Restoring a damaged photograph, digitally
May 30, 2007
When I was in library school in the mid 1990s, the Internet was just taking off. There was some content online, but very few graphics and zero advertisements. I spent a lot of time gawking at Young Ones
[To give you an idea of how things looked back then, here's a link to Yahoo in 1996 -- with thanks to the Wayback Machine for archiving it.]
Around this same time, library card catalogs were being converted whole hog into keyword searchable OPACs (Online Public Access Catalog). Some people were freaking out. I mean, well and truly losing it.
In response, the more pro-digital students created a term for anyone who resisted the coming digital tide:
It was meant as a serious insult, which frankly seems odd for a library school, doncha think?
Anyhoo… If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’re familiar with my dire warnings about the fragility of digital records. Pay heed to these warnings, my friend. You would be crushed if your favorite photographs disappeared in the blink of an eye. So print your favorites and back up the rest on a regular basis. Right? Of course right!
Note: If you haven’t read my dire warnings before, you can find them all by clicking on the word “digital” in the left hand column. Or you can subscribe to my newsletter and get a free e-booklet titled “8 Blunders People Make When They Scan Photos…And How You Can Avoid Them.” That link is also in the left hand column.
Here’s the bottom line: All of us — archivists and non-archivists alike — need to learn a new set of skills for preserving digital photographs long term. But that doesn’t mean we should avoid digitization.
Why fight powerful tools like Photoshop Elements
If you’ve got some time on your hands (I won’t lie to you, there is a steep learning curve for the more complicated moves) and you’d like to learn how restore your pictures yourself, you won’t find a better resource than RetouchPro. The forum and tutorials are free, but paid subscriptions are available if you’d like to chip in.
If you’re not interested in learning new software but you have a treasured family photograph that needs restoration, I can help. Clicking this link will create an email with the subject already filled in, all you have to do is click send. (I saved you a few steps with my HTML skillz, dawg!) In moments, you’ll get an automatic reply with our current price list for restoration and scanning work.
.
Can bare hands dissolve metal?
May 28, 2007
Here’s a question I get all the time:
What’s with the white gloves, anyway?
Ah, yes. The white gloves. Sort of the archivist’s trademark.
My favorite story about why archivists and conservators wear gloves is a George Eastman tale that may or may not be true. I can’t verify its authenticity, but I’ve remembered it for more than eleven years. I figure it it’s that sticky
This story is about George Eastman, the genius behind Kodak,* and the time period is somewhere between 1880 and 1930.
Mr. Eastman insisted that every prospective new employee put his or her hand on a sheet of metal as part of the interview process. After that, he would wait a week to see how much the acids in their hand ate into the metal. Too much, and they didn’t get a job at Kodak. Their hands were simply too hazardous.
My second favorite story about why archivists wear gloves is 100% verifiable. It comes to me from Nicolette Bromberg (the same person, coincidentally, who told me the Eastman story). Nicolette heard this one first hand from the source:
At the Image Permanence Institute in Rochester (that’s
the place James Reilly does testing on photographic
materials), there is a research scientist named
Doug Nishimura. I remember that the first time I
took the week long seminar on photo preservation at
Eastman House, Doug talked about how toxic his own
chemistry was–his skin eats up watches, etc. He said
he has to wear rubber gloves and then the cotton
gloves. I thought it was pretty interesting that he
ended up in a field where he handles photographs all
the time!
Here’s why you should remember these stories:
The oils and salts on your hands contain chemicals that can damage photographs. You don’t know if your hands are super toxic or safe as kittens. If you don’t want to cause any damage to your photos, don’t touch them with your bare hands. Evah.
Cotton gloves offer a barrier of protection. They are inexpensive and easy to purchase online
What if I just can’t wear gloves? These are your photographs, and therefore it’s your call. I’ve said many times before that you do not have to preserve every photo for hundreds of years.
Also, you are not alone. I’ve never seen a scrapbooker wearing gloves. And now some researchers are arguing that the loss of feeling you get while wearing gloves is more dangerous to fragile rare books than the acids the gloves are holding back. I would argue that this is NOT the case with modern photographic prints, but again….it’s your call.
In any case, if you can’t work with gloves on or think it’s unnecessary, here are a few practical tips to minimize damage:
- Handle your prints by the edges only.
- Wash your hands with soap and skip the lotion.
- If you get up to take a break (answer the phone, eat lunch, etc.) wash you hands again before you go back to your photo project.
What about those sprays and lotions that are supposed to get rid of the acids in your hands? Yeah, I’ve heard about these. My one word review? Feh! Washing with soap and water is just as effective and much, much cheaper.
One last tip: Cotton gloves (like these from Amazon) can be gently washed with a mild soap and hung to dry. Skip the fabric softener, please. The thinner the gloves, the fewer times you can wash and reuse before you pop a seam.
——————————————————
*Did you know that Eastman invented the name Kodak? Here’s a brief passage from his Wikipedia entry:
He and his mother devised the name Kodak with an anagram set. He said that there were three principal concepts he used in creating the name: it must be short, you can not mispronounce it, and it could not resemble anything or be associated with anything but Kodak.
