I came across this today and it seems many here could I imagine would help out. Victims of Katrina lost valuable photographs to the elements and some of those that survived have been damaged. A group called Operation Photo Rescue is looking for volunteers to help out with the huge work load. This has probably already come to your attention if so feel free to delete this thread.

Operation Photo Rescue - Blog (http://web.mac.com/fiftyeggs60/iWeb/Site/OPR%20Blog/OPR%20Blog.html)

I didn't see an email address or anything in the blog, but I found an email for them in one of the media stories:

OperationPhotoRescue@gmail.com

My skills aren't that great, but I offered to help any way I could. :)

T

Also a link to the levels required, Easy, Moderate and Hard.

Day 5 - Blog (http://web.mac.com/fiftyeggs60/iWeb/Site/OPR%20Blog/2EEF813D-103D-4667-A72C-4DA56E4B6DA6.html)

Hi,

thanks for posting this link, creeduk .... I hadn't seen it and probably would never have without your post ....

I think they are doing a wonderful thing and I've already sent an email to offer my help ....

Take care...

Wow how weird. I was just talking to my husband about that today. Thanks.

I also will take on a few...might as well be doing some good with our mice, right? You always hear people say that photos are one of the worst things to lose in any kind of disaster, and I think that hits all of us close to home.

-Kate

I have also sent them an email asking if they require any help

They sent me 3 pictures to do earlier this afternoon, a couple don't look too bad but the third one's gonna be a pain. My parents were visiting today and brought a cd an uncle had made of some of our family's old scanned photos and can't imagine how much it would hurt our family to lose those pictures so I'm definetely gonna try my best on the ones they sent me.

T

Thank you for posting the link. I just sent them an email as well. I can't wait to be able to help out. I know some of us do this for a living but bringing a smile or tears of joy to someone in need is what it's really all about. Like I mentioned to them.... I couldn't imagine such a loss. I once lost a whole bag of video tapes that had my one son's first birthday, halloween, and many other home videos of going to Disney, etc. I still feel a lump in my throat when I think about it. If I lost all of my photos.... oh I don't even want to think about that.

I came across this today and it seems many here could I imagine would help out.

Thanks for posting this link! I too had concidered offering a helping hand, but got side tracked with life. I will be checking this out.

Today i recived an email from them and they sent me two pictures to do. I was wondering when she says send highest jpeg quality, does she mean save it regular or save for web? I just wanted to make sure and not look like an idiot. The reason i ask too has to do with the size issue with my email.

Also she ask me if I wanted to be added to the database to do future pictures for other people. How do you know that this person isn't really saying this to get people to retouch her pictures for free?

Save it regular but at the best quality possible. In other words when you do a "save as" and it goes up to 12 (highest quality), pick 12 if you are using photoshop. As for being reputable, I would say from looking at the website that they are the real deal. I know these days it is hard to trust people but that goes for any kind of charity or volunteering. They have to be careful too because a lot of people could turn in their photos to them who had them damaged for something else. I just do it anyways and if it ever turns out that I was taken for a ride, karma will take care of it. I really don't think this is any one just wanting photos done for free. I too got two photos today. I also said it's ok for them to add me. I figure if it gets too much for me or if it really starts getting where it's hard to keep up on my paid business I'll just email them that I'm bogged down. One of the photos looks like a tie dye shirt aaaaaaaah! I just hope they like my work.

I received my photo from them this afternoon. They informed me I have the last "easy" photo. I mentioned this organization to one of the photographers at my paper and the editors are considering running a story on Operation Photo Rescue.

Thanks you for your help twinkissed! I think i will also tell her to add me to their list. It makes me feel better about myself rather then sit around the house and do nothing. Thanks again!

Hi everybody!

.... Some feedback from me too ....

I've received 5 pictures from PRO yesterday morning (two of them were real Killers!!!!) .... worked on and sent back 3 of them .... I'll finish the other 2 later today ....

