I started doing restorations after my Grandma passed away and I wanted copies of some of the old black and white pictures of her and my Grandpa. Once I realized that I was able to fix them myself, I began to practice on other pictures, and soon people began asking me to fix their old photos. These are some examples of my work, before and after shots, of images people have asked me to work on.
Most of the pictures I found of my grandma were 3x4 inches and glued onto a piece of black paper. I left them intact, but scanned each one and created it's own image, restored and enlarged them. The image of my grandparents together was actually about 1x2 inches originally and badly faded. I'm definitely pleased with the result!
This is actually the restoration that I'm most proud of. A woman asked if I could take out her grandfather's army buddies and leave him. I honestly didn't think I could do it, and I told her as much, but I was willing to try. After rebuilding the background, I was pleased with the final result.
This was one of my first restoration jobs. A woman had taken a trip to DC and snapped this photo through glass. She wanted me to fix it so that it looked like she'd taken a real picture of Bush and his wife. I agreed to do it because I saw it as a challenge, not because I'm a fan of Bush. I also would like to still have the original file because I think that now that I've had more experience, I could have done a better job with the restoration. However, for a first try, I think I did fairly well.