At the RootsTech Conference in Salt Lake City this past February, I had the opportunity to learn about the photo restoration program, Vivid-Pix Restore. Easy to use and moderately priced, Vivid-Pix Restore appears to be an asset to genealogists in reviving faded prints, slides and documents.
Last week I had the opportunity to attend a webinar on Vivid-Pix Restore by Rick Voight, one of the company founders, at LegacyFamilyTreeWebinars. After watching the webinar, of course, I had to “play” with my family photos.
Vivid-Pix offers a free trial download, which allows for the restoration of up to 10 photos. The full program is moderately priced at $49.99 and is available in both Windows and Mac formats. Vivid-Pix Restore is very easy to use, often restoring photos with just 1 click. In addition, the program allows for the addition of metadata to the photo files.
I was simply amazed at the results! One photo in particular, of my three oldest sisters, was a very badly faded color print from the 1950’s.
I was so pleased with the results, that I spent quite some time adjusting numerous photos and documents. Another photo, one of my father-in-law from the 1930’s, was not quite as faded. However, I was impressed with the improvement in the quality of the photo.
Finally, I used Vivid-Pix Restore to improve a newspaper clipping from 1975 (York Daily News Times, December 12, 1975, p unknown) of my grandmother, Margaret Neville Conroy Smith. Again, I was amazed at the results. The newsprint looks like it was printed yesterday, not almost 45 years ago!
So far, I have been impressed by the the results and ease of use of the Vivid-Pix Restore program. It appears that genealogists have a great new tool to add to their family history arsenal.
