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Sunday, April 27, 2014

Black and White...it's not as easy as that... Extra Post

What the Heck?

OK...I'm old.  I grew up with black and white movies and black and white pictures.  It was the best that you could get for the most affordable price.  Color slides and pictures were phasing in and were more expensive and harder for the home developer to do because you had to be more cognizant of temperature many other factors.

However, you need to think of black and white as "colors" in themselves.  Not all black and white pictures are the same tone of black and white.  Sepia is what happens to really old prints...we know that...but there are so many tones to black and white and you can end up with "green" prints right off your printer if you are not careful.

I haven't said it so far, but the more you know about your particular printer and the paper that you are using the better your photo restoration results will be.  Because, the setting on your printer and the type of paper you are using have everything to do with how you will pull off an excellent photo restoration.

OK...you have worked hours and you have it just right...you put back the hand on the baby by reversing the hand from the other side or you have borrowed a hand from a relative using a layer (more about layers coming).  You have done a great job.  You have flattened that layers so that it is merged into one picture.  Now...let's have some fun.

First of all there is an adjustment for black and white right in PhotoShop.  Use that by using the top row of tools:  image/adjustment/black and white. Look at the toggle switches here and do some adjusting.  Look at all the differences you can make.  I use these adjustments when I have a REALLY damaged black and white picture with lots of dirt.  You will be surprised at how many things disappear with the right combination of settings in your using just yellow and blue.  Also, there is a very, very handy automatic setting along with additional settings that I advise you "play with".  It won't take long to find out how you can tint a picture or even add color back and change tint and hue.
Oh...don't get too stuck here.  You will miss the point.

My recent Epson printers (that's all I recommend folks...sorry...I have owned lots of printers and Epsons are the best for me) have an actual black and white setting in the printing set up screen.  That gives great results too.  Black and white is not black and white.  You want to use the best settings on your screen and you want to experiment with different papers with different textures.  You want to practice with your printer and paper selections until you are comfortable with what the results will be.  It is also really great to use real canvas or a canvas or linen textures on paper media.  Red River has some excellent papers along with Epson...we will cover more about paper as we go...Oh, I must add here that textures can be a wrinkled gal's best friend. Remember, you don't need high resolution on everyone...  The older I get the more I appreciate textured paper and all of the softening tools on PhotoShop.  We will get into "make up" as we go further.  Remember, you want to make the customer happy.  This is not an HD movie where we need to see all the zits, pits and wrinkles.  :-)

In the meantime, take a closer look at black and white.  Study old pictures and really look at them side by side.  Start looking at the x-rite color checker passport and learn how to calibrate your monitor to your printer...more later...and get an idea of the wide range of color in a black and white picture.  Those of you that cannot see this difference, please use the settings provided above.  You will always be ok.  Those of you who are blessed with the ability to see what I am talking about, cool.  Those of you who think I am nuts...well, that's ok too.

You can't get excited about something you don't "see".  So start really looking at the pictures that people give you or your old pictures or old post cards or old sepia prints...I could go on but I won't torture you any further today.  Thanks for following my blog.  Please subscribe if you want to find me easier.  Thanks.  Renee

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Photo Restoration Scanning Hints Hint Nine

I have owned a LOT of scanners over the years.  They last a certain amount of time and then they quit.

I used to spend lots of money in the beginning making sure I got 2400 dpi capability...in the past 10-15 years technology has gotten cheaper and better.  I spend a lot less now and I am not locked into any particular brands.

However...if I have lots of snapshots to do and don't want to scan and crop each one individually, I still use my older Canon CanoScanner9000F and Canon MP Navigator EX software on automatic.  I won't tell you that their software is easy to use.  It is really confusing because it takes a while to find out where they saved your scans--not just the ones in their lightbox.  Once you figure out where the heck your files are, all is fine.  However, the part that makes it worth the trouble to figure out is the fact that the software that comes with it will scan multiple small snapshots, crop them nicely and number them.  I find that the scanner has a little problem once you exceed 100 shots...but you can still number each one individually without screaming too much.

Oh yes, this is also a negative and color positive film scanner with a little plastic device you fit into the slot (and take off the white plate that holds photos down)  It has a light in the top along with the light at the bottom and does a great job of scanning film as long as you use the right holder and settings.  Automatic works fine.


The other reason I like it is because it comes with an automatic pdf scanning and collating software for copying large amounts of information such as a customer's loose leaf book into one document that automatically saves page information into a document that doesn't take up too much space.

Amazon.com is the go to place for scanners.  Like I said, I have owned at least 10 and none of them have stood out....except for the cool HP one that you could move around and put in a upright holder.  It also lasted for a while and then died as they all do.  One must go on...scanners come and go.

And so must I for now...see you next time.



Saturday, April 19, 2014

Traveling with your camera...extra little post...


