Photographs
get broken.
We are the people
who fix them
photofixly is a small restoration studio. We take the faded, the torn, the water-stained, the underexposed, the half-remembered — and we send back a photograph you can look at without flinching. No filters, no AI hallucinations, no upscaling theatre. Just patient, accountable handwork, with software where it helps.
We treat each
photograph as a
small inheritance.
Not a file. Not a ticket. A thing somebody kept, in a drawer or a shoebox, for the day someone would care enough to look at it again. That day is what we get paid for.
No invented detail.
We do not invent faces, text, tattoos, or wallpaper. Where the photograph is genuinely lost, we say so. Restoration is honesty about what survives, not a confident guess. If a section can’t be reconstructed from surrounding information, we leave it soft rather than fabricate it.
Handwork first, software second.
Every photograph is opened in Photoshop by a human restorer who works it stroke by stroke, the way a paintings conservator works on a canvas. Software removes tedium — dust, scratches, registration — but the judgements are ours, and the file is signed in the metadata by the person who did the work.
One revision, no upsell.
You see the work, you tell us what’s wrong, we fix it once for free. We don’t run tiered packages, we don’t charge extra for “premium” detail, we don’t bait with a low price and add fees for color. The quote is the quote, and it includes the conversation.
We keep your originals safe.
Scans are held on dual-located storage for ninety days after delivery, then permanently deleted unless you ask us to keep them. The original physical photograph — if you mail it — is returned in archival sleeves by tracked post, insured for the value you declare.
Drag the line.
Watch the decade
come back.
A 1962 wedding portrait, mailed to us creased in three places, the emulsion flaking along the right edge, the bride’s face half-lost to mildew. Sixty-three hours of work. Drag the handle to see what came back.
Six things,
done properly.
We don’t offer every service under the sun. We offer six, and we do them well enough to put our name on the metadata. Hover any line for the particulars.
Restoration
tears · stains · mold · silveringThe core of what we do. We repair physical damage on a high-resolution scan and return a print-ready file. We will not invent faces or fabricate clothing. Where the original is gone, we say so.
Colorization
hand-tinted · historically referencedBlack-and-white to color, researched against period clothing, architecture, and skin tones. We send you the reference sheet we worked from. You see the citations before you see the color.
Upscaling
to 16× without hallucinationSmall files made large enough to print, without the smudgy “AI detail” that invents pores and fabric textures that were never there. Honest resampling, edge-aware sharpening, no fiction.
Object removal
discreet · reversible · notedRemove the ex, the photobomber, the power line. We always send a version with the original intact and a note describing what was removed. You always have the unaltered file.
Color correction
white balance · cast · densityFor photographers with a strong file that’s off by a half-stop, or a white balance that drifted mid-shoot. Subtle, repeatable, profile-aware corrections. Not a LUT pack.
Archive digitization
box to hard drive · 600 dpiMail us a shoebox. We scan, name, date-estimate, and return a structured digital archive with one folder per year, plus a contact sheet PDF. The box comes back in archival sleeves.
From shoebox
to archive,
in four moves.
Every photograph moves through the same four stations. The time each takes varies with the damage, but the order never does.
You send. We log.
Upload a scan, or mail us the original. We log it, photograph the physical object on arrival, and send you a condition report within twelve hours — what’s damaged, what’s recoverable, what we’d recommend, and a fixed quote.
A restorer looks at it.
A human — not an algorithm — opens the file and decides what’s actually wrong with it. Mildew reads differently from a chemical stain. A crease across an eye is not the same job as a crease across a curtain. The diagnosis names the technique, and we send it to you before any work begins.
The slow part.
Handwork in Photoshop, on a calibrated display, in a dim room. We work at 400% zoom and save a layered PSD every fifteen minutes. The file is signed in the metadata by the restorer who did the work. If you want to know who fixed your grandmother’s face, we will tell you their name.
You get files, not links.
We send a TIFF and a JPEG, the layered PSD, a print-ready PDF, and a short note from the restorer explaining what was done and what was left untouched. One revision is included. After ninety days the working files are deleted unless you ask us to keep them.
Three ways to work
with the studio.
The price is the price. No tiered “AI credits”, no per-feature upsell, no surprise fees for color. The quote you receive after intake is the price you pay.
One photograph,
one job.
For the family heirloom, the lost grandparent, the wedding print that spent twenty years in a drawer.
- One restoration, full process
- 72-hour standard turnaround
- TIFF + JPEG + layered PSD
- One revision included
- Signed by the restorer
A box of prints,
properly digitized.
For the inheritance. The shoebox. The album that’s falling apart. We scan, name, restore the standouts, and return a structured archive.
- 600 dpi flatbed scanning
- One folder per year, contact sheet
- Top 10 prints restored at no extra cost
- Originals returned in archival sleeves
- Two revisions on restored prints
- 14-day turnaround
A standing
relationship.
For photographers, archives, museums, and estate executors who need a restorer on call.
- Up to 30 restorations / month
- 48-hour priority turnaround
- Dedicated restorer + direct line
- Unlimited revisions
- Quarterly condition reports
- Permanent archive storage
What the people
who sent us
their photographs
said back.
They sent back a photograph of my mother I could actually look at. The crease across her face was gone, but it was still her face — not a smoothed-over version, not an AI guess. I cried for an hour.
We mailed them a shoebox of my father’s slides from the 1970s. Three weeks later we had a hard drive with everything named and dated, plus ten prints restored. It felt like an act of public service.
I’m a working photographer. I send photofixly the file when I screw up the white balance on a wedding. They send it back without the smug tone every other service has. The price doesn’t change. The work is right.
I asked them to remove someone from a photograph. They did it, but they also sent the unaltered original with a note describing what had been removed. That single note is why I trust them with everything now.
Mail us the
shoebox.
We’ll send back
the memory.
Upload a scan or mail us the original. We log it, send you a condition report within twelve hours, and a fixed quote. No credit card, no account, no AI scanning your face for training data. If you don’t like the quote, we delete the file and return the original at our expense.