Janinealogy

Meet Eric Basir

2009-08-04T05:24:00.006-05:00

"I appreciate the importance of maintaining as much of the original "untouched" appearance [of a restored photograph] as possible." Eric Basir

Lest anyone panic unnecessarily, let me clarify that I usually only scope out and do the harsh critique on those who are claiming to be "professional" restoration artists, or those who are doing work for clients. I don't usually subject the hobbyist to such stringent assessment. However, I am a total perfectionist when it comes to my art, photo restoration, and tend to hold other professional restoration artists up to the same exacting standards I hold myself to. More fall short than not and I've started to try to educate those who may be looking for a restoration artist to restore their precious family photos on how to choose an artist that will do the best possible work for them. I've been searching the internet, high and low, looking for restoration artists that I'd actually consider hiring to work on my photos. I mean, if I wouldn't trust them with my family, why would I seriously recommend them to anyone else? The pickings have been slim to non-existent, frankly, but I have found two whom I would like to introduce you to. Yesterday I put a bit of the spotlight on Christine Pentecost, a terrific photographer, awesome restoration artist and really nice lady.

Eric Basir

I found Eric through Twitter (he's @photografix, by the way!). I have a search category, "photo restoration", and try to have a look at anyone claiming to practice the art, to keep an eye on what's out there. As I've said before, I haven't been impressed very often. Almost never, truth be told. But I was pretty impressed by Erics work. I've been doing photo restoration a long time and am not awed at all by people claiming to be "the best" who only show relatively minor damage in there before examples, no matter how good the actual restoration work. If you're that good, let me see how you handle the really tough stuff! One thing I like about Eric is he doesn't actually claim to be the best at anything! He's confident in his work and knows it speaks for itself. Plus, he does show the tough stuff and handles the challenge quite well!

Eric Basir of Photo Grafix began his restoration journey as a photographer, as so many do. With eight years of photography and photojournalism under his belt and a love of history in his heart, he began to not only do restoration work, but teach it as well. Today Eric is a well known teacher of the restoration arts, a speaker of some renown and the author of two books on photo restoration! Although Eric still teaches restoration, his work now mainly focuses on retouching, working with photographers, publications and ad agencies. Eric is also on the Board of Directors of the Genealogical Speakers Guild, an excellent resource for anyone looking for genealogical speakers!

Eric's dedication, professionalism and talent jumped out at me and place him in my very small circle of restoration artists I admire!

Meet Christine Pentecost!

2009-08-03T03:51:00.002-05:00

"I think that with today's market of cheap scanners and a simple version of Photoshop, a lot of people are going to be taking up photo restorations. The difference will be in those that want to do the quick fixes, and those, like myself, that want to bring a photo back to life down to every last detail!" Christine Pentecost

Something I've done, even before I started my photo restoration business, is go around the internet and visit other photo restoration websites. I did it, at first, in the form of researching my potential foray into this business, to gauge the competition, see what the going rates were, test the waters, as it were. I admit to be a bit underwhelmed, back then, but not devastated by the lack of talent and user friendly websites. Of course that, as with all things, was relative. I wasn't underwhelmed because my talents were still fairly underwhelming. I'm talking a lot of years ago! I was still working as an analyst and an illustration artist, happily restoring away at the family photo archive! I'd discovered a talent for the restoring thing and liked it and was looking for a way to go into business for myself! Ay yi yi! How many times I've heard that, since! Anyway, when I did finally quit the corporate jungle and went into business for myself, it wasn't just as a restoration artist. It was as everything I had any talent for...ever! I was all over the place! But I kept restoring and improving and learning. It was finally shown to me in big, neon (metaphorically neon, that is) letters that I was supposed to be, needed to be, had to be a restoration artist. A total epiphany moment. For once in my life, I listened, and hopefully, one day, the rest will be history. I'm still learning and , I think, improving, though. Problem is I'm not seeing that very many others are...improving that is.

Many of you have been subjected to my lamentations when, in the course of my travels through photo restoration websites, I'm continually disappointed. I'm either finding unacceptable skill levels, usually attached to a "I'm the best!" statement, or an "I'm the best!" statement with no examples of said best work, whatsoever! Since you're all made to listen to my moaning and whining over the abject badness of it all, I thought you might appreciate my sharing with you when I'm NOT disappointed! What?!? I know, right? Like that...never happens! Well, it has! Not once, but TWICE! Seriously! I've stumbled across them (though I actually already knew one!), I love their work and I want to introduce you to them!

Christine Pentecost

I've known Chris Pentecost for a while, now, in a purely internet kinda way. A past President of Operation Photo Rescue, a wonderful volunteer effort to help save photographs damaged in natural disasters through digital photo restoration, Chris was my Yoda when I first joined. She guided me along, encouraged me when I felt beyond the task and didn't chide me at all when I picked the most badly damaged photo, EVER for my very first attempt! If it weren't for Chris, I probably would have turned that first attempt in, failure that it was, and moved on, never looking back at OPR again! But she did encourage and she did manage to talk me down from the ledge. Even though Chris eventually stepped down from the helm of OPR and took some well earned time off to be with her family and enjoy the nature that abounds in her back yard, we kept in touch through our mutual membership in the National Association of Photoshop Professionals and our participation in the NAPP forum. I knew, of course, that Chris did photo restoration, but I came to think of her as more of a photographer. Then one day while reading a post she made on the forum, I clicked the link to her website, Bridger Mountain Photo, in her signature. That's when I realized that not only is Chris a great photographer, and even though I knew Chris did photo restoration, I never realized that she was an awesome photo restoration artist! I was really impressed! In her photo restoration gallery were not just a couple mediocre attempts, but very strong, consistent, well rounded, skilled restorations!

Chris got started in restoration the way most of us do, working on her own family photos. She then branched out by restoring for friends, neighbors and her community. She did one hometown church project that consisted of around 100 photos! On the job training, indeed! Joining the OPR effort in 2006 further challenged and enhanced her skills. Not one to just take praise and rest on her laurels, Chris embraced the philosophy of continually growing her skills and learning more of the craft. She believes that the damaged photos should be restored as closely as possible in detail and character to the original and that the work should never be rushed. To her way of thinking, the more attention to detail, the better the finished restoration. Chris believes, as I do, that photo restoration is an art which requires skill and patience to develop.

I don't know why it took me so long to notice and click Christine's link on her NAPP forum signature, but I'm very glad I did! It was a very pleasant surprise!

Tomorrow: Eric Basir

Slowing It Down...

2009-06-29T08:56:00.004-05:00

Way back when I started this blog and this whole Social Media roller coaster ride, my mentor/guide, Nancy Masse, told me not to post every day. She told me not to get caught up in the "I have to post something today because it's Monday" or Tuesday, or Wednesday thing, because it would be a short road to a big burnout, if I did. So what have I ended up doing? Listening to the little OCD demons in my head, that's what! I've been making myself crazy trying to write an article every day! Now, let me interject, here, and say that I haven't burnt out, yet, that's not what's going on here, but if I don't let something slide, I will, real quick!

Some of you may have caught a couple posts on Twitter, last week, about the incredible amount of work that's been coming in. Great news for us, let me tell you! Well, I went into the weekend with 30 restoration projects (paid), a very tough OPR restoration (volunteer) a very large genealogy project (paid), a huge scanning/printing project (paid) and two Random Acts of genealogical Kindness projects (volunteer). I also have a presentation to prepare for Aug. 25, and another for Oct. Add to all that the fact that I have to clean my house and am responsible for all the yard work and upkeep/maintenance of Casa de Smith, well, time is not on my side! On Saturday I got five more client restorations. Over the course of the weekend, I finished three, and nearly finished two more, restorations. That still leaves 30 to do plus the other projects. I realized I had no time to write a blog post, and might not be able to for some time.

SO...I'm taking Nancy's advice (again), finally. I'm not going to be posting every day. In fact, it might be quite random for a while. I'll finish up the Wednesday posts because there's not that many left and my Great-Great-Great Grandfather was kind enough to write them for me. I'll also be starting a new project (I know... smart, huh?) with the help of my friend Erik Bernskiold who has designed a rockin new blog for me! It's a three day a week round up of the best articles from the great people in MY blogesphere, all of you! It's called The Frib, and it's an off shoot of Fribble Friday, a sort of community newspaper of our community!

I'll still be dropping in on Twitter and the NAPP forum, hopefully, daily for little bits of time, just to say hi and see how y'all are doing, so be sure to holla back!

Fribble Friday

2009-06-26T09:17:00.004-05:00

Sometimes, even fribbles have to take a day to get their frib on and I'm laying low to get some work done.

I'm thinking about reevaluating what I say and how I say it. I know that, no matter what, things you say can and will come back to haunt you, that people will always put their slant on things and misconstrue things you've said, but the knowing doesn't make it any less painful when it happens. The conundrum then being whether to go on as before and take a chance, remaining yourself no matter how goof-ass that may be, or to shut down and be cautious of everything you say and do, and everyone you meet. This is the question of the moment!