Traveling in different countries taught me how much alike we all are.  My favorite college professor, Dr. Dina Stallings referred to us as the family of man.  When you have an opportunity to travel you find so many opportunities to take pictures with the local people.  Do some reading about the people and their customs before you go. There are so many books that talk about how to avoid being an ugly American when you travel.

One of the things you need to know about in Peru is to give a "regalo", a "gift" to the people in tourist areas who take the trouble to dress up and bring their animals for posing with you.  For a couple of dollars given after the picture, and a nice big thank you and smile, you have a pretty picture like this.
Some would say that this is a cheesy picture but I got to hold a baby llama and I will never forget that wonderful experience.  There are lots of precious experiences, even on a guided tour.

One more tip...you really have to rely on body language when you encounter people from other countries.  I remember the frowns I got in St. Petersburg Russia when I tried to buy water with British pounds because I had  no local currency left.   I came back with my palms outstretched with all the coins we had in our pockets and an innocent smile that said...I am really thirsty can you please help me out?  Well, they found enough for the water and I will never forget the kindness I got back when they handed me that nice cold bottle of water.  Remember  to bring your smile with you when you travel anywhere!

Sunday, April 13, 2014

Photo Restoration Basic Adjustments Photo Restoration Hints Part Eight

Hey, you don't have to be smarter than Photoshop.  You don't have to be smarter than your camera either as long as you aren't shooting into the sun. :-)

I always start out with the simplest adjustments.  Automatic fixes for color, tone and contrast are great starting points.  There are thousands of individual adjustments you can make besides those
simple ones, but you will be surprised by how those initial adjustments become a baseline for your restoration direction.  Remember to save a copy of the original, unenhanced version and make copies of your "working" versions along the way too.  Just in case you find out that you got way too tricky with your mad Photoshop skills and you took so many wrinkles out of your mother's picture that it scared your husband to look at it.  Seriously, it can happen.

Like the French say in dressing up, you should always be able to take one accessory off and still get that gorgeous look you want.  Basic is best like the little black dress.  The same is true for photo restoration.  (Did I lose all the men out there?)

Take a serious look at what you have done.  Make sure your printer is set right for the paper you are using and the subject.  Get to know the limitations of your printer.  Get to know how different paper can affect the image (more about that later) and be prepared to back up a step or two if you have created a "monster".   Calibrating your monitor to your printer is another tack we could take but I am going to steer clear of that now.  You can do research on that and get software and the device that suction cups to your monitor to check your colors.  There are a number of brands on the market.  I DO NOT recommend EYEONE because they only let you use the software you buy from them for 2 years.  Not cool.  I am using their Passport at the moment but am not sure at this writing how long it will work on my computer.

OK...enough of the nastiness and on to scanners, where I have found that some are just a little better than others...but not much.  See you next week.


Monday, April 7, 2014

Do you have your own Website? Photo Restoration Hints Part Seven

OK...most people I talk to don't really understand how a website works.  It's pretty simple, really if you don't get lost in the gobbledeegook....is that the right spelling?

You need a URL(aka Universal Resource Locator)...that's the http://www.coolnamehere.com part.  The cool name here part is most commonly called a domain name.

You go to someone like godaddy.com and check to see if your domain name has already been chosen by some other nice person.  If not, you can "buy" (actually rent it)  the name and have godaddy.com "host your site" on their server/computer.

Once you get that done, you can buy or use a lot of programs that allow you to "post" your content to your individual website space in cyberspace using an ftp (file transfer protocol)  program that is either provided by the hosting website or something like I use, cuteftp.com   I have used cute ftp for years and I like it because it is easy to set up and work with.  You establish a password and get the set up instructions from the hosting provider...they can walk you through it so you don't have to be all geeked up to do this.

I use Microsoft Publisher for my website .... any wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) program is just great.  I can use html (hyper text markup language) for programming my page when I get into a situation that I need to manually fix a page for some reason.  However, I find I need to do that less and less as time goes on.

So, try out Microsoft Publisher and see if you like doing it all by yourself.  Or, use the software that comes free from the hosting provider or go to a place like wix.com and make a page.  They have gorgeous templates...but you have to have a really long website name because you are not using your own domain name.  If you link from your signature on emails, that isn't a problem.  Learning how to use links on your blog, email signature, or on facebook really helps you avoid the problem of a long long long website name that nobody will bother to go to.  Check out my simple but easy to update page here at www.rltphotoartist.com or photorestoration4u.com.

Since the webcrawlers like changing content, make sure you update often and use alt descriptors on pictures.  AVOID putting text content into .jpg files.  The webcrawlers like Google cannot read jpegs.  They can read meta tags, alt descriptions, and text boxes.  Flash gives you a really pretty page, but your friends and customers with iPads can't see all the magic.  Check your page on all types of devices...I have yet to buy a mobi site, but I will probably do so in the future. Next week, I think I will get back to photo restoration...I have been going off into the blue on this stuff....