Is this cheaper than a studio?

Per photograph, enormously — but that is a fact about volume rather than about craft. A studio is one skilled person's afternoon, and the two figures are not measuring the same thing at all.

Can somebody look at mine personally?

Not as a service we sell. If a mend comes back wrong, write in: a person reads every reply and can run it again with firmer instructions. That is putting something right, not retouching to order.

That is frequently the sensible answer. Put the tin through here and send the single print that deserves a craftsman to somebody who does that work.

Photo restoration services compared

There are three ways to get a damaged photograph mended in this country, and they are priced so far apart that the decision usually comes down to how many photographs you have.

A conservation studio works on the object. A freelance retoucher works on your file, by hand and by the hour. A service of this sort mends your file at a pack price, in minutes, without hands.

What follows is which of the three suits which situation — including the ones where the answer is somebody other than us.

Side by side

Three ways to have a damaged photograph mended
	Studio or retoucher	MemoryMend
What gets worked on	The print itself, or your scan, worked on by hand	Your file, from the scan you upload
How long it takes	A fortnight is common, longer at Christmas	Minutes for one, half an hour or so for fifty
How it is priced	By the hour, or per print, often with a minimum	By the pack, paid once
Suits	The one print that matters more than the others	The tin under the stairs
Does the original travel	Often, and by post both ways	No. Nothing physical goes anywhere
Can you see it beforehand	Seldom, and usually after a quotation	Yes — one photograph mended free, no card

Studios you post to

The established trade, and for an object of genuine value there is nothing else. Somebody skilled works on your photograph and it comes back mended, either as a print or as a file.

Two costs, and only one of them is on the invoice. The other is the fortnight your only copy spends in the post, twice, insured for a sum that would not replace it.

Freelance retouchers

One person, your scan, an hourly rate. This is the right call for a difficult single photograph that wants judgement — a family group where three faces each need something different, damage that has to be read before it can be mended.

It scales exactly as badly as arithmetic suggests. Fifty prints is fifty times the hours, and the good retouchers have a waiting list.

Pack-priced mending, which is what this is

One photograph in, one mended photograph out, many at a time, priced by the pack rather than by the hour. That is what puts a whole tin within reach, and it is the only reason this exists at all.

What you forgo is a pair of eyes on each print. The instructions are tuned with care and checked against real damaged scans whenever they change, but nobody is sitting there deciding what your grandmother's coat ought to look like.

Where a person is plainly the better answer

Anything that must be interpreted rather than mended. Where the damage has taken something a human would recognise as important, somebody has to decide what belongs there, and deciding is precisely what we do not do.
Anything that needs the object treated: flaking, mould in the emulsion, a print welded to its frame glass. All of it bench work, none of it possible from a file.
Anything where you want to speak to whoever is doing the work. That is a real requirement, and it is worth the fee.

Which to choose

One photograph, and it is the photograph: a studio or a retoucher, and the money is well placed.
A tin, an album, or a drawer nobody has opened since the funeral: a pack, because the realistic alternative is leaving it exactly where it is.
Not sure which you have on your hands: mend one here free first, and you will know within minutes.

Questions

Is this cheaper than a studio?: Per photograph, enormously — but that is a fact about volume rather than about craft. A studio is one skilled person's afternoon, and the two figures are not measuring the same thing at all.
Can somebody look at mine personally?: Not as a service we sell. If a mend comes back wrong, write in: a person reads every reply and can run it again with firmer instructions. That is putting something right, not retouching to order.
Could I use both?: That is frequently the sensible answer. Put the tin through here and send the single print that deserves a craftsman to somebody who does that work.

The cheapest way to decide

Have one photograph mended here for nothing and set it beside whatever else you were weighing up. No card, and a few minutes of your evening.

Mend one photograph, free

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