LAT Photographic is restoring thousands of previously unusable photos from the Autocar archive using digital imaging.


The Teddington-based photo library, which is part of Haymarket Publications, is restoring cracked glass plates and faded colour transparencies from its archive of 9m motorsport images, some of which date back to 1906. Many of the images were damaged by poor storage over the years.


The damaged plates are restored by scanning the originals and then retouching the scans. Scanning is done on a Nikon LS4500 desktop scanner and the images are retouched and colour corrected using Adobe Photoshop.


"Photoshop clones the good bits to replace the bad," said digital operations manager Jonathan Dingle. "A lot of the time we have to redo the colour."


LAT uses a Fujifilm Pictrography 4000 digital printer, which prints up to A3, to produce hard copies of the restored images.


Haymarket bought Autocar from Reed in the 1980s, but the archive has only recently moved from Reed's HQ in Sutton, Surrey.


Story by Jez Abbott