The author's premise is that the ultimate dilemma in art restoration is the decision of whether or not to restore losses or badly damaged areas in an art work. The nature of the losses as well as their location dictate the need for restoration as well as the type of work to be done. There should not be a rigid criteria for this kind of work; the decision should be made for each individual case based on aesthetic and technical considerations. The inpainting must be done in such a way that it blends into the original work without subtracting from, or altering the value of the original painting. It is not acceptable to resort to imagination in order to fill in a loss. The loss should remain. The goal will be to make it less conspicuous by finding an appropriate solution. To illustrate his points, the author goes on to describe solutions to various restoration problems encountered at the Jose de Figuereido Institute.