Digital BW, The Print

On 12/23/02 Jodie wrote:

>Recently I moved my mother into my home and became her full-time 
>caregiver.  I closed and sold the house she lived in for fifty 
>years.  I found boxes of photos dating back to the late 1800's.
>There are hundreds of them, and they vary in type and condition, but 
>they are all black and white.  I want to copy/repair/enhance them.

The "bible" for this sort of work, Jodie, has been Katrin Eismann's 
"Photoshop Restoration and Retouching". It might have some 
competition soon from Laurie Ann Ulrich's "Photoshop Elements 2 
Restoration and Retouching", which Wiley plans to publish in 
mid-February. I'd consider waiting for it. Because I think you 
probably should start with Photoshop Elements (for less than $100) 
and might very well never need Photoshop itself (for about $600).


>I began by trying to find someone with a darkroom.

Because you have negatives? I have almost none for the old family 
photos I inherited in similar circumstances.


>Now.......In shopping for software and a scanner best suited to my 
>needs, I have found that most stores are totally DIY.

In my experience it's been better both to do the homework on-line and 
to shop on-line for almost everything.


>I am not particularly computer literate. I am sure there will be a 
>steep learning curve.

Actually, I think the learning curve needn't be steep if you are 
willing to take an incremental approach - just chip away at the 
various parts and pieces of the process.


>Therefore, I would appreciate advice about scanners and software 
>best suited to my purpose and easiest to learn.

My suggestion is that you do a lot of homework before you buy 
anything - to avoid the risk that you might, for example, spend money 
on a scanner that would have been better spent on more RAM or a 
faster hard drive, etc.

In any case, unless money is no object (ha!), it's hard to know how 
to advise you without knowing what you already have in the way of a 
monitor and a computer and printer. But you might get all the 
software you need with the scanner. Lasersoft's Silverfast software 
came with my Epson scanner; all I've done is upgrade it from time to 
time. If I needed a new scanner, I'd get the successor to mine at 
Epson.

Hope this helps at least a little. I'll look forward to hearing how 
you progress with your plans.

Sam

Sam McCandless              samcc@...