I estimate this picture was taken in 1983 due in part to the existing sensor and weapons mounts. I have a box someplace of picture that look similar to this one on the left. We all thought our pictures would last forever back then. But like the photos our parents stored in shoe boxes and photo albums, the chemical process that created our images eventually fails and the image fades away.

I didn’t take this photo, it belongs to an old friend who wanted to save this one from eventual loss. He sent me a scan of the image and I imported it into Lightroom 4 and Photoshop CS6, which is far and again way more powerful than the Photoshop 3.0 I used back in the 1990’s. I first used Photoshop CS6 to fix the colors and deal with scratches and dust. I like to set up a set of grid lines into one inch boxes, much like an archeologist might section off a site for digging and cataloging. Then go from square to square getting out any artifacts and damage in a methodical manner.

Now I had to really bring the image back from the dead. I imported the CS6 corrected image into Lightroom 4, and began with the sky. Get that right and you know what the ocean should look like. Once I got that into a reasonable state, I began to work with details on the ship, paying close attention to the badges and honors displayed along the bridge wings. It was a balancing act between eliminating noise and keeping detail.

I then stopped for a 24 hour period. After I get it to a certain point, I walk away for a day, giving  myself some distance from the image. Then when I open it up the following day I’m either satisfied or I have a set of fresh eyes to see where more work needs to be done.

After the 24 hours period passed and upon opening it, I did decide to work on some noise and fringing around the superstructure of the ship and play with the brightness and contrast in CS6. After all is said and done, I estimate it took about 6 hours to get it to an acceptable point. I soft proofed it for the printer I use for hard copy and set the ICM profiles for the image, saving it to my Mac and the external back up. Then I printed it on archival acid free paper using a pigment photo printer rather than an ink jet. If Epson’s Marketing isn’t full of themselves, this print should last for decades, if not centuries, with proper care.

For the record, this is a photo of the USS Francis Hammond, FF-1067. At the time of this photo, it was a part of Battle Group Alpha, home ported out of Yokosuka, Japan. A few years ago, she went under the ship breakers torch and is now gone to all but those who sailed on her.

Photography by Manny Perry, EW2, USN.