|
Post by chak on Oct 21, 2010 19:05:25 GMT -5
Was just playing with sdcheung's photos of his grandparents' tomb plaque. If you have photos you want stitched together, or if they have dust or scratches or tears you want removed, I can try. I have gotten so much out of this forum, I feel like I have to do something to "pay it forward"! Thanks! Carol Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by chak on Oct 21, 2010 19:06:16 GMT -5
example of "stitched" photo. Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by sdcheung on Oct 21, 2010 20:04:14 GMT -5
Thank you!, sip fun do qia (many thanks in Hakka).
I knew my Grandparents, they passed away in my late late late teens and in my early 20s.
They were buried up in Watervliet, New York.
That was a Poem he left for us Grandkids, a poem to pass down the Generations and his lineage, In short, what he wanted was if his descendants wanted to go look for traces of him, they should start at the ancestral village in Wuhua County, Guangdong and then go to Lingnan University. He was proud of the start of the Zhang Family Tree and Lineage in America.
|
|
|
Post by Ah Gin on Oct 22, 2010 4:04:06 GMT -5
Carol,
I have what looks like a photo / charcoal sketch of my GGF and GGM. The ravage of Time has taken its toll, but I managed to transport (hand luggage, on my lap, from Kaiping to home). I now need to restore the photo/sketch, as parts of the photos have been eaten (I think) by book worms? Where shall I start? Can you help? Any advice will be gratefully received.
PS: I am no photo geek, nor computer geek for that matter, but willing to have a go to restore, given the right tools. I do have a simple digital camera and a scanner. The photo is a traditional portrait size, ie, big, hanging over our family home in China for many years.
Regards, Ah Gin
|
|
|
Post by chak on Oct 22, 2010 10:16:38 GMT -5
Ah Gin, I use Photoshop but have heard that GIMP www.gimp.org/ is pretty good. It’s a free image/photo editing program that lets you work in layers and has a “cloning” tool, two features that are important in fixing up old photographs. I like layers because I can work on different areas separately while keeping the original intact on a layer of its own. A cloning tool lets you paint over bad areas (worm holes) with pixel data from other areas of your photo. A digital camera, scanner and software are all I use – and even then, it’s either the camera or the scanner, not both. Usually you can get better resolution if the photo is scanned than you can with a digital camera. If you go that route, make sure your scanner is a flatbed one – not a sheetfed one because the latter usually gives lower resolution and has the potential to “eat” a fragile, older photographs. Can you take a digital picture so I can see the damage to the sketch of your GGF and GGM? Tears or dust that don't go through the faces, like in this photo of my grandparents, is a fairly easy fix. Carol Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by Doug 周 on Oct 22, 2010 10:39:38 GMT -5
Carol,
Nice photo touch up. This inspires me and adds to my To-Do list. Thanks for your explanation about layering.
Photoshop is expensive.
¿In your opinion, do you think GIMP can do the job as well and as 'easily' for a newbie like me?
Doug
|
|
|
Post by chak on Oct 22, 2010 15:37:49 GMT -5
Doug,
GIMP has a healing tool. I've outlined how to use it: Open image file. From the tool box, click on the healing tool (band aid icon). Press and hold the Ctrl key and move your cursor to a "clean" area. Click the mouse and release Ctrl key. Move to the "bad" area and start painting. It will blend the copied section with the colors and lighting of the area being painted for a pretty good, quick fix.
GIMP also has a cloning tool which looks and works like a stamp. It is similar to the healing tool except it paints an exact copy instead of blending them into the bad areas.
I've tried to do a screen capture so you can decide for yourself whether it's something you could do yourself. The scratch/tear is fixed with the healing tool and the face is painted with the cloning tool.
|
|
|
Post by Ah Gin on Oct 22, 2010 15:47:14 GMT -5
Carol,
Many thanks for response and advice. Over our weekend I will take a photo and send them to you to have an expert eye look. Who knows, you may recognise my GGF, as he worked in in the US for many years and returned home to Kaiping in his retirement. My GGF may know your family etc. way back.
I will be back directly.
Regards, Ah Gin
|
|
|
Post by geoff on Oct 22, 2010 23:16:01 GMT -5
Hello Chak,
Your subject is timely.....
