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These are really small files making it very difficult to do justice to the photos. If you could scan them at a resolution of between 400-600 dpi as I am guessing they are very small photos, you will get a much better result. You can post a file size of up to 500kbs here, and your files are only 40kbs.
Carol

Thanks for the advice. They are indeed small wallet sized pictures - I'm too tired to focus tonight but I'll rescan at some point tomorrow and try and increase the resolution 

I've only recently discovered this section of the forum and it coincides with a lot of my family photos coming to hand, so I've been stumbling around with a few more pressing issues that have come up.
 
I don't know what's possible in terms of restoration but these are the ones in most desperate need.

They are all of Alma McDonald my mother's cousin. The 1st two are her with her mother Mary (my GM's sister) the 3rd is with her father Norman. They were taken between 1921-1924 in Ontario, Canada and sent to my grandmother back in London.

Mary her mother died from childbirth complications after her 2nd daughter was born in 1924. The baby also died a few hours after birth. Around 6 months later the then nearly 4 year old Alma died of meningitis.

My GM was very close to her sister and the reason these pictures are so badly deteriorated is that she kept them with her everywhere for over 60 years, until the onsent of dementia meant they were taken into safe keeping with other family pictures.

They are the only pictures of Alma (we have a few others of Mary), though it was very touching to learn through family research connection that Norman remarried and had a second family, and his descendents still care for their graves after al this time. But they had no pictures of them either.

The photos are worse even than this in reality - I've done some basic exposure and contrast adjustment which just shows there are still facial features which gives me some hope. These are not visible at all in the physcial copies of the 1st two, and very indistinct in the 3rd. They are also very fragile and are cracked and crumbly.

So can anything be done? Is it possible to restore them, especially anything that shows little Alma's face?

I'd appreciate anything anyone can do, or any advice on how to save the photos themselves

In these series of 4 pictures the 1st picture is the one I'm querying.
 
Fred Branton was my grandad and we have many later photos of him. The 1st one was assumed to be him as a young man, but I'm really not sure. We're not even sure who originally said it was him or if it was just a guess. It's not labelled by the now deceased relative who named most of the collection.

Fred was always a tall, big, sturdy built man with broad shoulders and strikingly vivid very pale blue eyes. There's some uncertainty of his original hair colour.

The 2nd photo is Fred taken 10-12 years after the 1st

The 3rd is one is Fred about another 30 years later but it's the clearest picture I have of his face structure, albeit as a much older man

Finally, the 4th picture is of Jack who is not a blood relation of Fred. There should be no biological relationship between the 1st and 4th pictures if it is Fred Branton.
 
If it's not him it leaves only one possibility (it was one of a series of pictures taken together) - that it is Jack's father, my grandmother's brother rather than her husband. 

Any and all thoughts gratefully received.

Agree with Peter. One or two of these hairstyles were popular over a short period, 1908-12 so along with the general dress styles the few years prior to WW1 is about right.

Thank you.

This is so exciting. We didn't think we had any pictures of GGM Mags and I didn't trust my own judgement on dates, though I was thinking 1910-1915 ish myself. If that's 1908-1912 then it's her aged around 30.

Tragically she was lost to Spanish Flu in the winter of 1917/18, and her husband died the following year in an industrial accident. Thankfully her oldest daughter was grown and married and able to bring up her youngest children who were only 1, 4 and 7 when she died. My own grandfather was 21/22 and married my GM not long afterwards.

Thank you for your reply - you are close to my best guess on date as well. It's so critical because if we're correct then there is only one person this lady could be - the only surviving picture of my Great Grandmother.

Critical date cut off is it needs to be pre 1918 to be GGM - if it was her daughter who looks so like her it couldn't be before about 1922-24 because of her age

I include here the chunk of picture that got cut off when I uploaded before, including the lady herself.

Any further dating input would be gratefully received