Before & After

I originally made scans of these images on a visit to Headland, and then purposely left the originals there.  When I got home and started clicking through the scans, it was clear that they were not in their best shape due to discoloration, stains, blemishes, poor lighting, etc..  In one case, the scanner probably picked up some microscopic dust or perhaps the scanner glass had some lint or smudges on it.  In other cases, it was simply the expected condition of the items, which were thirty or more years old and in a shoebox or an old scrapbook.  What I did was take the scan files, on a Memory Card, to an Asheville photo lab for some touch-up work; the results are below.

For the family genealogy work I've been doing the past few years, I've had to reach out to experts for certain needs.  Besides a very good photo lab that can do restoration work of scans and pictures, I needed one that could scan and restore old slide negatives.  Luckily, I found one that could do all of that.  I also needed a video business that could convert VHS movies to DVDs, and movies (VHS, DVD formats) to MPEG files (for Internet use).  For very large scans (bigger than 8 x10), I've needed the FedEx store (formerly Kinko's), where they have larger, flat-bed and roller scanners.  Finally, in cases where there's something too large or brittle (e.g. very old newspapers) for FedEx, I take these items to a high-resolution digital photographer.  I will give you an example of the digital photography work in my next post.

80% - or more - of what I do is at home.  It simply involves my laptop, the various software programs that came installed on it (e.g.  Windows Live Movie Maker and Photo Gallery), a reliable, high-resolution scanner, a few portable hard drives (for backup and file organization) and a free blog program that you can find online.