While cleaning out Mum's garage, I have discovered many packets of single black & white negatives dated 1930's - 1940's....with no photos in packets. Have you had any experience/advice on trying to view these very old negatives on computer?
|
|
|
Post by chak on Oct 23, 2010 23:25:36 GMT -5
Hi Geoff, My old flatbed scanner has an attachment for scanning negatives which has been fine for my use. If you are interested in quality, dedicated film scanners or having a service do it for you will give a better result at a much higher cost. I’ve never tried those portable slide and negative scanners but if you have many negatives to scan, these little scanners (usually around $100) might be an option. www.imagelab.us/fs5c05scanner.htmlIf not, you can just scan them in like you do with regular photos. Then, reverse the colors with photo imaging software. I use Photoshop which is pricey if you are buying it today. Photoshop Elements is similar to Photoshop but without prepress capabilities and can be purchased for a little over $100. You can even use the free software, GIMP, which is a fairly easy process. Basically, you just OPEN the IMAGE, then go to COLOR and select INVERT which will change the negative into a positive. For this example, I’ve also used COLOR > LEVELS to adjust the black and white levels and then used COLOR to increase the CONTRAST. If your negatives are old - fading, color shifting and scratches may have affected your them and it might be better to have a film lab do the processing. Maybe you could ask them for a contact sheet vs individual prints? Carol
|
|
|
Post by kerry on Oct 24, 2010 3:15:34 GMT -5
Had the Canon flatbed scanner for several years. t had the negative scanner and was really good. It's recently started misbehaving so picked up one of the dedicated negative scanners. The newer one is faster to scan through a roll of images - doesn't give as high a res but that's mostly unimportant.
off topic: my strategy was to also replace the scanner with a hand held scanner - will come in handy for field trips to libraries and archives. However, it is subject to distortion since you need to move the scanner at a constant velocity. Not great results yet but I may just need more practice.
|
|
|
Post by chak on Oct 24, 2010 6:01:30 GMT -5
Kerry, I've been looking at those hand held scanners too. Do you know if they scan as text or images? If the latter, I am wondering if our digital cameras would do the same thing? My scanner is a Canon too, an old workhorse and too bulky to carry around. When I go to my local NARA branch, I usually just take digital photos of the document pages to avoid the charge for copying. In fact, talking about digital cameras: I put this negative on a light table so my light source was coming from behind. I took a digital picture, without flash. When I brought it into the computer, inverted and desaturated it, I was surprised that the quality was so much better than scanning the photo without using negative attachment. If someone has a lot of negatives, this would be a fast and easy solution for documentation purposes. Attachments:
|
|
|
Post by Henry on Oct 24, 2010 13:37:38 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by chansomvia on Oct 24, 2010 16:40:05 GMT -5
I will put in my two cents worth on retrieval of old negatives and enhancement have lots of old black and white negatives and color slides which needed saving, some could not be saved as were stored in the humid jungles of Malaysia.
Copying 35mm color slides and negatives was done by buying on ebay a slide copier for less than US$80, it came with a very good software for manipulating the copied images.
Dealing with the older 2"x2" and 2"x3", I presume in Geoff's case 35mm films were not available in the 30's and 40's, I initially used a flatbed scanner which had an attachment which could copy transparencies and negative films as it had a separate light source. The slide copier could not copy the larger negatives.
The flatbed scanner did not give me the close control I wanted as it scanned the whole lot, I did not want to keep cropping to zoom into parts I wanted, especially cutting out the fungus eaten edges of the slides. So I made a copier by using 2 pieces of 3mm board with aperture cut to suit the negative, clipped the negatives on the board, put a diffused indirect light source behind it and used a digital camera set on macro focus to take the picture. I used a tripod to hold the camera steady. I could control the depth of focus and exposure with the digital camera unlike the scanner. Focusing was interesting as the negative warped as it warmed up with the lamp heat so one had to be quick. I took many photos of the slide and erazed the ones that did not come out well, a case of trial and error.
The software from the purchased slide copier was OK for the inversion, the negative black and white came out positive but a lot of enhancement was needed to edit out the hues, bring out the shadows and brighten the highlights, crop, repair spots and scratches, cut out distracting backgrounds, and so much more. I use Picasa and Gimp. These are free, and there are many more free software. My son's uses Photoshop and Coreldraw which had hundreds of things one could do, was beyond what I needed, also cannot teach an old dog new complicated tricks.
It is amazing what trickery could be done with the digital images, also with slide copy software one can make a very slick slide show with fanciful zooming and interleaving transitions, add music etc. OCR as mentioned by Henry has been a lifesaver, I did not realise it could be used for Chinese.
I hope this is of help, importing images into digital form can make many a gloomy day into an exciting and fulfilling time.
Joe (2000 aftershocks in Christchurch and still counting)
|
|
|
Post by chak on Oct 24, 2010 18:04:02 GMT -5
Henry, thank's for the scanner link. Mine is an Epson but big, bulky, older than 15 years and was really expensive at the time. Can't believe the new ones are so light - and inexpensive - and have OCR capability. I'm going shopping tomorrow!
Chansomvia, the light table I used is a kid's light up tracing desk which doesn't get very hot at all. I'm glad you mentioned using a tripod to take the digital pictures because, getting that close, you really need one!
Was surprised to hear you've had so many aftershocks and that they are continuing - what is it - almost two months after the quake?! I hope the restoration can stay ahead of them and pray they don't cause more damage or injuries.
|
|