From Tintype to Digital

A friend brought to me 2 tintype photographs of her Great Great Grandparents. Oh they are wonderful. I wish I had photos of my ancestors dating back that far. These photos may be dated somewhere in the 1880's is my guess. Quite good condition for their age. 

Original scan

Original scan

Once I lightened them up did I notice all the scratches and marks. Cleaning it up was fairly easy. She asked me to put them side by side to make one photo of the both together to frame.

Lightened showing scratches

Lighten showing scratches

Restored with his name

Restored with her name

 

 


























I thought this would be easy too but oh no...it was actually the hardest part of this project. I had to go through many many backgrounds to find the right that just makes it the perfect. It has to be the one that makes you go "Oh yea!" at first glance. I did find a few, the tapestry background turned out to be my favorite and hers too.

  

Now she has them digitalized for safe keeping. It's best to have the original, but you should scan them to make copies. Put them on CD's and pass them to your family. Sharing is a good thing and this way you have copies as backups just in case the original disappears. Digitizing your photos is a very good idea. The only thing that bothers me is will the file name of the person stay with the photo for identification. You can add details to the properties of the file but you don't see it up front. It's still a good idea.

Thank you so much Patti for entrusting in me with your precious photos and the honor of bringing these photos back to life. You have lovely ancestors, enjoy!

Little Grandma Lillian

Before

This photo is a mess. Spots all over, stains here and there, a tear, chips and cracks. Just a messy mess. Good thing there is software to fix these problems. Good thing I love restoring these photos. 

                                                                      

After Sepia Tone

She is holding her doll and her short pixie hair cut, I could only imagine her in a pink dress. She may have originally worn a white dress, but pink is just the only color a little girl should wear.

  

After Colorized

Adding a touch of color adds something special to these old photos. I usually like to keep the photos as original as possible, but adding a touch of color adds something special to these photos. This project I created in black & white, sepia tone and colorized.

This one belongs to a friend of mine. The adorable tiny girl is her grandmother. Little Lillian Long we figured is about 3 years old in this photo in 1906. Enjoy your photo Mickey! It was a pleasure working on it and meeting your grandmother.

Mr. and Mrs. Calon or Eaton

 Mr. and Mrs. Calon, or Eaton, Caton, Ealon? This photograph was taken by photographer Ewing from Port Hope and Peterborough, Ontario Canada. 

They are a lovely Civil War era couple. It would be wonderful to find their family. I have this photo listed at my Etsy store. Click the link for more details.Or just leave me a comment.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/96204193/cdv-photograph-mr-mrs-calon-or-eaton

Greyell Family and Fred Stark



Greyell Family

I am re-writing this blog article on Sept 7th, 2011. A fellow named John Rochon from Sarnia Ontario purchased these 2 photographs. I thought these folks were his ancestors because he had other photos of the same people and told me Fred Stark (below) had a twin brother. He found these two photos on my Misplaced Ancestors store. www.misplacedancestors.etsy.com  So I thought these two photos The Greyell Family and Fred Stark were related and what a find for John, two ancestors photos found on one store. Well they are not his ancestors after all. After several good conversations with him he collects photographs.  http://www.etsy.com/shop/MisplacedAncestors?ref=si_shop 

Greyell Family back

John lives in Sarina Ontario bordering the St. Clair River and I am on the other side in Michigan (about 60 miles from Port Huron). John bought some photos from a dealer from the United States who personally delivered them to him. John thought that was very generous of him and so did I. Sending off the photos he purchased from me is when I discovered John lived in Sarnia Ontario.


Fred Stark

Hmmmmm... the dealer I purchased my collection is from Port Huron just on the other side of the St. Clair River from Sarnia. We discovered we bought from the same dealer. It's a small world. 
John emailed me copies of his photos and I thought it would be nice to add them to this little blog article.

Harry and Fred Stark

Harry Stark kneeling in front

So all 4 photos now belong to John Rochon's collection. It's nice to meet Canadian neighbor John and having very friendly and good conversations. Makes my adventure in photos and blogging a good thing. Thank you John for sharing your photos, Cheers!


Last thought, I wonder if Harry and Fred ever sang in a Barber shop?........♫♪ Wait 'til the Sun Shines ♪ Nellie ♫♪♫

Ivan Juh, My Great Grandfather

This is my Great Grandfather Ivan Juh. He lived in Croatia and died in WWI. I know very little about him but I do have some fantastic pictures. This is my favorite. His wife died young also during the great flu epidemic leaving my grandmother and her brother orphans at ages 4 and 6.

