Hy and Ruth at La Bate's (Rescued Photo)

Among my Dad's photos sent to me a few years ago, I found a picture of my parents seated at a booth with another couple. I had never seen this photo before.  But then I looked more closely and noticed a number of problems that might explain why I hadn't seen it, but I thought I could solve them on the computer.  And I decided to that today, because my parents were married on April 4, 1943.  The 5 x 7 photo was in a cardboard frame with folder, and on the inside of the front flap is a business card announcing: "La Bate's Club Tavern, Dining and Dancing Nitely" and also lists a Denver address (7795 N. Federal Blvd). Looks like they were out dining and dancing with another couple, unknown to me. And now for the problems. First,  in the original photo, my father was missing his front tooth. Hmm,  I had heard stories that during his time overseas, he had some kind of altercation during which someone had punched him and knocked his tooth out.  So this dated the photo as very soon after my Dad came back from overseas, before he had time for dental work.  So I opened the image in Painter, enlarged it, and drew in the missing tooth.  Next up: my mother's lipstick was smeared and my father's collar and tie were askew.  I started to smile, wondering if they had been necking in the parking lot or something.  It was easy to fix the smeared lipstick with some digital pastel, but harder to redraw and fix the collar and tie. After that, another problem remained: a woman's coat (my mother's, probably) had been  thrown over the back of the booth, and it was sliding down and and hiding part of my father's sleeve. I redrew the missing part of the sleeve and cropped out the rest of the coat.  I also cropped the photo to frame just my parents, simplified the background behind my Mom, and that's when I noticed that my Dad had his arm around her.  Finally, I got rid of the cigarette my mother was holding (something I was never able to do in real life), and closed up the open pack on the table.  It took a bit of doing to rescue this photo, but I am really happy with the result, well worth it for the look on my mother's face and my father's smile, and  I am also happy with the process, for what I learned by spending a little time working with this image and remembering my parents.