I'm also thinking back, oh, so long ago, now, on the influence in my life of two people who passed from this life into the next yesterday. Michael Jackson wasn't really an influence, per se, but I sort of grew up with the Jackson Five and was all about Thriller, let me tell you! That video really rocked our world when it came out! Vincent Price, and all! My favorite J5/MJ song? Not one of the most popular, certainly. Remember that creepy movie "Willard"? Actually, I never even saw it, but remember it being described as a sort of Psycho meets Frankenstein with rats. Ew. Anyway, my fav MJ song is the theme from that movie, Ben. Odd, huh? Now, Farrah, she was what you'd call an influence. I admit it, I watched Charlie's Angels, but, seriously, who didn't back then? But I also had *drumroll*, yes, my friends, I had "Farrah Hair". Not only that, but I took it a step further! Ah, yes, I bought and used, no less, Farrah Fawcett shampoo and conditioner! There, now you know my deepest, saddest secret. I was a Farrah-head. Literally. No, I don't believe these two deaths, while very sad, were earth-stopping events, much as I loved them both in there own way. Now, when Sir Paul passes, may it be a long, long time from now, if I'm still around, I'll be singing a different tune, I imagine...

I'll see ya back Monday!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Newsprint, Pt. 3: Halftone Pattern

2009-06-25T06:00:00.000-05:00

"You dont get something for nothing, You dont get freedom for free, You wont get wise With the sleep still in your eyes, No matter what your dreams might be" Neil Peart

***This part of the tutorial is a little more involved, but is still totally "do-able" in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Gimp, to name a few, and is ranked "Easy to Middlin" on the restoration scale.***

I hope by now we can all see that while correcting photos taken from a newspaper may not be an exercise in futility, it's not all that far off! I had a couple customers, at the beginning of my restoration career, that were disappointed that the photo from the newspaper they brought me, or the copy of the photo from the newspaper, didn't look like it was straight out of the camera when I was done with it. I learned, through much experimentation, practice and errors, that there was only a limited number of things I could do with these photos, and only so far I could go in improving them. I've also learned to let the client know this so they didn't have the "brand new shiny photo" expectations.

The example used in this article was brought to me by a client. It was copied from a newspaper and then taken to a chain store "restoration service", like CVS. All they could do was to turn it into a nifty example of a halftone pattern. I would have liked to have had the original newspaper photo, or at least the original copy, but, unfortunately, that option was not available to me. This is an extreme case, but even it can be improved a little.

Example #3

The third example was brought to me by a client. The photo was from an obituary in the paper and was the only photo of this persons mother. They had originally taken the photo to a chain-store to have it "restored", just proving my point when I say you get what you pay for. The original newspaper clipping had since been lost. So this is what I had to work with. This one will take a few extra steps to get a decent result.

Open the scanned document in Photoshop/Elements/Gimp/Whatever (PEGW). Duplicate the Background layer (Cmd/Ctrl+J). This is a very strong pattern, so we're going to do a Gaussian Blur. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur and move the sliders until the pattern blurs but the detail in the picture is still visible. I have the Radius set at 5.7 pixels. Click OK.

Duplicate the layer and go to Filter > Other >High Pass. For this example, I used a Radius of 31.7 pixels. You, of course, can, and should, experiment to see if another setting would work better for you. Click OK.

For this example, I used a Layer Blend Mode setting of Overlay, but I lowered the Opacity to 50%.

Now we're going to mix it up, some. Make a copy of all the previous layers (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Alt +E). Go to Filter > Blur > Surface Blur. Yes, in a totally radical move, we're putting a second blur filter on this! Who said restoration wasn't exciting?! Set the Radius to 5 pixels and the Threshold to 35 levels.

Now for the really crazy part! Go to Filter > Other > High Pass and pop this puppy with a Radius of 13.0 pixels.

Duplicate all the layers, again (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E), and add a layer mask. With the opposite color of the mask, in this case, black, use the brush tool to "paint out" the areas you want a little sharper.

Now, duplicate all the layers, one more time (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Alt+E). Set the layer blend mode to Vivid Light. This will make the photo much too sharp and pronounced, so take the opacity way down to around 25%.

While not being anywhere near a clear, sharp photo, all this work does result in a substantially better photo. The client, who had no other photo of his mother, was very pleased with the result!

Newsprint, Pt. 2: Newspaper

2009-06-23T05:30:00.001-05:00

"Expecting something for nothing is the most popular form of hope." Arnold H. Glasow

***This 3-part, 3-step tutorial is totally "do-able" in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Gimp, to name a few, and is ranked "Easy-Breezy" on the restoration scale.***

In this, the second of three examples of toning down the moire pattern of newsprint, I'd like to reiterate my main point of yesterdays first example, which is to not expect miracles! These "fixed" photo's will not look great! Not ever! They'll be too blurry and/or there will be moire artifact...that's just the facts. The goal here is to make them, hopefully, a little more viewable and a little less obvious (as in obviously from a newspaper). In some cases, like yesterdays example from a magazine, it's best just to leave it. But most of what I deal with, older photos, won't be in a nicely printed magazine. They'll be in good old newspapers, like today's example...

Example #2

The second example was scanned from my local newspaper, also, obviously, from when I won the Photoshop User Award. This one is of much lower quality than the magazine printing and will never look very good. That's just how it is. But it can be improved, if only slightly, and if only to remove most of the pattern. The trade off will be in some loss of clarity.

Open the document in Photoshop/Elements/Gimp/Whatever (PEGW). Duplicate the Background layer (Cmd/Ctrl+J). I want to start out by showing you how the newspaper photo will look if we do it the same way as the magazine photo, so go to Filters > Blur > Surface Blur. Even pushing it so far as to nearly making it a blurry mess, with a Radius and Threshold both of 20, notice the moire pattern is still very much in evidence.

So we need to do it a little different. Time to bring in the big guns...er, blur. Undo (Cmd/Ctrl+Z) to remove the Surface Blur filter. Go to Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Unlike with the Surface Blur, you won't have to take the sliders up very high at all with the Gaussian Blur. I hit it with a Radius of a mere 1.4 pixels. Click OK.

Now, to bring it back a little. Duplicate the layer (Cmd/Ctrl+J) and go to Filter > Other > High Pass. I have this one set pretty high, at a Radius of 31.7 pixels, but the Gaussian pretty much blew it out, so we need to have the sharpening fairly high. Click OK.

Now, we're going to change the Layer Blend Mode, but we're not going to use Soft Light. That would just bring blur back into it, so we're going to use a harder light, in this case, Overlay, keeping the opacity at 100%.

You can see there's still a newsprint pattern present, but it's not as pronounced.

A little better, but not great. But remembering the analogy of the drop of coffee on a paper towel, it'll do. As they say in Texas, it's better than a kick in the...butt!

Thursday, Pt. 3: A copy of a copy of a photo printed in the newspaper (Toning Down Halftone).

JAS Civil War Journal, Wk 22

2009-06-22T06:23:00.001-05:00

“The miserable have no other medicine but hope.” Friedrich Nietzsche

The weather in Richmond is at the point between Summer and Winter when it's hot one day, cold the next and raining a lot. Not the best of conditions for sick, starving, dejected men.

Spelling is Adam's own and getting worse the lower he feels. At least he hears from his wife and of his family, but whether that would make a body feel better or worse is up for debate...

October 18
Sunday everything passed off quietly to Day pat foley went to Richmond to the hospital to Day sold Pats cup for one and 1/2 ration of bread the Day was nice and warm and night too

***Poor Pat went to the hospital and got his cup sold out from under him! Ouch! But, hey, it was prison, not pre-school...***

October 19
this morning we was taken out and counted over again there is a great many sick ones here now and the get poor care the Doctor has no medecine half the time the Day was nice and warm but the night cold

October 20
this Day passed off without much doings the[y] are having a fight every now and then about bread wich[which] the[y] take from one another there was terible ringing and tolling of bells in Richmond this morning again the Day was warm

***"they" meaning other prisoners, I assume, who are fighting and stealing bread from one another. The "tolling of bells" in Richmond signaled an attack or threat of an attack by the Union Army, or so I understand***

October 21
to Day we was marched out and taken to Richmond the Day was nice and warm
out of Camp again and all the sick taken nothing more of importance happened

***Since they had to march all the prisoners over the bridge spanning the James River, I guess this was a prison camp version of a field trip? Since Adam gives us no clue as to what they actually did in Richmond, I'll leave the speculating to you...***

October 22
to Day I reced a letter from my wife the[y] are all well it looks very dark of our ever getting away from here we get now a very good meat ration but the bread is smal nothing more of importance happened the Day was cold and raw and night

***Adam's losing hope of ever getting out four months into his incarceration, not even knowing of the two years he has left before going home. I can't even begin to guess how those poor men felt.***

