Copyright © 2007-08 PhotoloomLLC
Friday and Saturday
March 14 and 15, 2008
Brigham Young University Provo, Utah
PhotoloomLLC founder Scott Huskey will be presenting a lecture, entitled No More Fuzzy Faces: The Secrets of Digitizing Family History, at the eleventh annual Computerized Genealogy Conference at Brigham Young University.
Anyone with an interest in family history or genealogy is invited to attend the conference. For more information or to register for the conference, please visit this link at BYU Continuing Education.
PhotoloomLLC will be on hand at the conference as a vender, premiering Family Photoloom to the public for the first time. We’d love to meet you, so please stop by our booth to visit and learn more about Family Photoloom.
“Family Threads” is a monthly column. If you have a photograph and family story (350 word max.) that you’d like to share with Photoloom News readers, please contact us today!
All submissions are subject to editing for space and content.
The eighth of eleven closely-spaced children on a panhandle sharecrop, I saw Lucy in my mind’s eye—her rail-sharp spine bent in the cotton fields, thin blond hair dry-blown in the harsh Texas wind. I felt her tiny, raw hands, and the weight of the cotton sack trailing behind. I watched her leave school, her only escape from the fields, for the last time at barely eleven. Eleven. Can you imagine?
Grandma Lucy married Wayne Hancock, a circuit preacher, at the age of seventeen. He was thirty-two. Thirteen years later, Lucy was abandoned, pregnant, and solely responsible for her seven — soon-to-be-eight — young children, with no family anywhere nearby.
I don’t know when or how she met Grandpa Fred, but he must have been something special – he married her fully expecting to take on all those children. It was the fall of 1928 when she and Fred left her home in Sparks, Nevada for a week-long trip to Reno to get married, leaving the children in the care of the oldest, sixteen-year old Minnie. They told the neighbors where they were going and when they’d be back, and asked them to keep an eye out.
When Lucy and Fred returned home, they found the children gone, and Lucy charged with child-abandonment. Two-year old Robert, my father, was returned, but the rest of the children were farmed out, adopted or fostered away by the county. Minnie married to escape. The following fall, Lucy and Fred lost every penny they had on Black Monday.
Over time, most of the children trickled home, and followed the crops with Lucy and Fred, struggling to survive the Great Depression. But even when the Depression, and later The War, ended, Lucy’s trials did not—by the time she was fifty, three of her eight children were dead, lost in one violent tragedy after another.
Grandma Lucy is a long way from being considered for sainthood, but I have learned to truly love her, and appreciate her strength and her tenacity. And if she was not the most grandmotherly of Grandmothers, I understand – perhaps the price of tenderness was simply too high for one who learned so early that life and love were
likely to slip through your fingers like so much dust.
Photoloom News
Issue 3 ~ February/ March 2008
PhotoloomLLC
Inside this issue:
• Tag - You're it!
Family Photoloom Makes Image Tagging a Snap
Family Photoloom - Revolutionizing the Photo~Genealogy Connection
Digital Pictures 101
Part 2: Image Compression
From “No More Fuzzy Faces: The Secrets of Digitizing Family History”
By Scott Huskey
Last month we explored “resolution” in digital imaging, and discussed tips on how to choose optimal scanning resolution. We also identified the problem that optimal scanning presents, especially in the case of creating a digital archive: image files can be huge – and can easily fill up your hard drive. And although hard drives are getting larger and cheaper every day, the limiting factor might be your backup media – which in this day and age tends to be CD’s DVD’s or online internet backups.
Notice: Contents of Photoloom News, both electronic and printed form, are the exclusive property of PhotoloomLLC, and may not be copied or used for any purpose without written permission from PhotoloomLLC.
TM
My 85-year old aunt is “Keeper of the Past” on my mother’s side. Boxes of aging photographs hide in Auntie’s attic—families, farmers and volunteer firefighters stare out in sepia tones. Some have faintly penciled notes on the back, but most are anonymous, waiting for the day when someone drags them out of the musty eaves and gives names to their earnest Midwest faces.
I am “Keeper of the Present” for my family. Gigabytes of image data fill my hard drive – fresh, colorful images of beach trips and ballet recitals. Sunsets. First steps. With file names like “2004 Aug/P1010015.jpg.” Just as anonymous. Just as anxious to be dragged from binary exile and given names.
The necessity for easy image tagging, together with the ability to instantly attach those tagged images to genealogy data, was the driving catalyst in the conception and development of Family Photoloom. Because whether you need to name the faces of last century or last week, the truth is, it won’t get done if it isn’t easy and almost instantaneous.
Visit the Photoloom booth at the 11th annual Computerized Genealogy Conference at Brigham Young University, March 14-15, 2008.
In less than a month, Family Photoloom will début as an Alpha release. And while we will add numerous features after that time, the feature that will drive you and I to subscribe from the beginning is the same one that started it all in the first place. Our days of cutting and pasting images in order to attach them to genealogy data are over.