In my early days of genealogy research I had no computer, didn't know how to use a computer and certainly didn't have a scanner. My husband loves film cameras and he took excellent photos of photos. When I visit relatives and talk about family history. Most people are very reluctant to let me borrow photos to have them copied. I visited two elderly cousins who just would not let me copy them and they were too disabled to get copies for me. So my husband captured photos with his film camera. They were pleased, I was pleased and we had a great visit.  


Film cameras still have much better quality than digital. The photo on the left was captured by a high quality film camera. After scanning it into my computer with high pixels I have a very good image to work with. This photo is dirty and somewhat faded. Doing a lot of spot and stain removal, using my 'Burn' tool to help with the faded parts, using levels tool to give it better color, contrast and brightness. My Great Grandfather is very grand posing with a very nice background.


Now I just have to find time to add this photo to my large collage photo frame that I purchased about 3 years ago to put all my ancestors in. The frame still hangs on my office wall waiting for me to add my family.....

If you have a photo you would like spruced up and looking cheerier. Please contact me. I have very reasonable rates.


Thank you for taking some time to read this little story of mine. Cheers!

 

Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary

Before

 A little project for my favorite 

After

 brother-in-law (aka B.I.L.). Taking an ordinary snapshot picture and turning it into an extraordinary portrait. Very simple, doesn't take long and not much effort and you get results that's very pleasing to the eyes. A little cut out here and a little paste on a new back ground there. The hardest part of this project is finding the right background to use. Either you find a photo for a background, maybe alter it a little or a lot, or you create your very own background from scratch. This always takes me a long time to decide. I tried both until I get that 'WOW' inside my head. Then that's the one.

Before

After

This next project was  more of a challenge and very fun. Taking an ordinary photo and being extraordinary creative. Lots of people had their photos turned into magazine covers. This is actually my very first attempt. Totally all from scratch, no borrowing from something. Again cut out and put on a new background and add text for a magazine look. I am pleased and so was my favorite B.I.L.

The man in these photos is my B.I.L.'s youngest brother who is no longer with us.  My B.I.L. talks about his brother frequently and has Tom's photos displayed in his home and office. These will be added to the collection I am sure. Photographs keeps him with us just like he was still here today. Tom is very much loved and missed by his family. Rest in Peace Tom.

Harry Seymore, Windsor Ontario Artist. CDV photograph

A carte de visite  photo Harry Seymore, Windsor Ont. Artist as written in ink on the back of this photograph. Photographer John Douglass (with 2 ss). Doing a little search on Ancestry.com.  Canadian 1871 census lists a Harry C. Seymore age 44, born abt 1827 and occupation as a Lithograph Agent. This may or may not be the same Harry. Just a mini research in hopes to find his family again. This photo of him could very well fit in the time frame of 1871 give or take a few years. You can find his photograph at my Lost Ancestors location.

http://www.blujay.com/?page=ad&adid=3841903&cat=7090400

Copied from Ancestry.com Canadian 1871 census record.

Henry C Seymore
Age:	44
Estimated Birth Year:	abt 1827
Gender:	Male
Birth Place:	England
Residence District:	Essex
Residence Location:	Windsor Town
Ethnic Origin:	English
Religion:	Church of England, Anglican
Occupation:	Lithogpaph Agent
Division:	2
Microfilm Roll:	C-9890
Page:	81
Head of Household Comment:	This person is listed as a head of household.

A Special Collage Project Leads to a Very Special Find

This collage was fun to make and lead me to a surprising and successful search. The photos didn't have very much damaged. The usual spots, scratches and every once in a while you get a photo with film distortion like the white patches in this photo below.

Before with white film distortion

To make the photo a little more interesting I added color to the child's clothes. Since this is a collage about my husband as a child. Colorizing only his clothes in all the photos I wanted to bring the attention to him. Wasn't he a little cutie? Or as my friend Martha would say "Isn't he a Cuuutie Pie?"




