Photo Restoration from Mount Lassen Family Vacation

Last June we scheduled a family vacation / celebration for my wife Joan, to celebrate her 70th birthday.  We booked a rental cabin in the Mount Lassen Park area months in advance with deposits and everything - and we were told by the people renting that they would contact us for the final payment a week before.  Well they didn't, and I emailed and I called and I sent text messages and heard nothing (later found out that were stuck in Nicaragua, sick in a hospital - they made it fine and contacted me when they landed in the US and got the messages).  So the day before our trip I got on the web and finally found someone who had a cabin we could rent (daughter and son-in-law flying from Florida, vacations ... schedules and such we just had to make this happen) - and they were super sweet and the place was fantastic (and even dog friendly, we had scheduled to bring our dogs)  ... Info Here

And yes, Joan had a fantastic birthday vacation, but on to the restoration story ... There are family photos all over the house, all are in great condition except for one unique 11x14 photo hanging in the master bedroom.  I kept looking at it thinking, gee, if I was home I could fix that color, and having just enough vacation time on my hands I called the owner and asked if I could take it off the wall and copy the photo to see what I could get out of it.  I grabbed a couple of chairs and a board and made this home mode copy stand ...

Well, it was not as easy as I thought it would be ... vacation endorphin's have struck again but it was a challenge and fun, and I wanted to do something to say thank you for making the vacation thing all work (they rushed getting the cabin ready for us so that we could actually do this) :)

Here is the original, just darkened so as to exaggerate and not lose any of the detail in the faded light areas ...

And here is the finished photo ,,,

Yeah, I posted this in April of the following year ... it has been a busy year and holiday season.  This restoration story / trip has been on the top ... of the back of my mind ... and I wanted to share it, so please forgive - I am trying to catch up :)

~Roger