Here’s the future: there are twenty-two individuals pictured in the two family portraits shown here. Pretend for a moment that they are your own family members Assuming that you know who everyone is (Family Photoloom is not clairvoyant, yet) and you have at least one image of each person already tagged, you will be able to identify every individual pictured and attach each one to your genealogy in about a minute. That’s a long way from “crop—type—save—repeat” (times twenty-two). That’s revolutionary.
In fact, Family Photoloom makes the process of tagging and attaching images so intuitive—so easy—even Auntie can do it.
Popular Digital Image File Formats
JPG or JPEG – Joint Photographic Experts Group. Most digital cameras use this by default. Lossy compression.
TIFF - Tagged Image File Format. This flexible image format allows for many color depths, and can use Lossless or Lossy compression
PNG - Portable Network Graphics. Handles 24-bit (true) color, Lossless compression.
BMP - Windows bitmap. Not compressed.
File Format - Compression
BMP - No Compression
PNG - LZW
BMP - 1/2 Resolution
JPG - Excellent Quality
JPG - High Quality
JPG - Good Quality
File Size in MB
56.6
39.0
14.1
11.8
2.9
1.84
Images per CD
12
18
50
59
242
382
Images per DVD
79
115
318
380
1547
2438
| ||||||
(The MB Comparison Chart below is based on a sample image that it 5400x3600 pixels.)
The main point to take away from all this is that JPG (pronounced jay-peg) is simply amazing at compressing file sizes with very little loss in image quality. This is especially true when scanning images at very high resolution (300 dpi or higher) and saving files with high quality settings (about 90% of the maximum setting). JPG compression allows you to store and share hundreds of high quality images on a CD instead of dozens.
Another factor to consider is color depth. Color depth is the number of bits (or bytes) per pixel. More bits per pixel result in more available colors in the final output. Color depth also effects file size, so pay attention to scanner settings.
- Typewritten or handwritten documents should be scanned with 8-bit per pixel gray scale.
- Black and white photographs should be scanned with 8-bit per pixel gray scale unless you want to preserve the subtle sepia or yellowing; then choose True Color.
- All other color photographs or color documents should be scanned using True Color.
Generally an uncompressed image will be 1/3 the file size if it is scanned in 8-bit per pixel gray scale instead of True Color— a good thing to remember if you are scanning a lot of documents or black and white photographs and need to save hard drive space.
Doing the right thing with image compression:
- Archive using lossless compression. (Please!)
- Experiment before picking a compression: Zoom way in to your compressed files to see how the lossy-compression is effecting the quality.
- Choose a compression that allows your project to fit on the media provided.
- Share excellent quality copies using compressed files.
- Use 8-bit gray scale color depth for documents and black and white photographs to save disk space.
Image compression can significantly reduce this burden. As the name suggests, “compression” technology results in smaller file sizes. There are two major types of compression: Lossless & Lossy.
LOSSLESS compression (PNG, TIFF, BMP file formats)
- Reduces file size with no loss in image quality.
- Does not compress to as small a file size as lossy. (See Table)
- Use when archiving and editing images.
LOSSY compression (JPG or JPEG file formats)
- Reduces files size with some loss of image quality.
- Allows for variable levels of quality (compression) to be
selected by the user.- Use when sharing images.
Beginning with a chapter focusing on the new horizons that digitizing offers to the family historian, this practical how-to reference provides a good introduction to image editing, working with vintage photos, and digitizing audio and video tapes. Chapters are logically sequenced, and well thought out icons in the margins call attention to tips, techniques, and online resources.
Scanning photos, paper documents, slides, and negatives are covered in great detail, and an entire chapter is dedicated to helping the reader choose the scanner or digital camera that is optimal for his needs. Another chapter focuses on the “Imaging Road Warrior,” and provides all the essential information needed for digitally preserving history on the road.
A highly-experienced genealogy researcher, McClure takes pains to emphasize the importance of keeping research journals, and offers practical advice for doing this with the tools at hand. She also addresses the challenges of organizing, printing, and sharing digital family history, and provides insightful tips and advice for meeting those challenges. All in all, Digitizing Your Family History is an excellent choice, particularly for beginning and intermediate “Digital Family Historians.”
BOOK REVIEW:
Digitizing Your Family History
By Rhonda R. McClure (Family Tree Books, 2004)
In her introductory acknowledgment, author Rhonda McClure invites the reader to “Remember to grasp technology.” It resonates well. Computers have revolutionized genealogy research, and in this excellent guide, McClure extends the boundaries of this revolution to encompass the larger circle of family history.
Digitizing Your Family History offers an easy, interesting read; McClure weaves relatable personal narrative and relevant technical information, and the reader receives an education and appreciation for the way things used to be (and how far things have come) while getting up to speed on the latest technology.
Family Threads
by Renee Huskey
My Grandma Lucy was tiny and fierce, and often unkind, especially to my mother. I grew up feeling torn – knowing I should love my Grandma, but not truly feeling it in my heart.
Then one evening, my husband handed me a 1900 census report that listed Lucy’s family. As I pondered it, I began to stare into the gray eyes of the young woman pictured here, and sometime late in the night, I saw Lucy for the first time. I cried for hours.
Family Photoloom Makes Image Tagging a Snap!
Lucy Jane Fickling, age 17