October 23
to Day I wrote a letter to my wife the Day was nice and warm nothing more of importance happened

October 24
it commenced raining last night about 12 oclock and rained all Day this was the hardest Day on the island I am on the island 3 months to Day and no signs of getting away yet more prisoners came in

October 25
Sunday to Day Limbacher was shot by one of the guards for being on the bank he was sergent of the working squad and was there at work he had a perfect right to do so the Day was cold and raw

***I've heard tales of guards taking shots at prisoners "for fun" or for "target practice", but all of them had been from Andersonville Prison. I wonder if this was a case like that, or if Limbacher was doing more than just innocently working?***

October 26
to Day nothing of importance happened it was a cold raw Day sold my buther[butter] knife to Day for 2 rations of bread

October 27
to Day one of the boys in our tent gave me a shirt for nothing wich[which] I was very glad of last night was the coldest night we had since I am on the island and to Day the wheather was cold and raw

***Nice to see there was still a little human kindness, yet, in the men at Belle Island.***

Newsprint, Pt. 1: Magazine

2009-06-22T04:39:00.003-05:00

"You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear" - American Idiom

***This 3-part, 3-step tutorial is totally "do-able" in Photoshop, Photoshop Elements and Gimp, to name a few, and is ranked "Easy-Breezy" on the restoration scale.***

I'm publishing this tutorial in three stand alone parts, on Monday , Tuesday and Thursday. Same tutorial, different situations, different results. The reason behind this is I've gotten a lot of questions about photos taken from the newspapers or magazines. I wanted to go over the most common situations. What I'm not going over are the Xerox copies of the copies of the scans of the photos taken out of the newspapers. There is nothing you can do about those. As Yoda would say, magic, I do not...

We've talked about smoothing texture in a photograph, recently, but today we're going to talk about a specific type of texture, or pattern, newsprint moire. If you look closely at a photo printed in, especially, a newspaper, you'll see very noticeable “dots” or tiny round shapes make up the picture. This is made by, to put it simply, tiny drops of ink that bleed, or run. As David Zarzeki (Hexabuzz) of NAPP Forum fame, an Adobe Certified Expert in, well, everything (he's actually certified a Creative Suite Master), who's also a pre-print and press expert (all that means is he really, really knows what he's talking about!!) says, it's like a tiny version of a drop of coffee on a paper towel. Also, in some cases, such as magazine printing, the before usually looks better than the after! I only included it here to give you an idea of the different newsprint pattern levels. So, all this having been said, hopefully this will prepare you, or prepare you to prepare your customers, for the next step, which is:

Don't Get Your Hopes Up...

The last thing you want to have, in this particular case, is high expectations. These photos will never look great! They will never be clear and sharp! The pattern will never be completely gone, because if it is, all your detail will also be gone and you'll have a nice, soft, indistinguishable blur. Essentially, what you're going to have to do to tone down the pattern is to blur it to the point where it's almost too much, then bring back as much detail as you can. Occasionally, such as with photos printed in a high quality publication, such as a magazine (example #1), you'd use the same method as we did with texture smoothing, using a light Surface Blur. With lower quality, such as photos printed in newspapers that have a heavy moire pattern (example #2), or copies taken from newspapers, then taken to be "fixed", resulting in a heavy halftone pattern (example #3), we'll use the much heavier Gaussian Blur. There is no rigid formula to this. It's not something, I feel, you can make into an action and run automatically on every photo, or copy of a photo, from a newspaper. Some newsprint will be more faded than others, for example, some darkened by age. It has to be something you play around with, try different settings on.

Example #1

The first example I scanned directly from Photoshop User magazine. The picture is of my winning entry in this years Photoshop User Awards. I gave myself permission to reproduce it, here. The printing quality is so good in this case, that the same procedure applies that we used for the removing texture tutorial. (side note: the little lines and spots on the printed photo are caused by the actual paper it was printed on. Those who know my OCD personality know I wouldn't leave those on a restoration!)

Open document in Photoshop/Elements/Gimp/Whatever (PEGW). Duplicate the Background layer (Cmd/Ctrl+J). Go to Filters > Blur > Surface Blur.

Move the sliders until you find the best setting for that photo. You want it to just blur out the worst of the pattern. You will not be able to get rid of all of it! You won't have anything left but blur! Know when to say when! The settings I have on the example (Radius: 5, Threshold: 35) are at the highest end of where you should go. If this had been for a client, I probably would have brought it down a bit, but I wanted to show the farthest extreme you should take it. Click OK.

Duplicate the layer (Cmd/Ctrl+J) Go to Filter > Other > High Pass. Again, don't go to crazy on the sharpening! I know I say it a lot, but it can make the difference in a good or bad job! I suggest you try out a couple of different levels. Try one on the low end, one on the high end and one in the middle of the Radius scale and see the drastic difference for yourself! I ended up using a Radius of 5.5. Click OK.

Now, to change the Layer Blend Mode. In the removing texture tutorial, we used Soft Light. In this particular case, I've used Overlay. It gets rid of more blur than Soft Light, but not quite as much as Linear Light. It was a nice middle ground. Run through all the Layer Blend Modes to see what's the best setting for your photo.

As you can see, this is one instance where the before looks a bit better than the after, again due to the superior print quality of most magazines.

Tomorrow, Pt 2: Newspaper

Fribble Friday

2009-06-19T04:40:00.002-05:00

What a Frib today's going to be! I'm doing scary stuff, today! Reformatting my hard drive! I try to do it about every six months, but that usually gets stretched to a year or so. No good with all the crappola that can accumulate on a hard drive! I think I'll learn my lesson, this time, and go the hard drive snapshot route, next time! After this reformat, when I get all my key apps back in place and running, I'll take a snapshot, then, hopefully, next time I'll just use it and not have to worry! Just back up my mail and stuff... which I remembered to do this time! Oh, happy day!

This week I've gotten 19 new (paid!!!!) restorations to do! With the three already in the queue, that's a lot of work! Of wish I'm eternally grateful, believe me! I also have a huge genealogy project for a client, a multiple copy "family album" project, again for a client, a book to think about, which is on a little bit of a hold while I wait on my proof reader, the presentation at the Main Fort Worth Library (Aug. 25!) to write, restoration work for the Handley Railroad Museum, a street fair to prepare for (Oct. 10) and all the volunteer projects! Mom's working on a Native American genealogy and doing unclaimed persons work. So we're some bust bees, around here!!

Ok, here I go into reformat-land. Wish me luck! If you don't hear from me by tomorrow, call the Geek Squad...

I hope everyone has a Fribbalicious weekend!

Coloring Pictures

2009-06-18T08:43:00.003-05:00

"If you can't ride two horses at once, you shouldn't be in the circus" James Maxton

I look through photo restoration portfolios quite often. Though I may not approach the person (like they'd care if I did?), but if I like what I see, I bookmark the site and keep an eye on them. I like to see people improve and evolve. Along the way, I've noticed quite a few very talented people with portfolios consisting mostly, if not totally, of colorization of old photos. While there's nothing inherently wrong with that, I do think it's misleading to call these collections photo restoration.

But...why?

As many of you know, I'm adamant about photo restoration in both practice and perception. In fact, I'm so adamant, sometimes people forget what I'm adamant about! A friend mistakenly thought, when they heard I was writing a restoration book for beginners and hobbyists, that I was against beginners and hobbyists! Oh, no, me buddies!! I love beginners and hobbyists! What I don't love are people who find an old photo, happen to have a copy of Elements 3.0 and decide they're going to go into business doing, natch, photo restoration! In other words, I don't love people giving photo restoration a bad name! I also don't love it when someone colorizes every photo and labels the collection as “Photo Restoration”. There may have been restoration performed on the photo, but every single one has been colorized! So, why am I hating on colorization? Well I'm not, really.

If photo restoration is the practice of restoring a photo back to, or as close as is possible to, the original state, then that would preclude colorization from being restoration, unless, of course, it is a color photo to begin with, true? Therefore, colorization must, more accurately, be considered retouching, manipulation, or even as a stand alone, colorization. Not “restoration”.

I have nothing against colorization. I'd like that understood. When it's done well, it can be breathtaking! When it's done poorly, it can be sad, but that can be said of all disciplines, can't it? I, personally, am not the worlds best at colorization. I'm not the worst, either – I've yet to have anyone point and laugh at my attempts (that I've heard, anyway). As you can see from the examples I've included here, it's not my forte! On the other hand, I don't do it often and when I do, few of them see the light of day, so I can't say the laughing and pointing won't happen, it just hasn't happened yet (that I know of...). The thing I balk at is a whole portfolio, especially one from a person who professes to be a “professional” (relative term, that) and is showing their skills and repertoire to potential clients.

Can Colorization Be Overdone?

