Turning old postcard into a nice blown up photo

maryishairy

Hi

Apologies in advance if similar questions to this have been asked on this forum already.

I discovered by pure accident (in a shop) earlier in the year a St. Patrick's day postcard of my deceased grandfather who is pictured coming home from the bog with a horse and cart full of turf. He is walking alongside the horse with the reins in his hands.

It's a nice postcard but the quality of the picture is quite poor as it is taken from a good distance away and the majority of the postcard is filled with the landscape in the background.

Do you think it is possible to get the postcard turned into a nice photograph (cutting out alot of the background landscape) ,or when you get a poor quality picture blown up, does that reduce the quality further?
I would love to get this done for my own father for Christmas.

Would photo centres or digital photography companies be able to do this? How much would it cost? (I'm in the Cork/ Kerry area)

Many thanks in advance.
Maryishairy

pixbyjohn

Take a photo of the postcard with a digital camera

PCPhoto

firstly - have you tried to contact the photographer - or the postcard company to put you in contact with the photographer.....he/she might have the negative/digital file so a proper crop is done.

in failing that its unlikely that you will get a satisfactory image from a postcard (a photo of a postcard)

technically - you could try get a macro lens and photograph the section you want - but this opens a whole load of problems/issues.....all you will be doing in essence is enlarging an out of focus part - so you'll have a larger print of an out of focus part of an image.

Try find the original photographer.

Sleepy

Is it one of the John Hinde postcards?

Details to contact those who own the copyright here: http://www.johnhindecollection.com/contact.html

maryishairy

Sleepy wrote: »

Is it one of the John Hinde postcards?

Details to contact those who own the copyright here: http://www.johnhindecollection.com/contact.html

It's actually a 'hallmark' card as opposed to a postcard. Sorry for the confusion. Should I try contact Hallmark?

What about scanning it?

Though I'd still try to contact the photographer/hallmark anyway, just to see what happens.

Sleepy

The copyright people for Hallmark can be contacted here:

http://hallmark.custhelp.com/app/ask/kw/copyright/r_id/102536/sno/2

Most likely they licensed the image but someone may be able to put you in contact with whoever took the photo. Might be cutting it a bit close for Christmas but maybe you can arrange it for a birthday or something...

BrendanRyan

Scanning the postcard would defo be the better option, but if it's on a postcard it's quiet possible already available in poster format, cutting out most of the landscape is probably a no no if you want a decent quality images. It could be from the lawerence collection, although saying that could well be not!

Scanning will work but you won't be able to enlarge too much, 100% would be pushing it.

If you have a camera phone or that snap it and post here, you'd never know someone might know the source.

Deliverance XXV

If you are scanning (which I recommend too) make sure and look in the settings of the scanner and throw the option for DPI up to its highest or at least 300DPI (Dependant on the model).
That will give you a lot of flexibility when enlarging or editing the photo.

maryishairy

BrendanRyan wrote: »

If you have a camera phone or that snap it and post here, you'd never know someone might know the source.

Hi Brendan

Attached is a poor quality scan of the picture. Hopefully, somebody might know who the photographer might have been.
I have contacted hallmark and I am awaiting a response. Thanks.

BrendanRyan

no, sorry, i'm stumped... good luck with it. If you do resort to the scaning option generally most photo labs will do it for relativly cheap or a local photographer.