New Year's Resolutions-Photos

[sheilajim]

Hi Everybody,

It might be a little late for New Year's Resolutions but I am making one regarding photos. I think that everybody else should do this too.

A few months ago, I got a shock when while looking over a photo album, one of my nieces asked me who was this girl in a certain photo. The girl was me when I was sixteen. This niece wasn't born until I was almost seventeen but she had lived with my mother and me from when she was 18 months old until she was eight. I had thought that it would have been easy for her to know what I looked like. Another niece, (her sister) misidentified a friend of mine for me in another picture. I don't know what is wrong with these two nieces; I don't have any trouble identifying my aunts in old pictures.

It has occurred to me that younger relatives than them would have an even harder time identifying the people in old photos than those two, so here is my New Year's Resolution for 2011.

I RESOLVE TO WRITE THE NAMES ON THE BACKS OF ALL THE PHOTOS THAT I HAVE IN MY POSSESSION.
I know that this is a big job but I have to do it for future generations.

[wini]

I am scanning all of mine, gradually, on to an external HD, this gives me the opportunity to put names to faces.
I have quite a few that I have no idea who they are and I suppose it will have to remain that way since none of my surviving relatives have been any help.
Good Luck and I hope you don't break your resolution too soon

wini

[Currie]

I know that Sheila wouldn’t do anything like this, but for anyone else, whatever you do, don’t write on the back of a photograph using a ball point pen. You'll find the writing beautifully embossed on the front, although a mirror image.

Use light pressure with a soft lead pencil with the letter B in the lead type and definitely not an H. I’m not sure whether pencil works very well on shiny paper but ink seems to be frowned upon in case the photo is exposed to water and it runs. Whatever you do, restrict your writing to the outer parts rather than the centre. i.e. not directly behind the most important parts of the photograph.

What to write? Maybe full name, date and place of photograph as a minimum?

The most important contribution people can make to genealogy is to write down their own history and memories. I’ve just finished mine, it’s on the back of a postage stamp.

All the best,
Alan

[joette]

Alan that made me laugh.
My friend has a yearly album made-sends of her photos with captions & identifications to an on-line company fairly reasonable.She also sent of old family photos too & has several albums.
For years I have been adding genealodical details to my photos-too many family photos with the same names on them-so would that be "Maggie's John"? or "John's John"??

[sheilajim]

Hi All,

Alan- You make a good point. I also believe that you should only use an archival pen so as not to ruin your pictures. I am trying to find a way to print the names, etc on my scanned pictures before I print them. Tjat would make things easier and neater.
Surely you had more to write of your memoirs than a postage stamp size. I have also been writing about my relatives and my life growing up. So far I have written about 400 or more pages and it keeps growing. I keep on adding and rewriting. I know that this will not be finished this year.

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings All.

Thumbs up, Wini.

That I believe is the way to go, if you have the ability. Even well intentioned captioned photos, can be an issue of miss-information 100+ years down the track. Referring to a wife as Mrs (Husband’s initials) SHARP instead of her own; inferring the wrong generation due to naming patterns; republished in the reverse order to the captions notations; the use of family “pet” names and not the subject’s registered names; honorary aunt titles, etc, etc. Subject of an earlier post of mine.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15341&p=122486#p122486

In latter years we had some family sessions, with Mum and Dad’s extensive collection of photos. At one stage Mum’s Father had his own darkroom. Unfortunately while Dad did his best, Mum’s Alzheimer’s was getting too far advanced, to be of much help. Failing eye sight, and dementia, has also been an issue, when I have interviewed people about their war time photos, that have come my way, through research of a given topic.