Oh, yes, yes it can! For one thing, if that's all you've got to show, you're practically screaming “One Trick Pony!”. It's like the photographer who uses HDR on every photo, or a Photoshoper who runs their LucisArt plug-in on every single image they open! It limits you, and, frankly, I personally find myself not even seeing any of the actual restoration in most of these colorizations! My eye is drawn immediately to the coloring itself, and kinda tends to stay there! It becomes predictable, and people tend to shut down. I know I do. It happens in any creative field, if you do the same technique, or look, on every single project. There's a guy on a forum I'm on that does these compilation photo montage poster's, and they are the same thing, every time! Aside from the fact that a “look” may be excessively dated, it's so predictable as to be just down right boring!

Here's the harsh statement of the day: If you want to be taken seriously as a restoration artist (or a photographer, or whatever), mix it up a little! Or a lot! Have a little of everything in your portfolio! Having only colorization in a restoration gallery is like having 20 photo's of the same person and or the same pose in your photography portfolio! Yes, colorization is a part of a well rounded photo restoration portfolio, but it is not, on it's own, photo restoration! Just as taking a background out of a photo is not restoration, or taking out a person, or putting one in is not restoration. Those would be more along the lines of customization, or modification, where colorization would be retouching, but I think you get the idea.

Here's the bottom line: If you claim to be a restoration artist, show off your restorations! If all you have to show is your amazing colorizing skills, then tell it like it is! You're an amazing retoucher!

JAS Civil War Journal, Week 21

2009-06-17T07:30:00.003-05:00

In this, the 21st week of Adam's journal, he's been imprisoned at Belle Isle prison camp for more than 4 months, barely into the eventual two-plus years he'd remain in captivity. It's October, 1863, and the livin' ain't easy...

The spelling in the journal entries is Adam's own.

October 8
last night was very cold again the Day passed off very quiet except a few raids that has been made upon pies it was a nice warm Day

October 9
last night was very cold again I did not sleep but a little there was a lot of prisoners came in again this morning it was a nice warm Day

October 10
to Day I had nothing to eat but only my ration wich[which] was very hard on me my mouth is yet very sore it was a nice warm Day but cold nights

October 11
Sunday last night it was very cold again but to Day it was pretty warm there was not much treading of pies going on to Day it was all quiet in camp there was great ringing and tolling of allarm bells in Richmond last night

October 12
this morning we went out of camp to be counted I sold my tin pail for 2 rations of bread of wich[which] I eat one we have very fine Days but very cold nights

October 13
to Day the wheather was very nice again but the nights are awfull cold Pat foley is sick and I am tending to him I eat my other extra ration to Day from my pail wich[which] done me a good deal of good nothing else happened

October 14
this Day passed off very quietly there was not much going on in camp my health is very good now if I only had a litle more to eat the Day was nice and warm and the nights are not very cold

October 15
there was dreadfull tolling and ringing of bells again in Richmond last night I did not learn what for Pat foley went to the hospital to Day it was a nice warm Day and night

**Patrick Foley made it through his illness and imprisonment and lived until 1922**

October 16
this morning it commenced raining and rained about all Day the raiders took everything McCoy had this morning pies salt tobaco peper and tin cups there was a man shot again last night for going towards the bank to get water

October 17
this Day passed off without any importance the raiders have stoped all trading sold my deep dish for one ration of bread and meat the Day was nice and warm and night too

Smoothing Texture

2009-06-16T05:06:00.007-05:00

“So-called art restoration is at least as tricky as brain surgery. Most pictures expire under scalpel and sponge.” Alexander Eliot

Today I'm going to show you a super easy way to remove texture from on old photo. You know, those old photos that look like they were printed on watercolor paper, or something? Very arty, I'm sure, but not everyone likes that sort of thing. It's also very difficult to restore a photo with heavy texture, especially using the clone or patch tool. All the light's and dark's of the texture don't translate well with these tools. The photo I'm using in this tutorial was sent to me by Monica, who has graciously consented to let me use it here and in book form. Thank you, Monica!

Sometimes, the texture in a photo, while not looking horrible to the naked eye, once enlarged for restoration looks pretty bad. All it takes is a couple easy steps to smooth it out and get on with the restoration process!

Duplicate your background layer (Cmd / Ctrl + J). Now, to put on a little surface blur. This is the main piece of the whole process, everything else is just finishing touches. Go to Filter > Blur > Surface Blur. In the dialog box, enter a Radius of 2, Threshold of 95 levels. This is a guideline. Play with the settings a bit, see what happens to the photo. Different texture depth will need to be treated differently. However, your ultimate settings will probably be somewhere around these settings. Click OK.

I personally think the result of the surface blur is a bit too soft. Again, this is subjective. I put a little detail back with the High Pass Filter. The trick here is to go easy, not all Harry Potter on the thing. Subtle is good. Make a copy of the blurred layer (Cmd / Ctrl + J)Go to Filter > Other > High Pass.... I found a radius of 8.5 pixels to be just about right. Again, play. Experiment. Click OK.

Change the Layer Blend Mode to Soft Light.

Almost done! All that's left now is a little light clean up! Take the blur tool and size it to about 10, opacity at around 75%. Now go over any little rough edges. The High Pass filter will leave some edges looking like little icicles. Just smooth them out!

Now proceed with the standard restoration practices, and you're good to go!

TuneUp Gold Winner!

2009-06-15T04:29:00.003-05:00

Sadly, there weren't many entrants for this contest!Only 15 after two extra comments. Silly rabbits! If you didn't enter, you missed the chance to win a free license for a great iTunes clean up utility! But at least it made the odds better for you smart folks who entered!

The winner is #14, Sharon Faulk! Congratulations, Sharon, and thank you, and all the others, for entering my contest! I hope you enjoy letting someone else clean up your music collection!

Fribble Friday

2009-06-12T06:24:00.002-05:00

"You're the emblem of The land I love. The home of the free and the brave." George M. Cohan

Time for this week's Fribulations!

The craziness continues! I look back to a month or two ago and can't believe all that's been happening! A couple of the things I still can't share, but if they come about, it'll be astounding! Too me, anyway! But I think y'all will be happy for me, too! Some things, like the newspaper column in the local paper, you know about. We've also been asked to restore photo's for a new museum opening up here in town, and asked to have a booth at a local town fair in the fall. Then, yesterday, out of a clear blue sky, as in totally unsolicited, I swear!, I get an email from the vice president of the Fort Worth Genealogical Society. She works at the Fort Worth Star Telegram and read my current column. She asked me to speak at the FWGS monthly meeting in either August or September. So, in a very short time, I've gone from basically unknown and doing – not much, to getting a lot of really public gigs! Now, historically, this would be the time, even before this, actually, when I would sabotage the whole thing. Because of prior issues (ex-husband) with self worth, I'd naturally assume that I would soon be failing at whatever venture I was undertaking, so I might as well get it over with. I'd find reasons not to go, or put off planning until it was too late. But I'm not doing that. I haven't been doing that in some time, in fact. The proof of that is in my actually having entered the Photoshop User Awards this past year instead of finding reasons not to the previous year. One reason I'm remaining steadfast, the main reason, actually, are the nine little words my friend Nancy Masse gave me back when she was first mentoring me on this social media experiment I've partaken in, “What's the worst that can happen? Will you die?”. I've managed to keep these words in mind with every new challenge that's come about and that has given me perspective. So what if I fail? Will I die from it? No, I won't. So far, I've been very lucky. I haven't failed. That's not to say I won't, it just hasn't happened yet. My name and reputation have grown, my numbers, statistics, whatever, have risen steadily. I've got more projects than I can handle, almost, in fact, that's where the worst danger in failure lies, right now, in not getting the things done in the time frame allotted. A couple of projects coming up have a very real possibility for rejection. It's nerve wracking, but I have to keep asking myself, “will I die?”, and keep moving on. I'm rather excited to see what the next few months will bring!

I had a lesson, last week, in serendipity. I believe I made a random comment on Twitter mentioning the town where I live, Fort Worth. One of my NAPP/Twitter acquaintances, Doug Zeliff, aka the Hairy Baldman, commented back that he used to live in Aledo. I thought that was cool, because I had lived in Aledo, a smallish town about 20 miles west of Fort Worth, for 20 years. Believe me, Texas is a big place. The chances of someone having lived in Aledo, especially someone now living in California, are not that great! Through almost half a days worth of Tweets, we eventually found out that not only are we members of the same association, not only were we living in the same town, at the same time (that we knew some of the same people goes without saying – we're talking about Aledo, here), but we lived on the same street, about five houses apart, at the exact same time. We never actually met, that we recall (it was 16 years ago and I have a hard time remembering last week), but it brings the “small world” concept into perspective, doesn't it?

I hope everyone will enter the TuneUp contest, if they have iTunes, an iPod or an iPhone! I mean, seriously, it's free to enter, you might win, and if you do, you'll find it's almost the coolest thing since Popsicles! Even if you don't win, download the free version and check it out! I'd say “try it, you'll like it!”, but I won't...except I just did, didn't I?

