Photo Restoration, Custom Books & Photo Archiving

Q. Describe the most common types of jobs you do for your clients.

A. Restoring a couple of images. That will often lead to a book.

Q. What advice do you have for a customer looking to hire a provider like you?

A. Start with a couple of images, not everything at once. Ask questions, and keep taking care of one thing at a time. In no time you will be organized and thrilled to know you have everything in order.

Q. If you were a customer, what do you wish you knew about your trade? Any inside secrets to share?

A. How to get started as it seems so hard to take the shoe boxes full of photos of family and friends and make it something to access at will.

Q. Why does your work stand out from others who do what you do?

A. Unique and personalized service. We can walk you through how to save your photos, archive them and restore them. We can create custom books to share with friends and family.

Q. What do you like most about your job?

A. I love working with people to create lasting memories to share.

Q. What questions do customers most commonly ask you? What's your answer?

A. How do you do that??? My answer is take the time to put myself in their shoes, ask questions and find the hidden treasures in a photo or book request.

Q. Do you have a favorite story from your work?

A. I was working with a client who had a picture of someone she knew while stationed in the Philippines during WWII. It was the father of a man she had been dating. This man had had a profound influence in her life and this was the only photo she had of him. Once I restored the image, she had so many memories come flooding back, she decided to create a book of her time in the South Pacific after the war. Fascinating!

Q. What do you wish customers knew about you or your profession?

A. That now is the time. Memories, like the photos themselves do fade away. Now is when to capture the moments to bridge the past with the future.

Q. How did you decide to get in your line of work?

A. My childhood photos disappeared when my mother passed away. That was something I wanted to help others to avoid. Also, I LOVE working on photos and creating books...its not work, its a passion.

Q. Tell us about a recent job you did that you are particularly proud of.

A. I am in the process of restoring images for a couple who will be celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary. Its a beautiful thing. The book will be amazing.

Q. Do you do any sort of continuing education to stay up on the latest developments in your field?

A. I am always reading, trying new techniques. I look for archivists in historic fields to see what they recommend.

Q. Describe your most recent project, what it involved, how much it cost, and how long it took.

A. The most recent is the wedding anniversary book. It has grown over the couple of weeks that I started it. The customers have been so thrilled what started out as a few pictures turned into 50+ and book. The whole project will end up taking around 6 weeks to create the custom book along with the restored images and cost around $800 which includes all the images on a CD, the 12" x 12" coffee style hardbound book and a book to commemorate the event.

Q. If you have a complicated pricing system for your service, please give all the details here.

A. The pricing will depend on the shape of the images to be restore, the timing and what the overall scope of the project will be. To be accurate in pricing I will need to physically see the photo or a scan first.

Q. If you were advising someone who wanted to get into your profession, what would you suggest?

A. Take lots of time to explore the various ways to use programs like Photoshop to enhance your image. And invest in a good scanner and printer.