I need to hire a professional to digitally restore and colorize a 1871 Carte de Visite portrait of a Japanese man who is dressed in traditional layered Japanese clothing that includes a sword hilt, sash, cording, etc.. He also has a traditional hair style with his hair drawn back into a knot on the top. I need a restorer that is familiar with such period clothing and its coloring.
I also wish to enlarge the roughly 2 1/2" x 4" image as much as possible. I am not sure if my Epson V600 is up to the task as compared to a pro scanner that might be used by a professional such as a heidelberg topaz. The V600 is rates at 6,400 by the manufacturer; however 3rd party testing indicated its real optical output is around 1,500. On the other hand I am not sure is such a pro scanner will be able to extract a better scan for the given photo paper stock. Before any cropping a image scanned at 6,400 represents slightly over a 2GB tiff file so the restorer needs a reasonable good computer. I use CS3 and CS6 PS on a Mac Pro with 48GB of RAM, but my skills are not up to this task.
I'd prefer a restorer located in the U.S.A. so they are under U.S. law if they for some reason choose to misuse the image - i.e., all services must be conducted under a nondisclosure agreement.
This strictly has to be a work-for-hire job whereas I obtain all rights to the derivative works created by the restorer. Some site's TOS actually state that you give away such rights, giving the restorer the right to do whatever they want with the resulting work you are paying them for.
A lot of the colorization work I have seen online looks a lot like the first Turner movies to be colorized and that is not what I looking at as I could already do that myself.
Any suggestions?
