Stanley Halpin wrote: > Malcom - about 3 years ago my wife gathered up existing portraits of > her step-mother Audrey and spread them around the house to be viewed by > guests at the 95th birthday party we put on for Audrey. Some family > snaps, some studio shots. The images started with Audrey at 3 months in > 1917 and continued on through the early 1960s. I subsequently scanned > those, put them into a Blurb book, copies of which we sent to several > family members who might want such a family "scrapbook." I scanned > using the Epson V600 and found it quite pleasant to use; not terribly > slow, decent quality, etc. Many of the photos had annotations on the > backside; I scanned those as well and included those images in the book > as captions for the photos. > > I love the flexibility I have via Blurb or others of its ilk to be able > to create multiple copies of a photo scrapbook! And even though these > of Audrey were fairly decent shape and didn't require much post > processing, it was nice to be able to enhance contrast, etc. to bring > out details from the original prints. I didn't give much thought to the > possibility that the original studios would still be in business after > 70-95 years and in most cases the studio wasn't identified on the print > or frame. So I basically ignored whatever copyright issues might have > obtained. > > I have also played with scanning some early B&W prints from my own > youth. These are not in good condition, with curling a major issue. One > tip for dealing with this: removable double-sided cello tape, aka > Artists' Tape, to attach the offending photo to a backing before > scanning.
Thanks Stan, that's really interesting. Until I'd asked the question here, I didn't really appreciate how far forward scanners have moved on. We've had several over the years and they've done what they claimed to do, but the results weren't great. Whilst I only have a box of photographs to do, no doubt others will come along that could be better distributed electronically. Many of my cousins no longer live locally and being able to scan and send (or copy to a CD and post) would be a great thing to do, as I'm certain that many of the photographs I have of their parts of the family they have never seen. The photo scrapbook is a great idea, and I'm sure it went down very well. I'll certainly try the double sided tape for curling prints, I'm sure I still have loads of thin white cardboard somewhere to use for a backing. I don't know where time goes; my eldest was just in primary school when I first found the PDML and he has recently started University having taken a gap year! It's important to try and record - and pass on - life as it happens because if you blink and miss it, it's gone for good. Malcolm -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
