Restored World War I Photos Reveal the Horror and Humor of Life on the Western Front

Nov 17, 2025

Matt Growcoot

Soldiers in helmets and uniforms advance over rough terrain and rubble, some running above ground with rifles, while one moves through a trench under a cloudy sky, evoking a wartime battle scene. — Highland troops embark on an attack at dawn.

Last week marked 107 years since the end of World War I. In the United States, the day is observed as Veterans Day, while in Britain it is known as Remembrance Day.

Atlantic Publishing has painstakingly restored a series of propaganda photographs documenting the British war effort — mainly showing troops on the Western Front — for a book titled A Corner of a Foreign Field, which is accompanied by poems written by correspondents and soldiers who witnessed the conflict firsthand from the trenches.

A line of soldiers on horseback crosses a damaged wooden bridge over rubble and water in a war-torn landscape, under a cloudy sky. — A newly constructed bridge.

Two women work in a factory assembling artillery shells during World War I. They wear blouses and focus on handling metal shells at a workbench surrounded by tools and equipment. — Women in the munitions factories, 1915.

A group of soldiers walks down a rural dirt road among a herd of sheep. The soldiers wear uniforms and carry gear, while the sheep walk calmly ahead. Utility poles and open fields line the road. — British troops at Verneuil, May 29, 1918.

Technician Cliff Salter, noted as being “still in command of his conservation skills in his 70s”, worked with rare and unseen archive photography from the archives of English Heritage, Historic England, and Associated Newspapers. Often, the photos aren’t preserved negative originals but copies printed on paper.

“Whether glass plate, celluloid, or paper, they have usually suffered age and chemical degradation and might have been damaged while archived or painted over with highlights introduced to make the subject matter more discernible in the course of reproduction in the newsprint of time, which was mostly reproduced dot-for-dot,” adds Atlantic.

Many of the photographs came from news archives where the picture editors of the time had already “robustly” edited them by adding vignettes, retouched them with paint, or boosted highlights to “give the best effect on crude letterpress printing.”

Salter went to work by trying to remove these crude pre-press additions to reveal the valuable details hidden beneath them.

A group of smiling World War I soldiers sit atop and hang off a crowded military truck, waving their hats joyfully as they travel down a rural dirt road lined with bare trees. — Canadians after a successful attack on Vimy Ridge.

Two soldiers wearing helmets and gear stand knee-deep in water inside a muddy World War I trench, surrounded by rough earth walls and barbed wire. — Flooded trenches.

A soldier in uniform helps another soldier climb out of a muddy trench on a battlefield. The landscape is barren and desolate, with minimal vegetation and cloudy skies. — Helping hand for a wounded soldier.

Two women in uniform walk side by side near train tracks. Both wear hats, jackets, and skirts. A sign nearby warns of electric danger and trains. The scene appears historical, possibly from the early 20th century. — London Underground female guards.

“When the image, usually a paper print photo, is as clean as possible, we use the latest scanning technology at 400dpi resolution to get our ‘warts and all’ base image ready for digital restoration,” Atlantic explains. “This includes returning faded and sepia images to monochrome and then reverting to a full colour black and white.”

Salter’s task was to optimize the images without removing the signature of the authentic historic photographs.

“A Corner of a Foreign Field is a curation of images that show the highs as well as the lows of the military and civilian populations during one of the greatest crises of history,” says Atlantic.

“Just as anthologist Fiona Waters has trawled the poetic spirit of the age, so our photographs walk the streets and the barren, destroyed landscapes of the battlefield of the War to end all Wars.”

A group of soldiers in uniform pose cheerfully around a damaged, old carriage labeled "10 Downing Street" amid debris, suggesting a moment of levity during a wartime scene. — Soldiers mock up an old hansom cab as a ‘seat of power’

Six World War I soldiers in muddy uniforms and helmets carry a wounded comrade on a stretcher across a muddy, barren battlefield; the sky is overcast and the scene appears grim and bleak. — Wounded soldier rescued by stretcher bearers, September 1917.

Black-and-white photo of three nurses attending to four patients in hospital beds by a sunlit window; the patients are covered with blankets and one has a bandaged face. Flowers sit on the windowsill. — Wounded soldiers and nurses in an English hospital.

Salter shared his workflow below.

Always, where possible, find the original source of either print or negative

Repair any physical tears and folds on the original.

Carefully clean any old retouching paint.

Scan to 300 or 400 DPI to achieve the best possible image.

Check scan generally for contrast.

Repair tears and blemishes.

Remove vignetting due to age, maintaining the integrity of the image.

By using curves, balance areas of different contrast.

Get the best possible result by comparing with the original hard copy.

“We tread a careful path between image optimisation and the preservation of what is clearly an old contemporary photograph,” adds publisher Greg Hill.

“However, our standards are fastidious and our books only contain pin-sharp historic images that come as close in reproduction as possible to the original scene captured in the photographer’s viewfinder.”

A square, hardcover book titled "A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Illustrated Poetry of the First World War," features a sepia photo of soldiers in a trench on the cover. The book has a beige spine and dark brown cover.

Last week PetaPixel featured remastered aerial footage showing the aftermath of the First World War’s Western Front in Flanders, Belgium.

Image credits: Images from A Corner of a Foreign Field: The Illustrated Poetry of the First World War edited by Fiona Waters (Atlantic Publishing, £25, $33).