My photographs dried stuck together. Can they be saved?

Sometimes, and it is worth trying before you scan. Soaking the block in cool water often lets prints separate on their own. Whatever comes off intact, we can work on.

The colors have gone pink. Is that the water?

Partly. Damp accelerates the dye fade that color prints have anyway, so a soaked print is usually both stained and shifted. Both are repaired in one pass — you do not need to send it twice.

The print is rippled and will not lie flat.

Scan it as it is, with the lid resting rather than pressing. The ripple shadows come out in the repair, and forcing a cockled print flat is how it cracks.

Repair a water-damaged photograph

Water leaves three marks and they need different work. There is the tide line where the wet edge dried, the bloom in the middle where the dyes moved, and the brown or violet stain that arrives months later as the paper itself goes off.

There is also cockling — the ripple a soaked print dries into. A scan of a cockled photograph carries the shadows of those ripples, and those shadows are damage, not shape.

This is the commonest thing in a flooded basement box, and it is also the one that responds best.

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 street scene with a domed building and trams, a pale stained band down the left edge — A pale band of staining down the left edge of a black-and-white street view. It lifts, and the wall and pavement that come back along that edge are the repair's own.

The same street with the staining gone, the left edge filled with wall and figures the repair supplied — A pale band of staining down the left edge of a black-and-white street view. It lifts, and the wall and pavement that come back along that edge are the repair's own.

What comes back

Tide lines, including the faint outer halo where a stain fades into clean paper, which is the part that usually survives a free tool.
Blooms and rings in the middle of a print, and the uneven density they leave behind.
The brown and violet staining of paper that stayed damp, and the flat gray of a print that dried slowly.
The shadows cast by cockling, so a rippled print reads flat again.

What does not come back

Emulsion that washed away. Where the picture layer is gone down to the paper base there is nothing underneath, and the repair fills the area from what borders it — dependable over water, sky and snow, and a guess over anything else.
Two prints that dried face to face and tore each other apart when separated. What is now on the back of the other print is not recovered; its shape is filled in.
Mold that arrived after the water. That is a different repair, and it has its own page.

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

Three of these, repaired

A black-and-white photograph of men and machinery at a timber bridge, the emulsion blistered along the top and bottom edges — Blistered emulsion along the top and bottom of a black-and-white plate. The blistering is gone and the sky and roadway run continuously through where it sat.

The same scene with the blistering removed and the sky and roadway continuous — Blistered emulsion along the top and bottom of a black-and-white plate. The blistering is gone and the sky and roadway run continuously through where it sat.

A photograph of snow and apartment buildings, blotched all over with yellow-brown damp stains — Damp blooms all over the snow and the sky, lifted off. Everything the stains covered was still under them, which is why this one comes back whole and honest.

The same photograph with the stains lifted and the snow and sky running clean through where they were — Damp blooms all over the snow and the sky, lifted off. Everything the stains covered was still under them, which is why this one comes back whole and honest.

If it is still wet

Do not stack wet prints and do not put them in a warm place to dry quickly. Lay them face up on a dry towel, singly, at room temperature, and keep them out of direct sun. Prints stuck together go in cool water rather than being pulled apart dry. Then scan, and the guide below covers the rest.

How to handle a brittle photograph

Questions about this kind of damage

My photographs dried stuck together. Can they be saved?: Sometimes, and it is worth trying before you scan. Soaking the block in cool water often lets prints separate on their own. Whatever comes off intact, we can work on.
The colors have gone pink. Is that the water?: Partly. Damp accelerates the dye fade that color prints have anyway, so a soaked print is usually both stained and shifted. Both are repaired in one pass — you do not need to send it twice.
The print is rippled and will not lie flat.: Scan it as it is, with the lid resting rather than pressing. The ripple shadows come out in the repair, and forcing a cockled print flat is how it cracks.

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