Photographing old or delicate documents and photographs

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Photographing Old or Delicate Documents and Photography Dick Eastman October 22, 2011

Transcript of Photographing old or delicate documents and photographs

Page 1: Photographing old or delicate documents and photographs

Photographing Old or Delicate Documents and

Photography

Dick EastmanOctober 22, 2011

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Today’s Slides

Available athttp://www.eogn.com/handouts/oldphotos

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Traditionally, creating digital images of old photos and documents required scanners

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Scanners

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Advantages

• Inexpensive

• Readily Available

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Disadvantages

• Scanning thousands of documents may be tedious

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Page feed scanners are even worse

• Will work well in unattended mode but internal rollers may damage delicate documents.

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Ultimate Unattended Scanner: APT BookScan

1200• Will work well in unattended mode for books but not suitable for delicate books.

• Expensive at $120,000.

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Use a scanner designed for books

• Planetary scanners create minimal page damage.

• Expensive at $10,000 and up.

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Use a scanner designed for books

• Available in different models with different scanning speeds

• Expensive at $15,000 and up.

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Another Option: Magic Wand

• Great for bound books!

• Battery operated• $99.95• Bed, Bath, and Beyond

• BestBuy• Brookstone• Amazon.com• and other merchants

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Still Another Option: Flip-Pal

• Great for scanning photographs!

• Good for documents• Battery operated• $149.95• Mail order only, look at past reviews on www.eogn.com

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No Scanner? Use a Camera!

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My Favorite Camera For Documents?

• Apple iPhone

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You can even add a Tripod for $20 or So

• Tripods are available from many vendors. Perform a Google search or look on eBay.

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No Scanner? Use a Camera!

• Genealogists can duplicate this for a fraction of the expense.

• Use a camera stand and a high resolution camera.

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No Scanner? Use a Camera!

• Genealogists can duplicate this for a fraction of the expense.

• Use a camera stand and a high resolution camera.

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No Scanner? Use a Camera!

• Genealogists can duplicate this for a fraction of the expense.

• Use a camera stand and a high resolution camera.

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No Scanner? Use a Camera!

• Best results are obtained with a slow shutter speed and lots of light.

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No Scanner? Use a Camera!

• Prices vary from about $60 to…

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No Scanner? Use a Camera!

• Prices vary from about $60 to…

• $100 or more.

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You Don’t Need A Fancy Camera Stand!

• Use a tripod

• The secret for razor-sharp pictures is a steady platform

• Don’t have fancy lights? Always remember that sunlight works best

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Recommendation

• Use a slow shutter speed

• And use lots of light!

• Sunlight works best

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Top 10 Recommendations

1 Always back up your photos immediately!

2 Never, ever work on your original photo. Always make a copy.

3 Share your photos.4 Use the auto buttons.5 Crop creatively.

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Top 10 Recommendations

6 Take credit, quickly.7 Black and white are beautiful.8 Don’t use JPG or GIF or other,

compressed formats for your working copy!

9 Open a photo and try all sorts of different things.

10 The best way to learn your photo editing program is to dive in.

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The BEST Photo Editing Software Is…

1 The free program that came with your scanner or camera

2 Free software you can download (GIMP or Picasa from Google)

3 Photoshop (very expensive)4 Photoshop Elements for Windows

or Macintosh (about $80)

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Why Not JPG or GIF?

1 When edited and re-saved, the image will always degrade a bit.

2 Use an uncompressed format, such as TIFF, to avoid problems.

3 However, you can always export in JPG, GIF, PNG, or other format to share with others.

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Today’s Slides

Available athttp://www.eogn.com/handouts/oldphotos