What do I need to restore damaged photographs? Part One

In the recent episode of Who Do
You Think You Are, Susan Sarandon carried around a old laminated
photo of her grandmother. With today's technology, she could have had
the old photo scanned and restored, however, that was never mentioned in
the episode. Neither did they mention, later on in the hour, that the
other photos she found could be easily digitally copied. I am sure that
almost everyone realizes that any photograph can be digitized and the
digital copies of old photos can be edited to "restore" them. Of course,
there are limitations. Missing information in the photo cannot be
restored. But the appearance of the photo can be digitally enhanced and
some obscure parts made more visible.
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