even want to seek out someone with a 4 or 5 megapixel camera for the best resolution.

Sorry. Without having the photo, we cannot recommend any other fixes.

Good luck.
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Comments

[Tommy Couch]

I recently had a photo from the hurricane area that had the bottom third submerge, the glass was not broke, but I set the picture in the bright hot Georgia sun and a few hours later the picture released with no damage. maybe just luck, now the problem is to replace the bad portion and remove the mold. This was an 11 x 14 photo at least 30+ plus years old. Also there was a 5 x 7 picture stuck behind the large one and it released also.