TO........All FROM......Susan White Rtm SUBJECT...summary of responses about old pictures DATE......07:10am 30-Jul-92 ^AUFGATE newsin 1.27 From: white@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Susan White RTM) Date: 30 Jul 92 01:41:26 GMT Organization: RIACS, NASA Ames Research Center Message-ID: <1992Jul30.014126.2003@riacs.edu> Newsgroups: soc.roots Fellow Ancestor Hunters interested in Copying/Preserving old Photos, and Taking Advatage of Accumulated Knowledge! I have summarized below the bulk of the sometimes extensive replies to my request for help on copying old pictures as well as my own reading and unsuccessful attempts. I've also included some closely related material, collected and forwarded by netters. Thanks very much to everybody who replied! -Susan White Special Thanks to: Richard Asano Cari Tuttle Paul Shafer Robert Formica Bob Epley Frank Deis dkortenk cmdarby and one other whose name I deleted accidently, who contributing their own experiences, and summarized many previous postings. Copying the original picture by yourself: Since you don't need to borrow the picture from your relative or an archive, and you probably have dozens you'd like copies of, this is an attractive option. You can do a good straighforward job with available equipment, or a truly professional and archival job, depending. Reference: Kodak has an excellent book on making copies of art work and old photos. Publication M-1, "Copying and Duplicating in black and white and color". Suggested set-up, from the minimal to maximal. Several people had good luck with a 35mm Nikon, a tripod and slow film, one even with tintypes and Daguerrotypes: 1) Either use a tripod or a copy stand, to hold the film plane exactly parallel to the old photo and use two lights at 45 degrees or else use diffuse daylight. Check if your local library, college or rental darkroom has a copy stand you can use. 2) either a macro lense (best) or screw on close up adapter rings or diopters ( a set of 1, 2, 3 x power) (nearly as good, much cheaper). A zoom-macro lens gives a fuzzy picture. 3) Choose a medium or slow speed filmwhich gives you smaller grain size, which in turn improves the quality of your prints. Some folks suggested were Kodak Technical Pan film (a special high- coontrast copying film), TRI-X, some, regular slow color film. For large-format negatives there are the professional films which come in sheets, you will want the blue-sensitive films to reduce the effects of yellowing, and the professional copy film 4125 to increase contrast. If you're printing a black and white picture yourself, you can match the paper to the film response. See Kodak's book. 4) cable release so you don't shake the camera when you shoot. 5) But What Kind of Camera?: A SLR camera with a mirror lock-up, like Nikon, would be better than other SLR cameras, (like my Olympus ;-) to cut out one more source of vibration. You can also rent a large-format camera and accesories for $30-$45 a day to produce 2.5 X2.5 inch or 4 by 5 inch negatives, if you don't own one. 6) Depending on your film choice, many but not all respondents used red, orange and yellow filters. (The filters are for stained or faded photos. Yellow washes out yellow stains and increases the contrast of your photo slightly. Orange adds more contrast. Red adds the most contrast and may take care of Sepia toning.) Blue or polarizing filters can also be used to deal with reflections from bent tintypes, according to one book. 7) a gray card-ofton reccomended. (The gray card will give you an accurate light reading. The light reading off of the photos isn't correct. ) 8) Test the exposures: You could shoot several different exposures so you can choose the best, but keep good notes so you can stick with the best. One netter suggested stopping down all the way for a slow exposure, but check out the middle range of your lens. Consider taking a picture of a sheet of graph paper to check for focus, camera shake. 9) If you are developing the negatives yourself, you can 'push' it. New technology approaches: Scanning the picture into a Mac or PC and use the appropriate software, e.g. Photoshop, to process the image. Great potential, but limited by the printer and scanner resolution. Look for future advances in this technology. Color xeroxing is dropping in price, gives you immediate gratification, and the image surprisingly good, although the color is usually a little off and a little detail is lost. The images may not last, though. You can arrange small pictures on a background sheet, so the xerox person wont handle them directly (either in the final, album-form with captions, or close together, which you can cut apart and rearrange for the final copy or so you'll pay for fewer copies). Having a new negative shot by a professional. If you only have a few pictures to copy and you are able to borrow the picture from whoever has it, or you don't have the equipment available, especially for problem cases, try to have a good LOCAL photographer shoot the new negative, so you don't run the small risk of losing the pictures in the mail. (There are less expensive mail-order places, look in Everton's Genealogical Helper). Call around, because the photographers prices vary interestingly. Around here, it was around $15-$17 for getting1 negative shot and developed plus one 8 X 10 print, but extra 3X5 prints were 50 cents to $5, at the two extremes! Sepia toning was extra but reasonable. Restoring the original picture. It is possible to restore the picture, by chemically processing the original to bring out a better image than the current one, but do not let any photographer do it who isn't trained as a conservator, as you may lose the image. Ask for recommendations from a historical collection, library or museum, but talk to the curator or person in charge of their photography collections. A professional job will probably cost in the $100 - $500 range. They will have to see the photo to give you an estimate. Generally it's better to have a new negative shot and do all retouching to the new negative. And of course you can then have any number of copies made for relatives! Storing old photographs: First, the immediate problem - preventing further damage. Keep them DRY and COOL. The image on the surface of most photographs is in a geletin coating, and this can be damaged by either heat or moisture. High light levels can also be a problem, as residual chemicals can be present. Go to the local art shop and buy some some acid-free envelopes or acid-free mat board ("conservation board"), to store these photos between, and get them away from standard, run-of-the-mill paper. A company called Light Impressions (1-800-828-6216) also has everything you could want. Regarding Old Albums: You may want to shoot a picture of the whole album page, and print it in 8X10 format. It saves time and you dont have to try to detach the pictures, which may seriously disturb your relatives. One contributer described handling old, disorganized albums: First, xerox the album as is, including blowups of especially interesting shots. Sometimes the increased contrast improved the images enough that the xeroxxes were suitable for framing. A videotape including close-ups (with narrative?? this could be great!) was also made which was very popular with the relatives, but caution: VCR tapes are not as permanent a record as movie tapes or photos. Editor's caution: I wouldn't do the following to 'really old' pictures. If you can't remove some too-well glued-on pictures to see what's on the back or to reorganise them, soak the pages in distilled water to loosen the glue, checking frequently for bleeding ink, bleeding sepia tone, pictures sticking together, etc. Gently pry the picture off, with, for example, a "knife" made of metal straping. Line or squeegee dry. References: Kodak also has a free pamphlet, which is a good place to start. The two books noted below will answer many of the questions we have about care for old photos. Both are published by Eastman Kodak Co. Both are available from the library or from: Rochester Institue of Technology/Image Permanence Institute/RIT City Center/50 W. Main St./Rochester, NY 14614-1274. - CARE AND IDENTIFICATION OF 19TH-CENTURY PHOTOGRAPHIC PRINTS, by James M. Reilly. l986. 116 pp. plus wall chart. $24.95 _ CONSERVATION OF PHOTOGRAPHS, by George T. Eaton. Date not given. $29.95. There were also people and labs recommended, which were not included here as they may be out of date. --- ConfMail V4.00 * Origin: f555.n125.z1.fidonet.org (1:125/555) SEEN-BY: 125/30 555 ^APATH: 125/555