Rotary Dial Modem (?)
May 17, 2007
Can you imagine? Would a rotary phone still work if you plugged one in today? Someone told me it would, but I’m skeptical for some reason. Help me out if you know, readers.
I learned about the retro comic from Wil Wheaton, who stumbled onto it while doing research for his Geek in Review column.
I came across one of the most awesomely demented things you will ever see in your life: a comic book, handed out by Radio Shack in the 80s called Whiz Kids. It was essentially an advertisement for their Tandy computers…
Awesomely demented. How can that not make you smile? Classic Wil. You won’t want to miss painful Whiz Kids dialog like:
[Link via WWdN, a blog I visit just about daily.]
The cassette is dead…long live the cassette!
May 9, 2007
I have a big goofy sentimental attachment to cassette tapes. My personal archive has at least a half dozen mixtapes and original recordings that I can’t bear to part with. Our house also has a drawer full of random cassettes that no one ever plays. Evah. Now that we can hook up the ipod to the car stereo why on earth would we pack a briefcase full of tapes?
Even so. As impractical and fragile as they are, I’m having a hard time accepting the inevitable: The cassette tape is dead. –>wince<-- The UK's largest electronics retailer announced this week that they will no longer stock blank tapes. They also predicted that Christmas 2007 will be the last time they sell stereos with a cassette deck.
Full article over at The Telegraph.
On the upside, the freaks n’ geeks are doing supercool things with the tape that’s still lying around. Things like the 2007 Cassette Jockey World Championships at the Bay Area Maker Faire.
The organizers promise:
eviscerated boomboxes, disembodied tape heads, and overclocked Walkmans
Suh-weet!
Bay Area Maker Faire: May 19-20, 2007, San Mateo Fairgrounds.
The Faire also includes: The Crucible • Swap-O-Rama-Rama • SwapThing • Bazaar Bizarre • Cyclecide • Combat Robotsv • Power Tool Drag Racing • Exploratorium • Live Music and Performances • Shipyard • Flaming Lotus Girls • Life-Sized Mousetrap • TechShop • Neverwas Haul • Silicon Death Valley • MAKE Play Day • ArtCar Fest
Update 5.24.07: I’m not generally a fan of so-called installation art. It’s a category that covers a lot of ground, and not all of it quality soil if ya know what I mean. But this? This is so cool I don’t even have a word for it in my vocabulary. [Link via neural. Caught by my "obsolete technology" googlebot.]
Does your automatic backup system actually, you know — work?
May 8, 2007
.
Time publishes a magazine called Business 2.0. Circulation: 557,093. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. By all accounts, this fine publication has done a great job warning their readers about how dangerous it is not to back up their computer files. According to Slashdot, they made the following analogy between backups and flossing back in 2003:
but few devote enough thought or energy to it.”
Those words have officially come back to haunt them. Just imagine the horror when they realized that the entire June issue was gone due to a computer system crash. Backup, you ask? Oh they had a backup system. No problemo. This is, after all, Business 2.0 we’re talking about here.
Unfortunately, the automated “don’t worry about it” backup system failed to back up. As in, completely failed. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m all for automated backups, but please test yours occasionally. Or at least one time. To make sure it works and all.
For those of you who really, really need a happy ending, this is for you. Here in the United States, we live in an INSANELY litigious society. In the corporate world, everything has to get the lawyers’ OK. Everything. And in this instance, fear of litigation saved the day (or the June issue of Business 2.0, anyway). Every word of the final text had been sent to the lawyers. Phew! The layouts had to be created again from scratch, of course, but it could have been so. much. worse.
P.S. I really enjoy these Digital Oops! stories. This one is my current favorite. If you’ve got one to share, why not post it in the comments section.
[link via slashdot]
What if grandma had a blog?
May 3, 2007
So the other day I googled one of my favorite phrases: beautiful anachronism.
That led me to a blog called eclexys.
And, no…I don’t know what eclexys means. And, yes…I looked it up. [Update: Here is the author's explanation.]
Anyhoo…
More specifically, I landed on a post about how great it would be to find your grandma’s blog. Can you imagine?
But personally, I would have loved to read my grandparents’ blogs, seen their photostreams, watched their videoblogs one by one. Beautiful anachronism, and wonderful to experience people whose genes you share, who live in another time that, in some ways, feels more like another place.
Yes indeed. The past is a foreign country, as I like to say.
The author also reflects on how cool it would be for just one of his descendants to find his eclexys posts. Assuming, that is, that they aren’t destroyed by bitrot first. Bitrot is my new favorite digital term, by the way. Hooray for eclexys!
Read the entire eclexys post here.
P.S. I spent all day today in a workshop about digitizing analog sound recordings. As a bonus, I got to see some library school buddies of mine, including David Seubert of the incredible wax cylinder digitization project. I’ve got lots of tips to share with you from the workshops, but a major review might not happen until the weekend. While you’re waiting, why not visit David’s project website and download some free MP3s? You’ll be glad you did.
