A strange photo phenomenon Grandmother Maud

[seemex]

In 2007 my aunt passed away and at her bedside was a photo of her mother ( my grandmother ) It was in an old metal frame with a cracked glass. The photo looked to be very fragile. I wanted to scan it as a back-up. The picture was cracking, so we did our best to handle it as carefully as we could.
My daughter did five separate scans of the photo. The first four times it came out as shown in Maud 1. Not satisfied she did one last scan and it was different...as shown in Maud 2. The expression on my grandmother`s face was totally changed, as if she had been posing and at last we got it right. She approved of the scan! It really is the exact same photo, scanned in the same scanner, and all the scans were done within a few minutes of each other, including the final one.
I thought I would share it on Rootschat today.
Thanks to everyone for all the help you have all given me over the past few years.
Brian
PS: I just realized that it was exactly 10 years ago today that my aunt died!

[jim1]

Some of the detail has been lost in Maud 1 but very spooky.

[dowdstree]

Yes, very spooky but this sort of thing can happen with photographs. It is as if we are being told something from "beyond the grave".

Lovely lady.

Dorrie

[Mike Morrell]

Interesting to see the amazing difference between these 2 scans - thanks for sharing!

Maud 2 is indeed a much better 'portrait' of your grandmother mother than Maud 1. It's much softer, it has much more contrast so that your grandmother's face and expression is much clearer. Your grandmother as a person comes across much better.

I'm pretty sure the differences between the two scans do have a rational explanation. But why the 'technical differences' should all conspire to produce such a markedly better photo is indeed a mystery. A worse 'Maud 2' photo would have been much more likely!

It's possible that the scanner settings for 'Maud 2' were slightly different to 'Maud 1' but I suspect that 'Maud 2' was not 100% flat on the scanner and slightly convex. 'Maud 2's face is slightly smaller than Maud 1, suggesting it was slightly further away from the scanner plate. The highlights are brighter and the shadows are deeper. The (technical) resolution is also lower so that the photo as a whole (face but also cracks) is much 'softer' than Maud 1.

Again, these 'scanning issues' could well have resulted in a blurred photo with the shadows and highlights in all the wrong places. Amazingly, all these 'issues' came together perfectly to produce a softer, more realistic photo with the brighter highlights and deeper shadows in all the right places.  So my 'rational explanation' in no way detracts from the 'mystery' of this last scan.

Mike

[Viktoria]

I would not have thought them to be of the same person, they are so totally different.
But the technical explanations could very well be the reason, She was a very good looking lady.
                                                              Viktoria.

[seemex]

Interesting to see the amazing difference between these 2 scans - thanks for sharing!

Maud 2 is indeed a much better 'portrait' of your grandmother mother than Maud 1. It's much softer, it has much more contrast so that your grandmother's face and expression is much clearer. Your grandmother as a person comes across much better.

I'm pretty sure the differences between the two scans do have a rational explanation. But why the 'technical differences' should all conspire to produce such a markedly better photo is indeed a mystery. A worse 'Maud 2' photo would have been much more likely!

It's possible that the scanner settings for 'Maud 2' were slightly different to 'Maud 1' but I suspect that 'Maud 2' was not 100% flat on the scanner and slightly convex. 'Maud 2's face is slightly smaller than Maud 1, suggesting it was slightly further away from the scanner plate. The highlights are brighter and the shadows are deeper. The (technical) resolution is also lower so that the photo as a whole (face but also cracks) is much 'softer' than Maud 1.

Again, these 'scanning issues' could well have resulted in a blurred photo with the shadows and highlights in all the wrong places. Amazingly, all these 'issues' came together perfectly to produce a softer, more realistic photo with the brighter highlights and deeper shadows in all the right places.  So my 'rational explanation' in no way detracts from the 'mystery' of this last scan.

Mike

You're right Mike, the photo was probably laid down on a different section of the flatbed's glass on the last shot, probably closer to the upper edge where the photo was not under as much downward pressure, which allowed that slight convex-ing and a different light situation. Oddly, the original un-scanned picture is like "Maud 1" so it was a pleasant surprise to uncover that brighter side of her!

[Handypandy]

A clean up for Maud....

[McGroger]

Another version.
Cheers, Peter.

[seemex]

Thanks for the make-overs....very interesting! It's odd but I'd never thought of making any attempt at a restoration. Although I didn't post it for that reason, but simply as a photo anomaly, I certainly appreciate the efforts. Seeing the restored versions kindles even more interest in her.
Thanks to you both.
Brian