Like with monumental (grave stone) inscription’s, the less you disturb the “original” photos the better. Manually marking the back of photos can mark through the image, and make it harder to copy photographically or digitally in the future. Worse is sticky tape repairs, to well thumbed albums, creating terrible staining problems etc. Over thirty years ago I took a loaned photograph album, to a photo engraver, and got them to prepare fine screen page negatives, for the five pages in the very back of an album, referring to SHARP’S RANCH of 1922, believing one day I would want to print them out, on glossy paper. (Technology has out paced me there, I should have just got good quality photos.) Very few other photos, of that period, exist for Grand Dad’s farm. I did full page proofs, because the white pencilled captions in the black album pages, were gold in themselves.
“Five little Sharp’s sitting on a (cow yard) fence. They’ll be sitting on a stool (hand milking) a few years hence.”
Photo including my father, aged three years. This I have also found in some other heritage albums. [ALLEN Album: Canadian Expeditionary Force. WWI]

Seeing I only have dial-up email, I sent low resolution, wartime photos to a Services museum for comment, and the first question I got in my reply was, as to how I was archiving the photos, and hopefully NOT at such low resolution. Because of this I now use my daughter’s scanner at it’s highest resolution and scan an archival copy at 600 dpi. (Photos at this resolution have proved suitable for blowing up for large wall illustrations in museum exhibits.) I then also save a scan at 300 dpi, the same resolution of the digital camera, my daughter gave me. If framing details, or album caption details appear important, I do a separate scan including them, as well, at 300 dpi. I also scan at a lower resolution, the back of photo information, where it might be helpful. Studio names, film/issue numbers, which might place other photos as being from the same occasion / country. These become archival copies WITH NO ALTERATIONS. I then copy these, cropping them for subject matter, adding captions and known dates via photo editing soft ware, to a lower resolution copy, which is renamed and used for information sharing purposes, and in support of the archived copies. In this way I always have clean archived copies that I can then tailor make, re-work and caption, for the occasion / gathering at hand.

Even if you don’t have an external hard drive, memory sticks now have over four times the storage capacity, and are half the price, from when my daughter’s first taught me how to use them. With memory sticks it’s easy to make many copies, and by sharing them around family, and fellow researchers, there is less chance of a catastrophic event, wiping out all your hard earned research. You could also well find that local interest groups, would be interested in having a copy.

In previous years saving images at archival quality, was a big issue for those of us who struggle with the modern technology. We saw advice on forums about emailing to yourself to down size an image etc, but that depended upon the way you were set up. Now days there are many photo editing / processing computer programmes that have in built options for doing such tasks, making it all a breeze, and some of them are available for free or very little cost.

Saving the past, to invest, for our future generations.

Alan SHARP.

[sheilajim]

Hi Alan,

I missed that earlier thread. You brought up something that I never thought about re 100 years from now about how I am naming the people in the pictures. I have been using nick names, example Nessie for Agnes, and using married names instead of original names. Relatives today may understand this but it is unlikely that they will be understood 100 years from now. I am going to have to reassess how I am identifying my photos. More work for me.

Another thing to be careful about is how to repair the original photos that for some reason are torn. I have some old photos from my husbands family that were repaired with "Scotch Tape". The yellowing and deterioration of these photos is pretty bad, it would have been better to have left the photos in two pieces.

I did get one pleasant surprise when examining old photo repairs. My mother didn't care for Scotch Tape, she used to tape everything, including torn photos with medical adhesive tape. We used to all laugh at her for this telling her to used Scotch Tape. Strange thing is today those repairs done with the medical adhesive tape have not damaged the photos at all. I was very happy to find this out. There is no yellowing, etc., only some slight dirt collected on the tape itself.which doesn't affect the picture at all. And to think that we were laughing at my mother! Thank heavens she paid no attention to us. My Mom has had the last laugh on her children.

Regards

Sheila

[Currie]

Hello Sheila,

You can do a batch process using Irfanview that will add a strip of white paper to the top or bottom of a photograph with the file name printed thereon. This means that you can do a whole folder of files as an automatic batch process. The default for Irfanview is that it makes new copies of the files so that the original files are untouched. I’ve only ever used this process for relatively minor things.

I’m not sure whether this is a lossless process but most likely the usual jpg editing and saving rules apply i.e. with compression applied to already compressed files and the potential for deterioration of image quality. You may wish to use the minimum compression although that may increase file size. There’s always the option to convert your jpgs to a lossless tiff or similar format and work on those and make jpg copies only when necessary.

Using the latest version of Irfanview (4.28) it goes something like this.