Jen,

twinkissed has already answered about the JPG ... I've also agreed to be 'put' on their database .... You are right to be careful ... but in this case, like twinkissed, I believe that "they are the real deal" and admire them for this wonderful initiative!!!

agreed-- they seem sincere to me. I also got 2 photos today of the "difficult" variety...both required major facial reconstruction (yikes!) one missing a nose altogether and one missing part of the face and arm, and both horribly water damaged/moldy. I feel for these people, I think I will get put one the database aslo and do a few more as time permits. Cheers to everyone slaving over their keyboards to help out!

-Kate

Yeah - I got two pictures in as well, and when they say hard ... they mean it ;-)

Gonna take a while ... but I wanna back up the good initiative!

/megl

i teach photoshop at a college here in austin, texas and a couple of my students need a project. this is a perfect win win situation. the only problem is we need the project soon. i would walk them through the whole retouch operation and make sure the recipient is given a quality job. please let me know asap. i have also emailed though the link of one of your thoughtful responders.
good thoughts,
carolyn

www.carolyncoffey.com

No More Photographs

I applied to help a little late.
They have no more photos to restore at the moment.

If anyone has too many photos or feel they won’t have time to complete what they have been sent then I will help.

Ken.

Hi!

Carolyn,

even if you are just 'passing by' ... Welcome to RetouchPRO! :pleased:

Ken,

I've sent in the last 2 of my 5 pictures about an hour ago .... Where were you this morning??? :depressed I would have loved and taken your offer!!! :D :D

Hi Flora.

Well if you thought they were “real killers” then maybe they would have been beyond me.

They have added me to their database. So maybe they will send some pictures as more come in. But it looks like they have cleared the backlog.

Ken.

I am just so glad I thought to post here and really glad you all read it. I thought after I posted maybe I should have made the title better so people would look in but you did anyway. My retouching is OK, not great and I refer anyone who even considers it to come here to see what can be done and often how to do it.

creeduk.

Wow. I had a good response to my offer of help. I have now finished all the pictures I was sent and I have either emailed them back to you or sent them directly to Becky at OPR if that was what you requested.

Becky says thanks.


Ken

I just received this email. It looks like a lot more volunteers are required. Please read the first post in this thread if you would like to help.



All,

There's no need to respond to this email, I just want to update you
all about where we're at in the distribution process.

I had hoped to begin distribution today (Wed 5/03), but to say that
we have been swamped is an understatement. During the whole week that
we intially spent in Pass Christian, MS, we gathered 500 photos from
around 50 or so families.

On Monday here in Metairie, we collected that many in a single day.
Yesterday, we collected from 43 families.

Today, we have collected from (best guess) 70 families. We still have
nearly an hour to go and people are still coming in. This is by no
means an accurate count, but my gut feeling has me thinking that
we've already collected around 1,000 photos since Monday. We still
have two days to go.

Anyway, that's the quick update. Thanks to all who responded in
readiness. We'll start distributing soon, but with the way things are
going we may have to wait until we close up shop here at the end of
the week.

In the meantime, I'll keep you all posted.

Dave Ellis
Operation Photo Rescue
OPRvolunteer@gmail.com

I just sent them an e-mail too. I don't know how much time I can devote to it but I might as well give it a try and see if I can help them out.

Jon.

I've emailed them and recieved one photo. One thought> maybe we can post a before and after of what we've done, go thru the processing so as we can learn from each other or seek advice
. I still got the hard part to fix b4 sending it back :eek:

Thanks for posting this thread, creeduk.

Guys!
If the restored photos are too big for eMail, try yousendit.com/ (http://www.yousendit.com/) . You can send files up to 100MB for FREE!

To avoid having to send each photo separately, you can zip 'm all together* to create one big file (max 100MB). If you need security you can password protect your zip file (set the prefs).

* zipping JPG's together into an archive does not compress them any further (JPG is a compressed state already), but it does serve to group and keep 'm together.