One last thing. I have a favor to ask! If you could find the time, I have a little survey I'd like you to take. Just ten questions. Really easy one's, like your name, plus a few photo restoration related questions. Nothing super hard or long! Thank you in advance for your response!

Historical Blip: Sunday, June 14, is Flag Day. It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States by resolution of the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777. That would make Sunday the 232 anniversary of that event. Long may it wave.

Have a great weekend! Happy Flag Day!

Your Music Collection Is A Mess!

2009-06-11T06:53:00.009-05:00

“Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul” Plato

I had this old compilation CD with Southern Rock on it. Don't even remember where it came from. I'm pretty sure I didn't buy it, because there were only a few songs on it that I either liked or didn't have on another CD. Plus, it was in terrible shape, all scratched up. My CD's are all pretty much scratch free, thank you very much. Anyway, I decided I wanted to take a couple of songs off it to add to iTunes. One was Freebird by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Yeah, I used to have "Pronounced Leh-nerd Skin-nerd", but that was on vinyl and those 33 1/3 discs don't fit the new players, so well. The other song was “One Way Out” by the Allman Brothers. So off I go, into iTunes, to add these two classics into my tuneage. Image my shock, chagrin, even, when the songs showed up in iTunes, not as the songs they were supposed to be, by who they were supposed to be by, rather they were listed as “Street Corner Serenade” by Wet Willie and “Don't Misunderstand Me” by the Rossington Collins Band! Whhaaat? I tried to change it, manually, in iTunes, but, apparently it can't be done. So I set out to see if it could be “fixed”. In my quest I stumbled upon something really great. It's called TuneUp, and if you haven't heard of it, listen up: You may like it! If you do, you can register here, via comment, to win a license! More about that later. First, let's talk TuneUp!

TuneUp says our music collections are a mess, and they'll fix them,automagically! And, surprise! They do! What TuneUp is, essentially, is a cleanup application for iTunes, to fix all the “broken” things, like missing cover art and music labeled “unknown” and such. It does all that and so much more! TuneUp docks on the side of iTunes, making it handy to drag and drop files for cleaning, looking up band bios, or seeing which bands in your library are playing in your area. While at first it was hard for me to get used to having it docked there, I actually like it, now! I also thought, at first, all I'd use it for was to clean some mislabeled songs and replace some cover art, but was I ever wrong! Here's a run down of the features in TuneUp:

Clean - Fix the ID3 tags on your MP3's: With the “Clean” feature, you drag up to 500 songs at a time – those labeled “unknown” or the dreaded “track 01” irritations, even when the artist is labeled different ways on different tracks (The Rolling Stones vs. Rolling Stone, The). TuneUp fills in the missing metadata like artist, song name, album, release year and genre. What TuneUp does is take an “acoustic fingerprint” of the song and references it against a database of over 100 million indexed tracks. It actually “listens” to the music to identify it! You can do some field specific cleaning, which means you can set the metadata is saved by default. For instance, if you have a mixtape and you want to save the artist/track name, but you also want to keep the original mixtape Album label. In other words, you have more control over your environment! One thing I love is that you can disable Greatest Hits compilations to match songs to their original albums! Mac users can also choose if they'd like TuneUp to create playlists of dirty/cleaned songs.

Cover Art - Find and fill in missing album cover art: Those irritating gray music notes in your cover flow? When there's no cover art to be found by iTunes? TuneUp can bust a move all over that! I had nearly 300 tunes missing cover art and TuneUp found all but six. That is amazing! No drag & drop on this feature, simply choose “CoverArt” and it automatically checks your music library for missing cover art!

Tuniverse - Get the most out of the music you love: Artist bios from Wikipedia, YouTube videos, artist related auctions on ebay, all without ever leaving the iTunes interface! But that's not all! There's also album recommendations and song recommendations, as well as Google news based on what you listen to! Without TuneUp, I'd never have known the Toad the Wet Sprocket has extended their tour! Admittedly, that's mostly because I don't care, but I do love that band's name!

Concerts - Never (ever) miss another show: Not only can you find out, at a glance, if one of the bands in your music library is playing in your area, you get links to buy tickets to the show right there in your iTunes interface! No lie!

That's what TuneUp has! Now, this is what I'd like it to have! One thing I think would be really cool for TuneUp to add, one day, would be a lyrics tab. I'm a lyrics freak and, frankly, I'd love to be able to go directly to the lyrics for any song I happen to be listening to at the time, without going to Google, typing in the name, choosing a site, finding out it's one of those that people submit whatever “lyrics” they think are being sung!

I'm a little underwhelmed by the YouTube video section. Being one of the MTV watching pioneers, with fond memories of many of the great/stupid/weird/goofy videos of the 80's and 90's, I'd like those videos to be in the list when I play one of the old songs. Instead, I mostly get live versions of the songs. That would be a nice option, but not the only option, if you know what I mean.

I have to say that the original reason I found TuneUp, those two mislabeled songs/bands, well, that never got fixed. Ironically, those two songs were the only ones in my whole library that didn't get fixed! To be totally fair, TuneUp took all the information and is working on finding out why it didn't work and fixing it since it is, as they say, the thing that TuneUp is really meant to do!

All in all, I love TuneUp and the way it cleaned up my iTunes music library! If you have iTunes, an iPod or an iPhone, you really should check it out! At $19.95 for a yearly subscription, it's a good deal, but the really great deal is the one-time (forever!) license at $29.95! You can get your TuneUp at the TuneUp Store and TuneUp is now also available at Apple stores, worldwide!

Now, for the fun part! TuneUp is letting me give a license to one of you! In order to enter, you must follow these simple rules:

1.Comment on THIS THREAD in THIS BLOG. Only one comment per entrant! Repeats will not be counted!

2.In the comment, you must give me two pieces of information. First, I want to know how many tunes you have in your iTunes music library (mine's totally small, I only have 1939 tunes!). The other thing I want to know is what is the feature you think you'd use the most in TuneUp? If you want, for fun, you can also tell what you'd like to see in a future release of TuneUp!

That's it! Again, too easy! The contest only goes through Midnight Sunday, June 14, so enter now! I'll pick the winning comment with Random.org and announce the winner in a special post Monday morning. Since I don't want you to have to post your email for all the world to see, please check back then and see if you're the lucky winner!

JAS Civil War Journal, Week 20

2009-06-10T04:45:00.000-05:00

One thing that struck me in this 20th week of Adam's journal is how every entry is basically the same. It impressed me because that's how his days must have felt, long, endless days of mind numbing repetition. In this weeks first entry, he refers to sending a letter to his wife “by one of the 64 boys”, which leads me to think 64 men from the area in New York where he lived were being sent home. I wonder if he lived each day thinking, hoping, praying he'd be in the next batch, or if he'd given up hope of every going home by this time. A little of both, I imagine...

Once more for the record: Spelling is Adam's own and “pleasant” refers to the weather, not the good times they're having.

September 28
the prisoners did not go yesterday but went this afternoon 550 of them we are having some very cold nights but pleasant Days there was no more of any importance happened this day I send a letter to my wife by one of the 64 boys

September 29
to Day the weather was very pleasant and warm but nights are very cold I am loosing flesh and strengt[h] every Day we mooved in different tents this afternoon about 500 prisoners came in to night

September 30
to Day I mended my socks it was a nice warm Day but cold nights nothing more of importance happended to Day

October 1
this Day passed off without anything of any account except a good many rallys where [were] made on bread and pies and tobaco it was a pleasant warm Day

October 2
it commenced raining this morning and rained all Day bought 50 Cents worth of bread after breakfast and eat it and one pie for 50 Cents and eat it too it was pretty cool all day

October 3
to Day I was very hungry I eat 3 pies after breakfast and so did Peter after wich we felt very well it was a nice warm Day

October 4
Sunday I eat one pie before breakfast and 2 afterwards and Peter 2 Pet[er] sold his watch to Day to George Whipple for 16 $ and sold my gold pen for 2 $ wich [which] I am to take in tobaco and pies the day was nice and warm

October 5
this Day passed off pretty quiet I had all I want to eat of bread and pies and so did Peter but it cost us a good deal of money the Day was warm and nice but nights are cool there is no more signs of getting away than there was 2 months ago

October 6
to Day we was taken out and counted and the squads filled bought some potatoes and vinager for 2 Dolars and bought 9 pies too the rowdies rallied on our tent and tore it all to pieces but did not get the pies it was a warm Day

October 7
this morning we had to be counted over again there was some mistake made yesterday among some squads the pie trade goes on pretty well again to Day McCoy lost 20 $ last night in the rally it was a cool Day left off chewing tobaco

Photograms

2009-06-09T05:09:00.006-05:00

A photograph without a camera...is that even possible? Much to my naïve surprise, yes! It is! Sometimes I shock myself with my very lack of knowledge about the photographic and art world, and this is one of those times! Not being one for surrealistic art and artists (other than the Dali images you can't help but have seen if you have eyes and have been within a few feet of your cave), I kinda missed the whole Man Ray playing with photograms) thing, so I was seriously lacking in my photogram knowledge.

