Help for Big Job

Stormdancing

I need some advice.
My 82 year old father has given me an album (actually several, he has always been a shutterbug) of his photos from his time in France during the war. He wants me to figure how to copy these photos to help preserve and label them.

The 1st big problem is they are glued on that old black paper.

Some have suggested photographing them, then touching up in PS.

Does anybody have any links, advice or experience on how I can get this project started for him. Especially on photographing vs. scanning.

I've looked over at retouch pro site and while there is plenty of advice about fixing them, didn't find much on getting started and this particular topic.

Thanks in advance,
Dana

Ann McRae

Hi Dana

Do you have a flatbed scanner?

I did a similar project on a smaller scale - made a memory book for my dad's 65 birthday. Went through many, many old photos, scanned and retouched with PSP, printed and made the book.

I am particularly proud of the old psotcard that we had of my grandfather in his WWI uniform. It was badly damaged and I was able to get rid of most of the cracks, repairing it well enough that my family thought I was a genius!! I was also able to provide many relatives with copies of old photos where previously only one of them had a copy.

I know that Andy did this a few years ago with his mothers photos - on a much larger scale that my project, and probably more in line with the scale you are speaking of.

As far as where to start - I would just go page by page from the album.

And unfortunately I cannot provide advise about dealing with the glue - I removed the photos I was working with from albums and sometimes lost a bit of the photo backing. In the case where they were glued into cardboard frames I scanned them with the frame.
Good luck - share your results

ann

DoctorIt

I think the main goal here is preservation, not perfection, right? What do I mean... over the past year or so, my mom and uncle have been archiving as much of their history as possible - some really good stuff actually.

At first, my mom spent hours scanning, retouching, etc. It made some photos marginally better, but for the most part, these were photos we'd look at quickly, and then spend 10 minutes talking about them. 10 seconds looking, 10 minutes discussing - you do the math, perfect color and the like are a small percentage of importance.

That being said, my uncle has gotten some great results using what is a primitive copy stand - camera on a tripod capturing the item, in this case my great grandmother's birth certificate:



a little more work on his part for more even lighting and it'd beat a lot of scanners, handily.

andymillson

I have done similar things, but with loose photos. We also have a large stack of albums that need to be worked through. I have decided, where I can, I will remove the complete pages from the albums, and use a camera mounted on a copy stand to photograph the whole page, I can then crop the individual pictures from the whole page photos. Where I cannot remnove the pages I will still photograph the whole sheet, just rtying to keep the pages as flast as possibler when photgrphing them

Some of the albums are already individual sheets, that are laced together, these are simpler to handle, the others are stapled sheet, these will reqire careful removal of the staples to free the sheets etc.

Wish you luck in your endeavour, however you decide to go forward with this, I kow its a daunting task, but wirth it in the end to preserve these memories etc.

Andy

Stormdancing

Ann: Yes I do have a flatbed scanner. My initial though was to scan the pages with the photos glued and crop each one out. After hearing a few people talk about photographing them and how much faster the work progresses, I'm now leaning towards photographing them.

DoctorIT: Yes the main goal is preservation. That birth certificate looks great. You are right about the even lighting and this was one of my concerns. A light tent would be perfect for the lighting. I would have to have something inside there to hold the photos so they would be at a perfect right angle to the camera. As I thumbed through the album with him last night, there were only a few special photos that would beg for some perfecting work - A couple portraits - fix scratches etc. For the most part the photos are in very good shape physically.

Andy: These albums are the old black paper ones that held together with laces so the sheets would be easy to remove. I'm going to need to come up with some sort of copy stand to hold them flat like you say.

My dad liked the idea that I could put multiple photos into a collage with journaling. I have had several of my collages printed through SM and they turned out great with the fonts being very smooth and readable. This would also be great because other family members could also order thier own copies of the photos of our family history.


Any thoughts on lenses to use, settings etc?

DoctorIt

Stormdancing wrote:

A light tent would be perfect for the lighting. I would have to have something inside there to hold the photos so they would be at a perfect right angle to the camera.

Who says you can't shoot down through a light tent? just build a little light box out of a cardboard box, cut out the sides and replace with tissue paper. Stick the pages in the bottom of the box and point your tripod straight down. You just made a mini copy studio!

DavidTO

I still vote for scanning. You don't have to correct them, you can always go back and do that if you want. But scanning is the way to go, IMO.

DavidTO

I also like to include the borders. I think it's part of the nostalgia, and you can always crop them out later.



Also, don't forget it's not just about the photos!

cmason

Most scanners I have used allow you to define mutiple regions for scanning, so that you can put the entire sheet on the flat bed, do a quick scan, then essentially draw boxes around those areas you wished scanned. The scanner will output a separate file for each area. If your scanner software doesnt so this, check out products like Silverfast, or Vuescan.

sunione

camera copies
To get photos flat for your copying, use a flat metal sheet (I use a large paper holder from my "real" darkroom days) and strips of magnets. You can cut 1/2" strips from the magnet backed photo paper. I set my metal sheet on a painter's easel that adjusts to make the sheets at the same angle as the front of the camera which is on a tripod. Once setup, you can go very quickly by putting each black sheet on the metal with the magnet strips. I like to work outdoors in the nice even afternoon light I get on the east facing front porch of my house. I've down entire albums in under one hour once setup. Using an easel and tripod is great, much easier than shooting 'down'.

Scanning is pretty easy but much slower. I know that with a white background, PhotoShop can batch process all the photos automatically into seperate files even if you don't select them individually with your scanner software. But don't know about black backgrounds.