who fixes bad digital pix? please help

[lisa_c5]

Hi I'm a recent bride, and my film photographer's camera was broken

on the big day (something with the mirror- so all the 23 rolls of

film have the middle 1/2-2/3 of solid black... obviously ruined and

unfixable).

 

I've gathered digital pictures from many of my guests- but most of

them are awful - bad lighting, very blurry (my brother says b/c the

low lighting caused the "shutter" time to be longer and made

everything blurry), shots from far away with people's heads flanking

the now-not-so-happy couple. The most frequent problem seems to be

too dark or very blurry.

 

Are these fixable problems? How do I find someone who does this?

 

I searched for photo restorers and most seem to deal with restoring

paper photos that look much nicer than the ones I have.

 

Please help.

-a sad bride

[phoneguy]

How many do you have? I'm sure there are tons of people that would be happy to charge an arm & a leg to fix them. I'd be willing to take a crack at a few of them and see if they are salvageable. If you want to send me a few pictures, I'll play with them. Mike.

 

mikef at photo.net

[alejandro_fresno]

You may send me also a few of them, I 'll try my best to fix them.

[bdp]

They may or may not be fixable, but like the others, if you want to drop me a few, I'll take a go at them.

[trodd]

Sorry Lisa about your misfortune. Thats why most of us Carry back-ups. If you wish I will process a few also if you want to email them to me.

 

travisrodd at gmail dot com

[joao_dullius___porto_alegr]

"Travis Rodd - Upstate, SC , apr 17, 2006; 04:02 p.m.

Sorry Lisa about your misfortune. Thats why most of us Carry back-ups"

 

Back-ups would not have resolved since it was film and the photog only discovered the mirror locked after processing the photos...

[jc5066]

Honestly, probably not. One of us may be able to do a little, but chances are they're not going to be acceptable.

 

On a side note, I hope you have recieved a 100% refund, including any retainer fee.

 

Feel free to email me a couple and I can see what I can do.

[steve_levine]

This is why we carry back-ups, and use them. We make it a point to shoot a 2nd set of the "formal posed pictures", with a 2nd camera at every wedding.

[KenPapai]

What Steve just said; hard to believe someone shot the entire wedding on just one camera with 23 rolls of film. In fact it sounds almost "criminal" in the sense of not knowing your equipment at all and shooting all with one film camera (esp. in these modern times when backup film SLRs are very cheap and are a 2nd or 3rd camera). I am very irritated and feel for L.C.

[laurenm]

Good point Steve. I have been debating whether or not to shoot with alternating cameras at an upcoming wedding sine I will not have a second shooter. Though one is digital, I guess things can go wrong there too. So, you've just helped make my decision.

 

Sorry Lisa

[derrick_morin___fallon__ne]

Count me in, Lisa. I'd be willing to try a few as well.

[austinphoto]

greatlab.com. Give me a call. We may be able to help you. Your problem seems to be that the camera was out of synch.

[agaimages]

All of the photographers are so nice here. Always offering help, you should take an advantage of this Lisa! People here are very talented (did I mention nice and helpful?), everyone is willing to take few to see what they can do. If you send each one that offered help different sets of few best picks, you might come out with a mix of some very creative work.

You can, of course count me in on that. AguchaM@yahoo.com

[cariad]

Hi Lisa,

That is so sad..........but I will take a shot at a few too and do my best to help out. E-mail me and we can see how you can get them to me.

[KenPapai]

This reminds me of a conference I was at last year. The pro they hired to cover the 3-day event was the same guy I recognized the previous year.

 

Anyway he shot away and couldn't make the closing ceremonies so the event contract with me. I got the shots, was proud of my work and so was the customer.

 

However, when I got home to see the pro's work I was more than appalled. Extremely bad white balance. No knowledge of dragging the shutter or using a fast lens in low light rooms. I kept it to myself until today. Maybe the paying customer can be too easy to fool?

 

Once again I hope you recover from this disaster Lisa and that the rookie mistake by your photog is not something that should have happened (to you).

[merle_white]

Dear Lisa,

 

I am suspicious about the photographers claim that there was a problem with the cameras mirror and it happend in the middle of the job.

