Beautifully restored, hand-tinted photos
Todhunter's New Project
Photo
Restoration
Linda Todhunter, the woman responsible for the crisp and clean restoration of the 1884 Bird's Eye View of Key West map, is also accomplished at photo restoration. Spurned some years ago by her father's request to restore a collection of old family photographs, Linda taught herself the ins-and-outs of Photoshop - after months of trial-and-error effort with a steep learning curve, she conquered the necessary techniques.
When the 1965 property appraiser photos were donated to the library, Todhunter was one of the first to work with them, handling both scanning and cataloguing. She chose a few images to restore first, based purely on the subject matter's inherent charm - including neighborhood stores, homes, streetscapes and the old waterfront. Having been a lifetime fan of hand-tinted photos, Linda decided to apply that technique as well - and her interest is genetic, having learned only recently that her grandmother once worked as a tinting artist in a photography studio.
Restoring each photo took at least a week. Linda adjusted levels to even out the dark areas, the faded or overexposed areas and the sun flares. She sharpened each image without distorting the details. Often, line by line, she had to clean up decorative gingerbread and window frames. She took the opportunity to remove an abundance of power lines and the occasional telephone pole. And there was often a big inked "X" to dispose of as well, as in the 1965 picture of the Overseas Hotel at 917 Eaton Street ("X"s were applied when a building was later destroyed or torn down.) The '65 photo shows a fading old dowager of a building, with a gentleman relaxing on her porch and an "open" sign in the restaurant window. But so much of what there is to see is lost to damage - both chemical and human. Restored, the hotel regains both its loveliness and pride