1. on the File Menu go to Batch Conversion/Rename.
2. Navigate so that the folder with the relevant files is in the ‘look in’ box with the files displayed below.
3. Select the files to convert, or if all click the ‘add all’ button and they will appear in the area below. Just try it on a half dozen copies of your originals until you get the hang of it.
4. On the left you’ll be doing a batch conversion, the output copies can be in the same format or something else. Here’s an opportunity to convert your files to another format.
5. The option button will allow you to do things such as compression settings for jpgs.
6. The output directory can be a new folder you create for the purpose or the ‘look in’ folder if you click that button. I always make a new folder in case I end up with too much of a jumble by mixing new with old.
7. Next tick ‘use advanced options’ and click the advanced button.
8. At the middle bottom of the next box you’ll see ‘canvas size’ and ‘add overlay text’ tick both of these. (and make sure nothing dangerous is ticked in the Miscellaneous area to the right)
9. Click canvas size settings. Choose border colour white. To have the name at the bottom of the photo try setting ‘Bottom Side’ to 100 pixels and set the other three sides to zero. You can change this later if it is too wide.
10. Click ok and click the overlay text settings.
11. The ‘X’ and ‘Y’ coordinates are the position where the text will start. To bring it away from the corner make each say 10. The ‘Start Corner’ bit is to put the text at the top or bottom of the photo. I think the width and height are the height of the text box into which the text will fit. If the text starts forming two lines or any odd behaviour make the box much longer so one row of text will fit, say 800, and possibly change the height in some circumstances.
12. Type $N in the large text area if you want the file name without the extension. (click the Help button for options)
13. Choose the font colour and the font size so that it is big enough to see but not so large that it runs off the page or whatever.

All this is very much trial and error. How the extra canvas shows up depends on the actual size in pixels of the photographs, and other factors. Try it on a half dozen by clicking the ‘start batch’ button and keep adjusting settings until you’re satisfied and then do the whole batch. It’s fairly straight forward once you get the hang of it.

This is the sort of thing where a ‘one size fits all’ setting may not suit all photographs and some may require individual attention. Something similar may be available in other image editing programs but Irfanview is the only one that comes to mind. Whether it is really suitable for the purpose you would have to try it and see.

All the above waffle applies where photos are being printed one to a sheet e.g. on 6x4s. If you’re printing multiple photos on A4 sheets then the process is simpler but not necessarily better.

All the best,
Alan

[Alan SHARP]

Greetings again.

At the risk of repeating former comments, I know the importance of leaving clues for future generations when it comes to photographs. Through my research, in various fields, I've been privileged to have been shown many old photo albums and photos, which as they say "are worth a 1,000 words" but photos without any providence, and or detailed notes, can be Oh so frustrating.

1. Do as little as possible to old photos, aside from storing them in acid free containment, dry and dark, and as vermin free as possible. Save them as your originals. If they need repairs, there are many digital ways of achieving great results, with the help of specialist armatures or professionals. Take a look at the RootsChat forum and what their volunteers, have been able to digitally do.

2. Find a way, that meets your needs, for creating notes about the photos which you deem to be heritage photos. The simplest would be just a soft pencil number in one corner on the back of the photo or mounting. Then type out a catalogue. Recording known details like known location of photo graph, date, subject/occasion, and names of known subject/s in the photo. For smaller groups L to R and rows, or seating / standing are OK, but remember it is possible to make both a positive and a negative copy of an image, and publishers have a habit of turning a subject so that they look inwards when published in books, newspapers etc. Some times they forget to reverse the captions supplied with the photos. With the likes of reunions, and large group photos, possibly the best way is to make a copy [photo copy etc] and over print each subject with a number to be checked off against a numbered list of typed names.

3. Where possible, remember that researchers might only know the subject by the registered names used for B. D. & M.; enrolments; legal deeds; etc, whereas family and colleagues, will know them by the names they preferred to answer to [aka]. Recording both, can be important for latter researchers. Remember also that in earlier times women were quite often acknowledged through their husband, so could/would be addressed as Mrs + husbands initials + husbands surname. On other occasions a woman my choose to be known by her maiden surname, especially if she was self employed. Real headaches arise when a well intentioned member of a composite family, makes notations using an honorary title and you have no indication who wrote the comment/caption. When you have a family of his, hers, and their, children, by making a notation of ‘Mum’s Aunty’ they are leaving you with a multi choice answer. [Though better than none]. These photos could be individually stored in an envelope including the typed list etc.

