Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii


Restoration Closeup of "Dagestani Types", ca. 1905-1915, Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii

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 Introduction

Since the LOC on-line exhibit, the color pictures of Sergi Prokudin-Gorskii have started to become well-known examples of some of the earliest high-quality color pictures.

Taken from 1905-1915, these pictures tell the story of the Russian Empire, from city life to rural life, these pictures show a culture and people almost 100 years ago.

The restoration of these pictures is difficult, at least in terms of performing a restoration of the upmost level. To get a general restoration, it is still fairly difficult, but the difficulty increases nearly 10-fold when performing a highly-detailed restoration due to the damage on each of 3 frames that make each picture.

Each picture comes as three B/W frames, Red, Green, and Blue. Each frame has been stretched, faded, and damaged differently. Restoring detailed features can sometimes be daunting, but well worth it.

Since these pictures are color-separated pictures, the details are fantastic, and the results are quite amazing.

Below are gallery samples, but also there is a web page with 284 spec samples. These are 500x500 samples meant for a publisher -- a mid-range, low-resolution restoration was done on each sample. While not as good as a full restoration the pictures are definitely nice enough to get a feel for the picture and many of them came out very nice.

Gallery Samples



Click thumbnails for larger (original and restored) images
284 500x500 Spec-Samples,
including pictures from Switzerland, Italy, and Finland
Click here for the 284 500x500 spec samples.
The first page explains some details regarding quality.
At the bottom are links to 10 pages with about 30 samples each.
Click on each thumbnail for a larger, 500x500 sample.
{short description of image} "Mugan. A Settler's Family, Settlment of Gravofka"
ca. 1910-1915
Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii

Shir-Dar Mosque
ca. 1910-1915
Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii

{short description of image} "Dagestani Types"
ca. 1905-1915
From the Album,Views in the Caucasus and Black Sea area, Russian Empire
Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii

"On the Tobol River at the Village of Gilev. Study"
c. 1912
From the Album, Views in the Ural Mountains and Western Siberia, survey of waterways
Sergei Prokudin-Gorskii

"View from the rear platform of the Simskaia Station of the Samara-Zlatoust Railway"
ca. 1910
From the Album, Views in the Ural Mountains, survey of industrial area, Russian Empire