Is foxing the same as mold?

Not exactly, and it does not matter for the repair. Foxing is the rust-colored spotting associated with damp paper and its metal impurities; mold is the living growth. They come off the scan the same way.

Can I clean it before scanning?

A soft brush at the edges, and nothing more. Anything wet, anything abrasive, and any household cleaner will cost you surface you cannot get back. Send it as it is.

Should I throw the moldy ones away?

No. Scan them, keep the scan, and then decide about the print with a clear head. The photograph and the piece of paper it is on are two different things once the scan exists.

Repair a moldy photograph

Mold on a photograph shows up as a fine speckle, a fibrous bloom across the surface, or the small rust-colored spots called foxing. All three come from the same cause: the print spent time somewhere damp and still.

It is also the damage most likely to be spreading. A moldy photograph in a box of dry ones is a problem for the whole box, which is worth knowing before you put the lid back on.

The cleaning has to leave the grain. A repair that removes the spots by softening the surface has traded a speckled photograph for a plastic one, and it will be obvious at full size.

Repair one photograph, free What a pack costs

What fills a gap in a damaged photograph is our best guess, not what was there.

A black-and-white photograph of a timber storehouse and two women, with black branching mold across the roof and the foreground — Mold grown in black branching mats over the roof and the foreground. They lift off, and the stone wall standing where the larger one was is the repair's guess.

The same scene cleaned, a stone wall filling where the mold had covered the ground — Mold grown in black branching mats over the roof and the foreground. They lift off, and the stone wall standing where the larger one was is the repair's guess.

What comes back

Speckling and bloom across skin, sky and plain background, including the small faint spots that read as dirt on a screen.
Rust-colored foxing, and the halo of discolored paper around each spot.
The even tone underneath, carried through where the spots were rather than smoothed over.
The grayish veil a mold bloom leaves across a whole print.

What does not come back

Emulsion the mold has eaten through. The loss is real and the repair fills it anyway: where a pit sat over a face, what arrives is a face, and it is not the one that was eaten.
Stopping it spreading in the drawer. The repair is of the scan; the print needs different treatment, and the guide below says what.
Blurring our way out of it. If the spots cannot come off without taking the grain with them, we would rather leave a trace than hand back a smooth photograph.

What fills a gap in a damaged photograph is our best guess, not what was there.

Three of these, repaired

A black-and-white street view of tall buildings with a dark mold bloom across the sky — A dark bloom across the sky and a crumbling left edge. The sky runs clean again, and the building filling that edge was put there by the repair.

The same street with the sky clear and a building filling the edge that had crumbled away — A dark bloom across the sky and a crumbling left edge. The sky runs clean again, and the building filling that edge was put there by the repair.

A moldy photograph of men in overcoats, with a black hole eaten through where one man's head was — The mold had eaten a hole through one man's head. The repair gave him a new one, in a fur hat, facing the right way. Everything about it is plausible and none of it is him.

The same photograph cleaned, the hole filled with a head in a fur hat that the repair supplied — The mold had eaten a hole through one man's head. The repair gave him a new one, in a fur hat, facing the right way. Everything about it is plausible and none of it is him.

Do not wipe it

Wiping a moldy print grinds the spores into the emulsion and takes the surface with them. Get the photograph dry and cool, keep it away from the others until it is, and handle it by the edges. Scanning a moldy print puts spores on the platen, so wipe the glass afterwards. The guide below covers the physical handling.

How to handle a brittle photograph

Questions about this kind of damage

Is foxing the same as mold?: Not exactly, and it does not matter for the repair. Foxing is the rust-colored spotting associated with damp paper and its metal impurities; mold is the living growth. They come off the scan the same way.
Can I clean it before scanning?: A soft brush at the edges, and nothing more. Anything wet, anything abrasive, and any household cleaner will cost you surface you cannot get back. Send it as it is.
Should I throw the moldy ones away?: No. Scan them, keep the scan, and then decide about the print with a clear head. The photograph and the piece of paper it is on are two different things once the scan exists.

Try it on yours

One photograph, repaired, free, with no card. Send this exact kind of damage and see what comes back before you spend anything.

Repair one photograph, free

If it doesn't look like the person you remember, you don't pay.

Other kinds of damage