4. If possible, make high quality archival copies of the important photos, and duplicate them, so that they can be stored in a range of places, thus risk mitigating in case of catastrophic loss. Don’t forget to save info contained on the back of photographs, or around their mountings. This info, and subject matter, may be essential in placing a number of individual photographs as having been taken at the time of one NOTABLE family or sporting event. Often it was at a family wedding, which can then be used for dating purposes. Look for personal jewellery, watch chains etc worn with their Sunday best, to again help with identifying a subject, who may be in several photos. If the occasion was important enough, for a professional photographer to be employed, there is a fair chance that copies of that photo, were sent all over the world, to those who could not make it. Talk to your far off cousins, they may hold a copy that Aunt or Gt Aunt, may have sent overseas with explanatory notations on the back. With war time photos remember that course graduation, and passing out photos, were taken, and a lot of the official group photos are not only held in National Archives, but also by interest group museums and associations. Photos will exist of those who paid the ultimate price, serving their country, that you never knew about, or have, but can be very helpful in identifying other photo subjects.

5. If family were involved with a news worthy event of note, search not only the local news and specialist press, but also leading press in other countries, that might have an interest. Seven years after discovering a NZ University held no archival material, on a very news worthy event, upon their campus, I discovered that a visiting scholar, upon return from a years sabbatical in NZ, published an illustrated article in one of his countries leading agricultural journals. What a find, including the photographic proof we needed.

6. Once you have created your archive, then it is possible to make all sorts of copies to suit your varying needs. For thirty years I just photo copied, but now we have computers and digital cameras that make it so much easier. Digital scanning and photo editing processing, provide so many options, and you don’t even have to own the equipment. In far off cities I have borrowed a scanner, and an old album of interest, to make copies for my research. The photo editing programme that I’m most familiar with, is my Daughter’s ‘ArcSoft Photo Studio 2000’ which I have been using on and off, for a very long time, and still learning new tricks with it, like resizing. Originally we did not have enough memory space, for all the layered overwriting that I wanted to do, for instruction manuals etc, so it used to crash with “sorry we have a problem so must close down” but now with more horsepower it is OK with me. Another cheapy that I liked for cropping individuals, and framing with a nice frosted edge was called GreenStreet (from memory) but the install disc has been lost, so I don’t have the programme, on the computer in current use. If you are good with computers, there are many editing programmes that people bring to family reunions, and use to do an excellent job of copying, and then cleaning up of old photos. They can even add missing family members to photographs, just to confuse later researchers. My Daughter also has other inexpensive programmes I’m not familiar with, that she uses for scrap-booking, and they to, would be quite useful. One I think is called Grant Digital. Most of the leading digital camera makers also have programmes that can be used in various ways by an amateur.

All the best.

Alan SHARP.

[sheilajim]

Hi Alan,

That is great advice and information.
I am not making repairs on original photos only on scanned copies. I have been scanning them at 600 to 800. I can scan higher if I want. I have scanned a few in Tiff format but not many as the files are so large. The others are scanned on JPEG. When I clean, repair or color them it is done on a new copy of the JPEG format. This way I hope that the original copy will not lose resolution. I have an Epson Artisan all-in-one. The manufacterer claims that the photos will last for 200 years. My chances of living long enough to find out if this is true are not good at this time. My photo programs are PaintShop Pro Ultimate X2 and Adobe Elements.
When I put my copies of these old pictures in an album, I will put all the relevant info with them. In each album that I will start I will list all of the people, their original names and their nicknames. I am also adding pictures to the writings that I have done. I am not sure what more that I can do.
Some of the original photos have writing on the back which has not shown through when I scan, many others have no writing at all. I have gently removed the Scotch Tape on some old photos; it is falling off anyway. I will not remove the old adhesive tape as it doesn't seem to have hurt those photos.

I am going to start scanning old letters, etc. I guess that I will add them to my scrapbook albums.

Regards