As previously stated, photograms, also called photogenic pictures and sun pictures, are photographic images made without the benefit of a camera, achieved by placing an object/objects on a photo-sensitive surface, such as photographic paper, and exposing it to light. I vaguely remember, way back in the day, doing something of the sort in an elementary school art class construction paper, a fern and the sun. A fun activity for school children, yes, but also, conversely, a huge milestone in photography!

In the year 1800, Thomas Wedgewood (not the potter, rather the son of the potter...) began making “sun pictures” by placing opaque objects on pieces of leather that had been treated with a silver nitrate solution and exposing them to natural light. An unfortunate side effect of these images were that if they were displayed in light stronger than candle light, the image faded rapidly. He may have figured out a way to fix the prints, however, as there is an example of a photogenic drawing of a leaf attributed to William Henry Fox Talbot (the inventor of the negative / positive photographic process) may in fact be by Wedgewood (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/arts/design/17phot.html?_r=1) and might date from 1804 or 1805. That's a lot of mights and maybes, but if true, Wedgewood would be the true inventor of the standard photographic process.

1790 or 1830, still amazing...

At any rate, there is little doubt that the sun picture of the leaf, be it the work of William Fox Talbot or Thomas Wedgewood, is one of the oldest surviving photographic prints in existence. It may even be as old as 1790 or thereabouts. Now stop and think about that a minute. A photographic image nearly 220 years old...

1839 H. F. Talbot

Slip Sliding Away

2009-06-08T06:26:00.004-05:00

“Experience does not ever err; it is only your judgment that errs in promising itself results which are not caused by your experiments” Leonardo da Vinci

So, someone brought me a dilemma. They have some slides, 127 Superslides, too be exact, which are larger than 35mm slides, with a smaller outside frame. They wanted them digitized and want to learn to do it themselves, rather than send them to a scanning service. Their dilemma is this: They don't have a scanner with a transparent media setting, they don't have a lightbox, or a copystand. All they have, basically, is a regular, everyday, low end scanner/printer combination, and they don't want to put the money into another scanner right now. That's their dilemma. Mine was to figure out how to digitize the scans so they would make nice prints, and do it in a way they can emulate and do themselves. I'll say up front, the way I finally came up with, that looked the best to me, is a pain in the posterior! I strongly recommend if you have more than ten slides, either opt for the scanning service or the $150 it would take to buy a scanner that has settings for transparent media! That's ten slides if you're a patient person, by the way. If it were me, I'd probably bail with anything over three.

The first thing I did was to perform some due diligence and see what others had come up with in a situation like this. There wasn't very much, at all, and what there was simply didn't work for me the way they were supposed to. So, I started from scratch. I left the scanner on the normal scan settings and pretended that's all I could do, totally dumbed the scanner down. When you scan the slides this way, you get what can be best described as a 3D look...only not the neat look you get when you view through 3D glasses, rather the separated color weirdness you see before you put the glasses on. So I figured I needed to come up with a way to merge the separation, if you will. What I came up with was a pretty time intensive method, but it works, for the most part. This works best if you have access to a moveable kelvin light source. The particular source I used was 6500k desk lamp.

One of the most important things you should remember when scanning slides, no matter the method used, is that you need to clean them!! I don't care if they've been in the storage box since the day they were made, those boogers are dirty! Clean the dust off with compressed air, holding the can well back from the slide. Clean both sides! This isn't necessary, of course, especially if you just love repairing dust spots in Photoshop! If that's you, skip the previous step. I initially made a series of “test runs” to see exactly where the light source shone on the finished scan. I recommend doing this, as the light causes a huge amount of blown out glare if it shines anywhere on the slide. I wonder if this would be remedied with a “filter”, perhaps a sheet of transparent vellum, but that has yet to be determined. Each slide will be a two scan process.

Leaving the scanner lid up (or off, if you wish), I directed the light source (6500k lamp, in this case) in the direction of, but not directly on the scanner glass (towards the wall at the back of the scanner, where the lid would be, is a good place to start). Place the slide on the glass where the light source is the weakest. Run the scan. Make sure there's no glare on the scan, using the preview. I initially scanned at 300 dpi, then 600dpi. I eventually settled at 900 dpi, in this instance. 35mm slides allow for very high resolution. Please note: these scans made with the kelvin light source will be in black and white! This is scan #1.

Scan again without moving the slide, but this time, turn off the light source (lower scanner lid if you want). This scan will be in color and will look pretty blurry. This is scan #2.

Bringing both scans into Photoshop, merge them into a single file. Place the black and white (scan #1) at the bottom of the layer stack, the color (scan #2) above it. Select both layers Go to Edit > Auto-Align Layers, Projection: Auto.

Now, I'm going to go a little crazy on the adjustment layers. It seemed the only way, at the moment, to get the clear enough, light enough look I was going for! First, a levels Adjustment. In the Adjustments panel, Levels, go into each color space separately, Red, Green, Blue, and move the sliders, in this case it will be the Highlight, or white, sliders, to the left until they're within the area where the information starts.

Back in the Layers panel, bring the opacity of the Levels Adjustment Layer to around 25%. For our next adjustment: Curves! Back in the Adjustments panel, select Curves. You can certainly go the tried and true route, here, and make selections with the eyedropper tools, the darkest area for the black, midtone for the gray, white for white, you know the drill. However, here I challenge you to step outside the box...or, actually, inside the box! The preset box! Scroll through the presets to see which look you like, if any. I went with the Strong Contrast (RGB) preset. It gave the slide, well, a stronger contrast!

In the Layers panel, bring the opacity of the Curves Adjustment Layer down to about 75%. For the third and last Adjustment Layer, we go back to the Adjustments panel and chose Hue/Saturation. In the Master channel selection, bring the Saturation up in the +20 - +30 range. You may want to go in and tweak by color, also, if you're so inclined. It's your project!

It's looking better, but the areas in the photo that have remained gray are a problem. Make a new blank layer at the top of the layer stack. Sampling colors from the surrounding areas, go over the washed out areas. Modify the colors, if you wish, to make them a little brighter, for instance. Switch the blend mode before you paint the color on, so you'll see the areas to paint. Don't automatically go with the Color Blend Mode! In most cases, I've found Overlay to look better, more natural. Adjust the opacity until the painted area blends in. I found lowering it to around 15% - 20% worked well for what I wanted. If it still looks a bit drab after you put the “color wash” on it, put another Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer over it, adjusting the Saturation to around +16.

There you have it! I tried this method on three different slides and had a consistent result. I think I'll probably just stick to the Transparent Media settings on the scanner, from now on, though! :-D

And The Winner Is...

2009-06-08T04:07:00.003-05:00

The winner of the two 20x30 Mpix prints, as chosen by Random.org is (drumroll, please...)#12, Nick Martel! (applause!!!) Congratulations to Nick and a big thank you to all who entered! A new contest begins this Thursday! I'll be giving away a user license for a very cool iTunes app called TuneUp! Be sure to read the product review and enter for your chance to win!

Fribble Friday

2009-06-05T05:24:00.003-05:00

Happy Fribday!

Well, it's been a week, hasn't it? In more ways than one. I got some potentially great, rather exciting news this week! A door has been cracked open, and I have to do some work to walk through it, but if I can, there's a party waiting on the other side! Not to mention some major hard work! If things come together, I'm going to have a few months of non-stop work aside from my regular work. I'm going to have to focus on focusing! I'll let y'all know what's going on as soon as I'm able! In the meantime, fingers crossed, please!

It's been pretty rainy this week, here in my part of Fort Worth, and I've been busy. The weeds in the gardens have started to get away from me, so I went out to do a little of that odious chore this morning. As I was weeding in amongst the Zinnia's, I spied a little bit of fur. After my heart stopped pounding, my having figured that if it was a mouse (a dang big mouse, by the way!), it would have taken off because I was reaching for the weed it was leaning against when I spied it, I looked closer. It's a baby bunny!!! No sign of mama, just yet, but I hope she's around. This really shows me I need to be careful letting Harleigh out in the mornings! Corgi's love to herd and that's all I need is her rounding up a pack of wild baby bunnies and herding them into the house!

