Can water-damaged photos be restored?

Wet photographs soften, stick to each other and grow mould. The aim is simple: get them dry, or frozen, before that happens.

1. If the water was dirty (a flood or a burst pipe), wear nitrile gloves.
2. Handle each photo by its edges. The softened image layer scratches and lifts at a touch.
3. Lay the photos out in a single layer, image side up, on clean paper towels or towels.
4. Keep the air moving with a fan, but don't point it straight at the photos.
5. Don't stack them, press them or wipe the surface while they are wet.
6. If you can't dry everything within about two days, put the wet photos in sealed plastic bags with sheets of wax or baking paper between them and freeze them. Thaw and air-dry them later, a few at a time.

Tip: No hairdryer, radiator, oven or direct sun. Heat dries the surface unevenly, curls the print and can make the image layer stick or crack.

Don't pull them apart. When the image layer is soft or has dried onto the next print, pulling tears the picture off one of them.

If they are still wet, keep them wet and lay them flat — some separate on their own as they are handled gently. If they have already dried together, leave them as they are. A photograph conservator can often separate them; trying at home usually destroys at least one.

This is common with framed photos after a leak or years of damp. Don't try to peel the photo off the glass.

• Take the photo out of the frame together with the glass, without separating them.
• Photograph or scan it through the glass. A digital copy made this way is usually good enough to restore, print and share.
• If the original matters, ask a conservator before you try anything else.

On the print itself, water stains, tide lines and warping mostly stay. On a digital copy, they can be fixed:

• Water stains and tide lines can be cleaned out.
• A yellow or magenta color cast can be rebalanced.
• Small areas where the image washed off can be rebuilt from the surrounding detail.
• Faded contrast can be recovered so faces read again.

Detail that the water removed completely cannot be recovered — it can only be reconstructed. AI restoration does that convincingly on backgrounds and clothes; on faces, compare the result with the original and keep both.

With CreaseFix you take a phone photo of the dry print, choose Restore (or Restore & colorize) and compare the result with a before-and-after slider.

Start with the photos you have no other copy of, then the ones in the worst state. Prints from home inkjet printers can bleed quickly in water, and very old prints are the most fragile — dry or freeze them first. Prints you also have as digital files can wait.