Family Photo Archive

I have begun teh photo scanning!

I'm already done with *THREE*!

Family Photos

...only 87 bazillion more to go!

...heh. -_-

Those are the "online versions" in that directory, most of which are based around a res of 1024 x 768 and look pretty good on a computer screen. I'm also keeping hi-res, 600 dpi lossless scans as well, most of which have a resolution of around 3,000 x 2,000 pixels and are better suited towards printing and editing.

Because of the sheer volume of pictures I'm not really going crazy with the editing/fixing, so the hi-res versions have a lot of specks, grains and other typical anomalies (mostly from dust and micro-scratches which aren't normally noticed by the naked eye).

If I was printing the photo for some specific purpose I would likely manually edit all those anomalies out...however that usually takes like 20 minutes per photo, so it's not really feasible to do it on every single one of them since there are so many.

Luckily, when scaling the images down to monitor size, most of those artifacts and specks are automatically lost in the resampling/conversion, since at that point it's basically like looking at the photograph with the naked eye, rather than uber close up with a magnifying glass, which is what the hi-res ones represent. And those artifacts that aren't removed that way can be removed pretty quickly with a basic despeckling filter (which won't work on the hi-res versions).

Technically speaking the hi-res versions are a bit over-kill and it's actually scanning at a resolution that's effectively higher than what the camera captured in the first place, which is why I'm not putting those up online right now (that and they take up a tremendous amount of space), but it gives me peace of mind to scan that way, especially since I don't plan on keeping the originals at all.

If any family member wants hi-res copies of anything that's in there let me know though and I can put 'em up for ya.

I'm going to try scanning at least five photos a day, I think that'll be a pretty good pace, so you can just keep checking the directory say every week and see what updates are there.

The photos are, unfortunately, vastly unsorted, so I'm not really organizing them at all at this point, just numbering them as I scan them. Once I eventually get them all scanned then I can worry about sorting and organizing.

I will include any relevant details though in the file summaries. For example if there's text written on the back of the photo I'll include it in the file summary, which can be accessed by right clicking on the image after you've downloaded it, choosing "properties" and then clicking on the "summary" tab. If the file has a summary it'll be mentioned in the file name (none of the ones up so far do).

Anywho, that's one of the things I hope to get finished with this year. I'd also like to get finished digitally recording all those old audio cassette letters from grandma and grandpa...although that requires a ~whole~ lotta sorting, since they're all mixed in with a bunch of Lawrence Welk recordings, some of which have both on the ~same~ tape...OY...not lookin forward to having to listen through all *THAT* material. -_-

I'm also still trying to track down the old Hi-8 video reels, which may or may not have been thrown out back in the mid 80s. See at one point back in the mid 80s I guess some of the family members talked grandma and grandpa into getting the old reel to reel video converted to VHS format. However VHS resolution at the time was limited to about 252 lines of resolution, which effectively destroyed about *HALF* of the original 480 lines of resolution from the Hi-8 video reels. As such, what I've got currently, from ~25~ year old VHS tapes looks like video that was run through a washing machine six or eight times...it ain't pretty.