 

It sounds to me as if someone had the camera set on the wrong flash sync and noticed the mistake later in the shoot.

[heathercantwell]

I am a wedding photographer in Los Angeles. I also do photo restoration and can salvage lots of images. I can send you some sampels if you like. you can email me at info@heathercantwell.com. I can show you some examples of my work if you email me. I won't try and rip you off with expensive pricing. I feel really bad about what happened to you and would like to help.

 

Good luck!

[larry schaefer - chicago,]

Lisa

 

Amazingly and under such catasrophic circumstances you come off with a deneanor full of great patience and repose. I am no position to help as I have yet to achieve adequate experience in retouching much less shooting a full scale wedding.

 

It will be to your advantage to let those offering give you an assist on this. Pay it forward by letting everyone you know that there is no substitte for a reputable proffesional photographer.

 

I hope you have adequate results.

[larry schaefer - chicago,]

Isn't the viewinder a tad dark if the mirror is locked up?

[phoneguy]

Larry...LMAO...That's great. He was obviously a first rate "pro"

[kari douma]

Lisa, Can you restage some of the photos? I know you couldn't restage all of them, but wouldn't it be worth it to you to have your hair redone, put back on the dress, rerent the tux, and remake just your bouquet and grooms corsage? I bet you could redo a lot of the bride and groom images. Maybe even the brides and bridesmaids would be willing to pitch in and get dressed up again. If you were my friend, I would! I think it is worth a try, just to get SOME images. I know you can't do all the flowers, or the ceremony, or the reception. But, maybe you could restage as many as you could.

[kiva]

Lisa ...

 

So sorry to hear of your misfortune.

 

Send me 20 of your photos and I'll do some photoArt versions of them for you and the groom.

 

wmorgan at columbus.rr dot com

[ellery_chua___singapore]

Lisa

 

Sorry to hear about the bad news. From what you say some of them could be salavageable, some not. Why not pick out the ones that you like the most ? You could emmail off some to me, to see what I can do for you. Grin aside from the different looks - you could in theory get a good selection done by several of us. I also would suggest that if your photog has not offered some form of discount or compensation, provided this was a paid photog and not a friend doing a favour, to talk to him about this. Ask if he will try to salavage the shots from the digital camera pics - this is the part where as a professional it gets painful.

 

 

As a form of professional courtsy I would not say anothing about the "mirror failure" reason. It is however a little dangerous to work without a backup.

[chris m., central florida]

Sorry this happened to you.

 

First, read your contract. Find out what your options are. Does your photographer's contract limit their liability in case of equipment failure? Was it truly equipment failure? If you wanted to seriously pursue this, ask for a repair receipt detailing the cause of the failure and what was repaired. They have no obligation to give it to you, though, but the photographer should get very worried about your future steps, and rightfully so.

 

Second, if you hired a professional photographer (i.e., they charged you anything), the photographer should be the one footing the bill for any image repair attempts. Period.

 

Third, the photographer should undoubtedly refund their entire fee, because the images with that large of a black segment in them will more than likely look very substandard even if they can be repaired.

 

I used to shoot film extensively, and the only thing I can think of that would cause this is an improper sync setting OR a mechanical failure of the film winding mechanism to properly position the film (rare, especially on so many rolls).

 

I don't want to dissapoint you without seeing the pictures, but I doubt that much image area can be restored. And to send images to photographers here on photo.net, you will need to have high resolution scans completed on the negatives, and that can be costly. If I were you, I'd try to keep the image restoration in the hands of one or two qualified people. Again, the photographer should pay for this if at all possible.

 

If you can get a refund of the fees, try to get a killer reshoot done by a competent professional. Go somewhere with your husband, somewhere really nice, and get those wall portraits and reassemble the wedding party and family if you can.

[chris m., central florida]

I apologize, I thought you were asking how to fix the film oictures, Duh.

 

Some of your relative's digital images are usable for sure. Much can be done with them depending on the image file. Again, if I were you, I'd try to keep the attempted image adjustments in the hands of one or two people.

 

Keep the original files in one folder, just in case someone does something that's not to your liking. That way you'll have the source file to fall back on.