My friend Firgs is giving away a NAPP membership! Yep, you read correctly! She's giving away a year's membership in the National Association of Photoshop Professionals! All you have to do to enter is go to her awesome blog, Design by Firgs, and comment on THIS article! Seriously! That's all! This contest ends Sunday (June 7), so I urge you to enter, now! Genealogists, family historians, scrapbookers, or just anyone who likes to take and or mess with photos, or uses or plays with Photoshop, at all, will benefit so much from NAPP! There are amazing tutorials, incredible discounts, seminars (members get a free Kelby Training class every month!), and a really friendly, helpful forum (if I do say so myself...and I DO!). Even if you don't win this membership, look into NAPP! For $99 a year (BTW, that price has never, EVER gone up!) you will have access to the best training, tutorials and help you can get, anywhere! Plus, if you buy a few pieces of software or camera gear a year (among many other product discounts), you'll save enough with the discounts you'll receive to pay for the membership! Another great benefit of membership is a subscription to Photoshop User magazine! More great tips and tutorials! Hey, the magazine alone sells for $10 on the newsstand! You do the math! To join NAPP, use this link, or click the NAPP link in the sidebar on your right to get a goody for signing up on my link! Now, get your fanny over to Design by Firgs, comment, and give Firgs a chance to set you up right! Tell her Janine sent ya!...okay, that's so not necessary, I just always wanted to say it...

Speaking of contests, Sunday's also the last day to enter my Mpix giveaway! I have to admit, when I put the contest together, I made it a week longer than I meant to – seems I misplaced a week somewhere! So take advantage of my boo-boo and enter today!! The winner will be announced on Monday (June 8)! Check this blog Monday to see if it's you! Good luck to all!

This coming Thursday I'll be giving away yet another cool gizmo! (Do I take care of you, or what?) It's a nifty little application for your iTunes that will leave you positively giddy with organizational goodness! It's called TuneUp, and you'll LOVE it, trust me! More details about TuneUp and the contest on Thursday!

Have a wonderful, safe weekend, everyone! See ya back here on Monday!

Grandma Said...

2009-06-04T04:43:00.002-05:00

Last week I put forth a little diatribe on supporting “facts” found on the Internet regarding genealogy and family history. This week I'll put forth my opinions on family lore. Those stories that rebound through the family for ages. Family lore, oral traditions, are very important, yet highly questionable. The identity of the source of the story, the channel through which it came to be, should always be identified and should always be explained in the first reference note, as should the lack of source identity, or channel.

I have my own theory of how to deal with family lore. If it's a non-provable tale, anecdotal, or hearsay, that doesn't reflect on history, I make note of that and leave it. There's nothing, in most cases, to prove or disprove. It just is. Take, for instance, this tale of when my Great-Grandmother, Annie, and Great-Grandfather, William, were courting:

Annie was working as a live-in maid in New York City and William drove a milk wagon. It was said that William would “ call” on Annie. Literally, he would stand in the street, and she would be at the house and he would talk to her from there, or “call” to her! Annie's employer didn't want to lose their maid, and, worried that the couple were getting serious, took to throwing water out the window on William, to discourage him. Luckily, it didn't work!

This tale is pretty much unprovable. No records were made of the facts, no photo's taken to record the events for posterity. It's just a story. It just is. One big point in it's favor, though: provenance. From the French “provenir” meaning “to come from”, provenance means the source, or the origin of something. Family stories that come directly from a specific source, especially the person that the event actually happened to, obviously carry more weight than a vague tale of no specific origin. This story was one of those told and repeated, often, by Annie throughout her life.

The same with the story of Annie and her kids being within a hairsbreadth of being on the General Slocum when it met it's doom in 1904. Since the General Slocum tragedy was a documented historical fact, I've had people ask what proof I had of Annie having supposed to have been on that ill fated voyage. The answer is, I have no proof other than Annie's word. While it's a fact that Annie and William were indeed members of St. Mark's Lutheran Church at that particular time, and lived in Little Germany in NYC. The likelihood that she and her sister were intending to go on the excursion is far more compelling then not. That, coupled with the fact that she never claimed that she was actually on the Slocum, therefore making herself a direct participant in history instead of on the peripheral, gives added credence to the story. It would be a totally different thing if she had claimed to have actually been on board the vessel that morning. It would have then been eminently more provable. As it was, tickets were sold for the excursion and if there was a list of those who bought tickets, it was kept at the church itself. The actual passenger list was probably made as the people boarded the vessel. This was a Sunday School excursion, not a trans-Atlantic voyage. The nature of these things were that people in the church bought tickets, then invited people to join them. Some accepted, some declined, some had to back out, some decided to come at the last minute. It would have been impossible to have made a passenger list based on who bought tickets. It also only made sense to make the list from people actually physically boarding. In the event of a tragedy, the idea was to have access to a list of actually physical bodies present when the ship sailed.

On the other hand, if it's a story that changes history, including family history, like, for instance, an entire bloodline, or in which someone is put forward as a participant in a historical event, every attempt should be made to prove or refute it. An example of this would be all the stories told in my family to explain away the fact that my Great-Grandfather, Willis, seemingly had no father. Virtually sprang up out of the old cabbage patch, he did! Now, first I must say that I was denied the privilege of knowing my Grandma Mattie, Willis' daughter, and of growing up with my cousins. I'm still very much on the outside looking in with regards to this situation. Still, when I first found some cousins and was learning about my Smith history, the question of Willis was dealt with by three different scenarios:

1.He was really the son, not the grandson, of Holden and Amy (Cole) Corp and Elizabeth Corp was his sister, not his mother
2.He was found on the doorstep when the family just happened to move from the place they'd lived their entire lives for a five year stay in another city
3.He was the illegitimate child of Elizabeth and an unnamed co-defendant, possibly by the name of Bronson, hence Willis' middle name, Bronson, which was not a family name.

My Cousin, David, and I really want to get to the bottom of this mystery, if at all possible. I mean, it's a potentially brand new family line to explore! New people to “meet”! How thrilling that would be! So we put a little thought into it and, independent of each other, came up with one James Bronson being the most likely candidate for the sperm donation. Numbers 1 & 2, above, just didn't make sense or the “evidence cut”, frankly. Then, all of the sudden, a fourth scenario was thrown in the mix. One I'd never heard, though, being the outsider, that was possible. It just seems I would have heard it, however, since the person claiming it to be the truth of the matter was the person who'd initially given me theories one through three! Cousin David hadn't been enlightened as to scenario #4, either, and he'd been around the family his whole life, even to the extent of working on the family history for a long time with our Aunt Fern. You'd have thought he'd have heard this fourth theory. But I digress...

This fourth scenario had Holden and Amy and Elizabeth taking a trip to England in 1861/62. Not sure if they stayed or just turned around and came back, but on the way back they met and became such good friends with a couple, the Bronsons, natch, that when they took sick and died, Holden and Amy adopted their newborn baby, Willis, and came back and went directly to Darien, NY, even though they'd lived in Fulton for...forever it seemed – and stayed five years. There's no evidence, in any way, shape, or form, of anyone in this family having ever even been near any body of water larger than Lake Erie, not are there stories/memorabilia from a (then, certainly) huge trip across the ocean to England. There was also a little war going on at that time, which you'd think might make it hard to just go off on a pleasure cruise. By the way, did normal, everyday low to middle income carpenters from small towns take pleasure cruises, back then? Also, it's so sad /odd/ improbable that the poor, mysterious Bronsons of Merry Olde England had no relations whatsoever, who might be more likely to take up the raising of poor, wee Willis. Despite all that, this story, it's now said, is the story Grandma Mattie told, and therefore must be the truth. It will be the one told in this persons family history, because that's the way Grandma wanted it and we must abide by her wishes. Except still, to this moment, there is no note on the online family history on this matter, only that Willis is the child of Holden and Amy (Cole) Corp.

Family stories were sometimes made up out of whole cloth, for various reasons, most often to hide something considered “shameful”. Illegitimacy, though it seems pretty ignorant to us, today, was a horrible stigma in the past. Various stories were concocted to explain the existence of a child born out of wedlock, if the child was kept in the family. Sometimes the child was given to relatives, such as the girls parents, to raise as their own. This, of course, would necessitate a trip out of town for a while if the child were being passed off as their own. Attempts were made to hide the truth. Stories were made up, stuck to, passed down. Families didn't want anyone to know about the black sheep, the skeletons, the misfortunes, and, of course, if you didn't talk about it, it never happened. These cover stories were even told within families, and retold through successive generations to further bury the truth. Society being what it was back then, I guess I can understand the desire to bury facts about your family. Sort of. But while I may understand, I certainly don't agree and I don't understand why anyone would want to go on burying their heads in the sand today! Families are made up of a rich and varied tapestry of wackos, nut cases, screw ups, geniuses (even mad ones!), and odd balls. It's this tapestry that makes us what we are and we should embrace it and celebrate it, not sweep it under the carpet for yet another generation!

All this to say that I don't believe every family story should be taken with a grain of salt, simply accepted without question. I don't believe the wishes of people long dead to cover up what to them was an embarrassment should be adhered to. I believe we owe it to ourselves, our future generations and our history to find, prove and source what we can and make note in the historical record of what we can't, along with all possible and probable theories. Leave clues behind for some future family detective to bust the cold cases wide open!

