Inpainting

Inpainting is a conservation process where damaged, deteriorated, or missing parts of an artwork are filled in to present a complete image.

The modern use of inpainting can be traced back to Pietro Edwards (1744–1821), Director of the Restoration of the Public Pictures in Venice, Italy.

[2] It was during the 1930 International Conference for the Study of Scientific Methods for the Examination and Preservation of Works of Art, that the modern approach to inpainting was established.

[4] After his career of over 40 years as a conservator, Ruhemann published his treatise The Cleaning of Paintings: Problems & Potentialities in 1968.

"[5] Cesare Brandi (1906–1988) developed the teoria del restauro, the inpainting approach combining aesthetics and psychology.

Widespread use of digital techniques range from entirely automatic computerized inpainting to tools used to simulate the process manually.

Such compensation should be reversible and should not falsely modify the known aesthetic, conceptual, and physical characteristics of the cultural property, especially by removing or obscuring original material.

[10]New technologies and the aesthetic demand for perfect images without imperfections challenge conservators' ethical practices to protect the integrity of originals.

In inpainting, detailed records of the initial state of the images can help with the treatment and replicate the original closer.

Inpainting can aim to make a visual improvement to the artwork as a whole by repairing missing or damaged parts using methods and materials equivalent to the original artist's work.

Helmut Ruhemann's inpainting techniques by Jessell have procedures to "preserve" the quality of oil and tempera paintings.

Bertalmio proposed that by progressively transferring similar information from the borders of an inpainting domain inwards, the gap can be filled.

[18] Combined structural and textural inpainting approaches simultaneously try to perform texture- and structure-filling in regions of missing image information.

[21] Manual computer methods include using a clone tool to copy existing parts of the image to restore a damaged texture.