After



Before



After

               












These are my before and after. Restoring photos is fun and interesting. You really get to see the whole picture, every nook and cranny, from a distance and up close. For instance this photo of him with his favorite toy as a child a little monkey doll he called Joe Mindy after a famous monkey at the Detroit Zoo.  Ron always asked me to look for this monkey doll in antique stores. Well I didn't know what this monkey looked like. This photo shows Joe Mindy. After much work on this picture and thinking (I do a lot of thinking working on pictures). I am going to ask my antique selling friends at the The Vintage Village.com http://thevintagevillage.com/ They gave me very good advice and I found a monkey doll on eBay. Viewing the 2 photos side by side, this is definitely Ron's monkey. Upon discovering it's a Monko Monkey, this lead to a better eBay and Google search finding several others. I surprised my husband with this find, but only he could choose the one that looked most like his Joe Mindy.



Ron's original Joe Mindy

Jo Mendi II,  Monko monkey circa late 1930's -1940's

So he chose this one. Here is Jo Mendi II that sits in Ron's favorite room. I now spell his name correctly after Ron did some research on the famous monkey from the Detroit Zoo. Once Jo Mendi II arrived, my mother-in-law recognized him too. He is not the exact doll my husband had but it's close enough and made him very happy.

So moms, don't throw out your children's favorite toy. It takes years for them to find it again. Plus it costs much much more!

In Honor of Father's Day

Here is a treasured photograph of my father and his brother. This is my only photo of my dad this young so it's very dear to me. Someone scribbled pencil markings all over him. Maybe it was my uncle who doesn't have a pencil mark on him at all. 

Well I took away the scribbles, scratches, spots and stains, but I didn't take away the pout-y look on my uncle. Some expressions should remain the same.

This is one of my earlier attempts of restoring photographs. This photo wasn't very difficult or challenging. It most defiantly encouraged me that this is something I wanted to pursue and love to do. 

Maybe you have a treasured photo of your father that needs some TLC. Just send me a comment, email or click on this link to my Restored Memories store.

http://restoredmemories.ecrater.com/

For my Dad who has always been and always will be here for me and in my heart. I will love you for ever. Happy Fathers Day!

Mrs. Baldwin, Photographer, Windsor, Ontario, Canada

This lady has several interesting things about her. My first notice is her name is Mrs. Baldwin. Second is the unusual beaded necklace that looks like it is attached to a pocket watch. Third is her hair beautifully curled. Forth her dress and hair suggests Civil War era.
Photographer Thos. Gorst, Windsor, Ontario, Canada 

  She can be found at this link

http://www.blujay.com/?page=ad&adid=3781710&cat=7090400

J. Graham, Photographer Heinman & Co., Beehive Gallery, Louisville, Kentucky, CDV Photograph

A very stately posed Mr. J. Graham. I get the feeling this is a very old picture from near the Civil War era. On the back is his elegant signature in ink. Photographer Heineman & Co., Beehive Gallery, Louisville, Kentucky.

CDV size 2 1/2 x 4 inches. There is a few tares on the front and back. The photo is very clear and clean. Very good condition for it's age. 

You can find him at this link : http://www.blujay.com/item/J-Graham-Photographer-Heinman-Co-Beehive-Gallery-Louisville-Kentucky-CDV-Photograph-7090400-3780482

Jimmy McClure, Flint, Michigan, Postcard

Little Jimmy McClure sitting so perfectly still in his adorable little snow suit with his "Why me?" expression on his face. This is a post card inserted into a folding paper frame. Photographer DeLoma 128 E. Kearsley St., Flint, Michigan. 
Details of this photo can be found at this link  
http://www.blujay.com/?page=ad&adid=3780449&cat=7090400

Rev. Ed Leblan, L'Assomption, Quebec, Canada

Rev. Ed Leblan. Photographer J.H.Lacerte, L'Assomption. I Googled this city and found it in Quebec Canada. He can be found at this link

http://www.blujay.com/?page=ad&adid=3775188&cat=7090400

Arthur Butcher- Victoria British Columbia Canada

Here is Arthur Butcher. Written on the back in pencil is his name plus date is either 1812 or 1892-1897. The first date is hard to determine. Photographer Butcher & Co., Victoria, B.C.
(I wonder if he is the photographer or related to the photographer).

Link to this photo http://www.blujay.com/?page=ad&adid=3770464&cat=7090400

Alexander McEwen, Lobo, London, Ontario, Canada

I would love to find a photo of my ancestor like this one. Written on the back in ink is his name Alexander McEwen, Lobo. I believe he is from Lobo, Ontario Canada. Photographer J. H. Griffths, London, Ontario. 






Link to my store http://www.blujay.com/?page=ad&adid=3770470&cat=7090400