JAS Civil War Journal, Week 19

2009-06-03T05:32:00.001-05:00

More hunger, sickness and death for Adam and the other prisoners on Belle Isle this week. In some of the entries, it seems tobacco is as important as food. Maybe it is, to them. Adam is still suffering from a sore mouth, though if it's a symptom of scurvy, as yet, which all the prisoners had to contend with consisting on a fruit and vegetable-less diet, or not, I'm not sure. He mentioned his mouth being sore many times, even back in the days before his capture and imprisonment, so maybe it's just the result of the times (lack of regularly proper diet and bad dental hygiene?).

Regularly scheduled disclaimer: Spell, or lack thereof, is Adams own, thank goodness. Also, when referring to a “pleasant day”, we aren't talking about “Big fun in the prison camp, tonight!”, we're talking about the weather not sucking...

September 18
the [they] still keep on paroling prisoners there was some over 200 prisoners came in to Day it rained a good deal to Day James North began to get very sick a lot of prisoners got paroled by giving
5 Dolars a piece it was a cool Day

September 19
it commenced to rain at 12 last night and rained all Day to Day I was up a good share of the night with James North he died this morning between 4 and 5 oclock this morning I was out with him and then had to carry him back to our tent where he then died within 5 minutes I found on his body 10 cents and 5 postamps

**James North (Co. K, 154th NY) from Fulton, New York, is buried in Richmond National Cemetery. The official date of his death is September 18, 1863, but, according to this, he actually died on the 19th. I think, since Adam was the one with him when he died, I'll take his word for it. Not of much consequence, only as an aside to the fact that the dates on gravestones aren't always 100% right. I almost said they're not written in stone, but I stopped myself...only, apparently I didn't, did I?**

September 20
it was a very cold night I did not sleep any it rained most all night and raines yet this morning and snowes some nothing of any importance happened it was a very cold Day

September 21
it was very cold again last night I did not sleep but a litle we was taken out and counted again the parolled prisoners went off this evening to go to city point it was a nice cool Day

September 22
the boys went off this morning feeling pretty well there was nothing of any great importance happened it was very cold last night I did not sleep any and it was pretty cold to Day

September 23
we had an awfull cold night again for the season a man could not sleep this morning we was taken out and the squads filled up again there is poor signs of our getting off from here we had a very nice and pleasant Day

September 24
to Day I mended my socks and washed my feet and wrote a letter to my wife this is the first Day I am without tobaco on the island it was a nice pleasant Day

September 25
to Day a lot more prisoners came in I had no tobaco all Day I suffer a good deal for the want of something to eat and tobaco it was a nice Day but it commenced raining towards night

September 26
we are having some awfull cold nights I dont hardly sleep any my mouth is very sore yet the[y] began to parole some of the prisoners again it was a nice pleasant Day

September 27
Sunday this morning a lot more prisoners came in the[y] are still paroling I was quiet [quite] sick last night and dont feel very well yet 700 prisoners is a going out to night it was a very pleasant Day

Destination: Patch

2009-06-02T05:30:00.001-05:00

"As much as I love the program... It’s Photoshop .. School will be open on its birthday!" Rafael (RC) Concepcion

I know someone who has Photoshop and likes to restore photos. While we were talking, recently, she told me she hardly ever uses anything but the default settings in a lot of the tools. I was fairly stunned, as this lady, who's very talented, by the way, has been using Photoshop nearly as long as I have! You see, I feel that by only using the default settings, in any program, not just Photoshop, you severely limit yourself, you stunt your skill growth. So, in the spirit of that thought, we're going to go outside the (default) lines of the Patch tool to fix some trees.

This photo, of the church and graveyard at Petersburg, Virginia, is a Civil War era photo (the uniforms are a big clue, eh?) that first caught my eye because my Great-Great Grandfather, Philip Deringer was killed in the Battle of the Crater at Petersburg in 1864, and is buried in Poplar Grove National Cemetery. I was interested in anything pertaining to the Civil War in Petersburg. The photo is actually a stereoscopic photograph, though I didn't know it when I first found it. However, even though there's a copy of the photo, the left side, this being the right, it doesn't help to fix the trees, because that's the area cut off the other photo.

The default setting of the Patch tool is Source, meaning you choose the area you want repaired, then pull that selection to the area you want to replace it. But lets just suppose, for a minute, that you want to select, say, an entire tree, to replace a section. You could either eyeball it and hope you have the rough shape right, or you can change the setting to Destination. This setting allows you to choose the area you want to replace the damage with and move it to the desired location. Same church, different pew, if you will.

Lets say you really want one of the trees to the left of the photo to be part of the tree repair on the right of the picture. Now, like I said before, you can just use the Source setting of the patch tool and you'll get however much of the tree you've selected, but you want basically the whole tree. No, I don't know why. This is pretend. Work with me...

In the Patch Tool menu above the work area in Photoshop, move the selection from Source to Destination. Now make a rough outline of one of the trees. Now move the selection to the damaged area. You might notice it's very dark overall, which is okay and that some parts are very, very dark, which we'll take care of later.

Continue this with other areas, if you like. I used the same tree, the other tree and a tree trunk to fix some of the damaged areas.

Looks good, right? Wrong. Looks pretty icky, actually. The patched areas are very obvious, not to mention a lot of the roof of the church got moved into the stand of trees. So, now we fix. For this, we go back to the default setting of the Patch Tool, Source.

Selecting the problem areas (church roof, obvious edges, areas that patched too black for the photo...just general messiness), drag to other areas around them that look good, and the leafy areas of the two trees at the left of the photo. Patching from both areas serves a two-fold purpose: It keeps things from getting to repetitive, pixel cloudy, and gives more of a tonal diversity, resulting in a more realistic look.

Clean up any areas, especially around the edges, that don't Patch well with the Clone tool set to a lower opacity (I used 50%) to avoid Clone “circles”, or the shape / size of the brush. By the way, I repaired the bottom edge of the Petersburg Church photo using the technique I covered yesterday! In case you were interested!

On Edge

2009-06-01T05:30:00.000-05:00

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I have not lived.” Henry David Thoreau

If you have an old photo with portions of edge damage on simple, plain background, here's a quick fix tip that will save a little tedious repair work. This method isn't good for complicated, detailed backgrounds. This tutorial was written in Photoshop CS4, but could easily be done in Elements, or any photo editing program on the planet (PEPP).

In this photo there's some burning and tearing around the edges. While we still need to clone, etc, to fix the busier areas, the wide open, simple background will get an equally simple fix. Open the photo in Photoshop (or any PEPP). Duplicate the layer (Ctrl/Cmd + J). Now copy the copy (Ctrl/Cmd + J...again...)

Turning off the background layer, and the top layer, move the middle layer over until the damaged portion is no longer visible.

On the top layer, using a low opacity (20% is good) Eraser brush, erase the damaged portion, revealing the undamaged background beneath. Using the eraser at such a low opacity allows you to blend the layers into one another a little better.

After you're finished with a section, merge the working layer with the layer under it. If you need to move to another area using the same technique, simply make a new copy of the background layer and move it where you need to, continuing to work on the top, or working layer! With a little creativity, you could also employ this method in other areas (trees? walls?). Think of it as Cloning sans Clone Tool! It doesn't get much simpler!

Fribble Friday

2009-05-29T04:22:00.004-05:00

Happy Friday!

There was a bit of controversy over my article, yesterday, on the difference in sourcing genealogy versus family history (1 comment, 3 emails - all very nice and friendly!). I'd like to point out that the sourcing I was referring to was dealing with third party facts, such as you'd find on the Internet, not family stories/lore. Myself, being little old anal me, I still try to prove, (even source!) family stories the best I can. I've been able to prove, and disprove, a few of the stories in my family and am in the process of trying to do the same with more of them. I'm not content with sleeping dogs, and have to have as much viable proof as I can manage. However, the point of yesterdays article was to stress the need for sourcing information found on the internet, not family stories. I stand by that.

I've been getting quite a few photos sent to me to consider for examples in the book on photo restoration I'm writing. I'm still looking for more, so please keep sending! I'll also be needing, at some point in the future, some volunteers to work through the tutorials I write and give me feedback. I'll be looking for people of different skill levels and software preferences, (Photoshop CS4, CS3, Elements 7.0, 6.0...maybe even some other editing programs) to help me determine just how "useable" the techniques really are and the results achieved. If you're interested, drop me a line. I'm not at the testing stage, yet. Just looking to be prepared!

There's a little over a week left to get yourself entered in the Mpix print contest! Two massive 20x30 prints of your photos are nothing to sneeze at! That's totally in the "Good Stuff" category! Simply leave a comment, answering one of the questions posted in the article for a chance to win! Don't rely on answers posted by others, though! They could very well be wrong! Good luck to all who enter!

Have a marvelous weekend!