Restoring 1960s photos
The 1960s is when colour took over the family album, so a box from the decade is mostly small colour prints that have shifted towards red or magenta, mixed with black and white from the early years.
How photos were made in the 1960s
Kodak’s Instamatic cameras, launched in 1963, made photography almost foolproof with drop-in film cartridges and produced the decade’s typical small square prints. Colour negative film became the default for holidays and birthdays, and Polaroid’s peel-apart instant pictures appeared at parties. Black and white persisted, especially early in the decade and for school and studio portraits.
How 1960s prints have aged
Colour prints from the 1960s have usually faded unevenly, losing cyan and drifting towards red or magenta, with pale skies and flat shadows. Peel-apart Polaroids often curl, and their surface can crack or bloom. Black and white prints from the decade are usually in much better shape than the colour ones taken alongside them.
Recognising a photo from the 1960s
- Square prints, often with a white border and sometimes the month and year printed on the back
- A red or magenta cast across the whole print, strongest in skies and whites
- Peel-apart instant prints with a slightly glossy, uneven surface
Colour: restore it or colorize it?
Restore rather than colorize the colour prints: the original colours are still partly in the dyes, and correction brings back what was really there. Colorizing makes sense only for the black and white prints, where 1960s clothing and interiors are well represented in what colorizers have learned.
The tool for this decade is Restore old photos.
Questions
Why have my 1960s photos turned pink?
The cyan dye in colour prints of the period faded faster than the others, so magenta and yellow dominate and the print looks pink or red. Colour correction restores much of the original balance.
How do I scan small square 1960s prints with a phone?
Photograph several at once on a dark background in soft daylight, then crop them apart, or capture each one filling the frame for the best detail. Upscaling afterwards makes them printable at larger sizes.
Going deeper
How to fix old photos walks through the method step by step.