Sunday, December 28, 2008

Bouse Genies 2009 Meeting Schedule

We will be meeting every Friday during January, February and March 2009 as follows:
  • January 2 - 10 AM to 12 - AniMap Training CD
  • January 9 - 10 AM to 12 - Legacy Training CD #2
  • January 16 - 7 PM to 9 - Census Records
  • January 23 - 10 AM to 12 - Legacy Training CD #3
  • January 30 - 10 AM to 12 - Open Meeting
  • February 6 - 10 AM to 12 - Legacy Training CD #4
  • February 13 - 7 PM to 9 - Military Records
  • February 20 - 10 AM to 12 - Legacy Training CD #5
  • February 27 - 10 AM to 12 - Open Meeting
  • March 6 - 10 AM to 12 - Legacy Training CD #6
  • March 13 - 10 AM to 12 - Open Meeting
  • March 20 - 10 AM to 12 - Legacy Training CD #7
  • March 27 - 10 AM to 12 - Barbara Nuehring speaker

Meetings in the building to the East of the Bouse Public Library (44031 Plomosa Rd, Bouse, AZ).

Tuesday, December 09, 2008

Photographing Oversized Pictures

Occasionally it is impossible or impractical to use your scanner on old photos and documents. A camera & tripod or copy stand is a good alternative.

These two websites may help:
How to build a (Cheap) copy stand.
http://www.coincommunity.com/forum/topic.asp?ARCHIVE=true&TOPIC_ID=19857

Getting Started: Copy Stand Shooting (uses a tripod & music stand and also teaches good technique)
http://www.videomaker.com/article/6807/

One problem when using a camera on old photos and documents is you can get a barrel effect & it is hard to get a perfect angle. In GIMP http://gimp.org/ (a free open source program) has a filter called “Lens Distortion” in Filters>Distortion where you can manually correct it (use the “Main” slider bar in the “Lens Distortion”). Then you can take care of any angle problems with the “Perceptive button” or Tools>Transform Tools>Perceptive. I just click & drag the ruler guides from the ruler across the 4 sides, then I use the “Perceptive Tool” to click & drag the corners of the frame or edges of the picture to the corners of the guide.

In Episode 038 of Meet The GIMP http://meetthegimp.org/episode-038-a-phython-in-a-barrel/ Rolf Steinort has written a plugin for GIMP that makes taking care of the Barrel Effect created by your camera easy. Some of my pictures it over corrected but it got me in the ballpark, others it did a wonderful job. I recommend watching his video & downloading the “Python source code” and adding it to your GIMP plugins. For Windows users unzip the file & paste the 3 files into “C drive>Documents and Settings>[[User name]]>.gimp-2.6>plug-ins” it will then appear as “Barrel distortion removal CA65” in “Filters>Distort”.

Rede made a video specifically dealing with the Barrel Effect & Perceptive Tool and how it applies with old photos & documents: http://blip.tv/file/1554370