Real situations, worked end to end - how to handle the damaged original, how to capture it without making things worse, what restoration can recover, and, just as importantly, what it cannot.
Every page states its limits as clearly as its capabilities. If a document cannot be recovered, we would rather you knew that before you started.
Browse by situation
Each use case is a complete working method - the damage types you will meet, the capture setup that suits them, the restoration order that works, and the honest boundaries of what is possible.
Flood, leak, and damp damage leaves tide lines, ink bleed, and warped paper. Digital restoration recovers the readable content without putting the fragile original through any further handling.
Read the use caseFire damage is uneven - one corner is ash, the next is only smoke-stained. Restoration recovers the legible zone and reconstructs the scorched margins around it.
Read the use caseFaded ink, microfilm artefacts, and 19th-century handwriting make ancestral records hard to read. Restoration recovers the legibility so you can transcribe the record accurately.
Read the use caseCertificates get folded, framed in sunlight, and stored badly for decades. Restoration recovers the print, the border work, and the seal - for a copy you can frame or file.
Read the use caseBound registers are the hardest documents to capture well and the most costly to lose. A repeatable capture-and-restore workflow lets volunteers digitise them properly.
Read the use caseDamaged storage, a failed offsite unit, or decades of paper nobody digitised. Triage first, restore what carries obligations, and rebuild an auditable file set.
Read the use caseThe method underneath
The documents differ enormously. The discipline does not.
Damaged paper is dried, supported, and left alone. Every use case below starts with protecting the original, because handling costs you content that no software can bring back.
Colour, 300–600 DPI, flat and evenly lit. Restoration can only work with what the capture recorded, so a good scan is worth more than any amount of processing.
Staining, fading, tears, and missing areas are repaired on the scan. Substantive content - names, figures, dates - is never invented to fill a gap.
The unmodified scan is retained beside every restored page, so anyone reviewing it later can see exactly what changed.
What we will not do
AI reconstruction is genuinely good at rebuilding paper texture, ruling, borders, and stroke shapes. It is equally good at producing a confident-looking digit or surname that was never on the page. Knowing the difference is the whole job.
Talk to us about your documentsMost damaged documents are a mix - water and mould, or smoke and firefighting water, or simply eighty years of neglect. Start with the closest match, or ask us.
