Re: Tintype Dating

[Hobblebobble]

I have, what I assume is a tintype, of my great grandmother and grandfather as a infant. This is the only known photo of her because shortly after she was struck by lightening and killed and my grandfather was thrown from her lap and was blinded in one eye. The bottom portion of the picture (approx 1/8th of the picture) from the bottom. It is in fair shape otherwise, though small. I very much want to have this restored and be able to make copies for the family, and before it is lost forever to time and further deterioration. One of my concerns has been how to find a reputable firm that I can trust with this since it is very dear to me and I would be devastated if it were damaged further or even lost. Can someone guide me? Many thanks.

[mistermonday]

Hobblebobble, welcome to RetouchPro! I started your own thread.
Do you have access to a good scanner? If you can make a high resolution scan of the photo, you can send the file out for retouching / restoration without exposing the origianl to loss or damage. On the other hand if you want the actual photo itself restored or preserved that will require special resources and a different type of expertise. Which are you looking for?
Regards, Murray

[plugsnpixels]

That's an interesting story! The closest I can come with one of my ancestors is a night in December 1882 when the wife of my great-great-grandfather collapsed and died while walking home from church in the cold.

This would normally be a bad thing, but he remarried and had another child (who was my great-grandmother)! Without whom...

Anyway, Murray's advice is good. Get a hi-res scan and send that out to be worked on. Maybe someone here will offer that service. You probably shouldn't have the original altered (and it's most likely too small anyway).

[Hobblebobble]

Thanks, y'all. I do not have a hi res scanner, or any scanner for that matter. Do you think I could find one where they would scan it for me, such as at a Staples, or somewhere like that? I also would love to have the original restored for display. She was too beautiful to store in a safe.

Old pics have so many interesting stories. As my Mom's generation leaves us, so many stories will be left untold. The house where the lightening struck was renovated many, many years ago and still stands. Of course, my grandpa was removed from that house and was raised by his grandpa, whom he always called "Tom." One of the funniest stories I remember hearing was that cars were still early in availability but somehow the family acquired one that was probably already on it's last legs. My grandpa was working on the transmission one day, having removed it from the car, trying desperately to get the car back in commission as my great great grandpa paced about fretting about getting somewhere he needed to go. My grandpa kept telling him he was still working on it. Then, my great great grandpa said, "Throw the son of a bitch up here on the porch, Willie, and fix it when we get back!" LOL.

[4personnen]

Hi,
Where are you situated? Maybe folks here - including me can point you out to a reputable company that can hirez scan it for you.... Or PM you if it's considered as advertisement.

[Hobblebobble]

I am in Wilson, NC. About 45 miles east of Raleigh. I wouldn't consider it an advertisement. I would think it would be a helpful suggestion and also be information of a resource.

[4personnen]

I can't help so far as I'm in the UK...
But there's no doubt that there's people around you that know about such companies...
If there's a professional photo lab around, that could help...

[plugsnpixels]

Decent scanners are really cheap. Look into the Canon CanoScan LiDE, for instance. We use them here in my computer labs. Should be perfectly fine for your purpose, plus you can use it for many other things later!

[mistermonday]

These folks in Raleigh seem to have a good reputation, although I have not used them.
http://www.discountdigitalart.com/ph...tos-to-cd.html
I am sure you could arrange to have your photo scanned while you wait. There a probably a number of others based in Raleigh as well.
Regards, Murray

[plugsnpixels]

Business idea: Drive-through scanning! "Would you like fries with that?"

[Sportyone]

HobbleBobble..
If you ever do get the photo scanned I would like to retouch it for you....no charge.
I can always use the practice and would not use it without your express permission.
Just the fact that you are willing to preserve your family photo for others says positive things about you.

http://www.photobridgeretouch.com

[plugsnpixels]

Winning!!!!!!!!!!!

[Janet Petty]

Hobblebobble, rather than scanning, set up the picture under some decent lighting situation and take a hi-res picture of it. In the "old days" before scanners, this is what we used to do. It still works quite well in this, the digital, age. After the picture is taken, then you have a copy for your computer and something for the retouchers to work with.

Janet

[plugsnpixels]

I would say the camera-copy method would be secondary to scanning in terms of quality, unless scanning is not an option (as in this case). There's nothing like having the old photo right up against the glass ;-).

[Mike]

I would say that done correctly with a decent camera (the one in your phone does not qualify) with a double polarized lighting setup, the results are far superior to a scanner for this kind of work. Why would one want to copy the glass along with your photo?

[plugsnpixels]

Good point, and you may be right, though I'd like to see a side-by-side comparison. I've scanned many hundreds of old family photos at very hi res and don't think a camera could match that (maybe a digital back on a Hasselblad or 4x5, but how many people have that or the lighting setup you describe?). Plus, a home camera-copy setup can easily introduce linear distortion if not spot-on (scanners don't have this problem). Again, how many people have copy stands?

[Mike]

Some thoughts:

How much res does one need? At my studio the vast majority of the customers usually wanted their old photos reproduced at 1:1 or reduced in size in order to fit them into some kind of album. Maybe 1 out of several hundred wanted something bigger than the original and we all know how that works. Also occasionally someone wanted a 1:1 from something that was maybe a 11x14 or 16x20.

If my 11Mp camera can take a family portrait and make 30x40 print of it with no problems, why can't I make a copy of a 16x20 print and reproduce it at the same size? It does not seem to be a problem for me to do.

As for a "home brew" copy stand, I used to just lay the tripod on a table, place some kind of counterweight on it (books, bricks, sandbags, dead bodies, whatever) and shot straight down at the floor. A small carpenters level kept me quite close to square. That was during film days, now if I detected any distortion, a quick fix is available in PS. But you are correct, a copy stand is like heaven on earth for this kind of work!

Lighting is kind of another story. The lights themselves can be had for maybe $50, the filters will be more than that. However with proper care they should last you (maybe?) a life time.

Anyway, interesting discussion and I hope that the two of us have managed to stir up the pot a bit for the others on here!

[plugsnpixels]

Discussion is always good!

In my case, I was scanning a lot of old family images (anywhere from thumbnail to wallet to 4x5, 5x7 and 8x10). I wanted them to be huge on screen to see hidden detail and to archive digitally as approximately 8x10" @ 200ppi as part of my family history project. So I generally scanned them at 300-800ppi depending on original size and downsized as needed. I'm not interested in making fresh prints of these, nor in keeping the originals (which I returned to relatives across country).

Here is an example of some source material and the final scan (both downsized for display here, of course).

Another thing to consider is, the scanner helped hold many of these photos and old war letters flat, which was very important.

[plugsnpixels]

Here's another example showing the detail I'm pulling out of the little prints.

This and the other photos by the large brick and stone building were taking at what is now the Culinary Institute of America in NY State, on the Hudson River. Used to be a Jesuit school. My great-grandmother's younger brother died there in the flu epidemic in January 1919 (that's not him in the photo).

[Mike]

A tip on holding things flat, get a piece of sheet metal (I think mine is about 11x14 and obtained for free from a business that installs heating and cooling ductwork), paint it flat black.

Go to a sewing store and get a roll of magnet material, mine is about 1/2 inch wide and maybe 6(?) feet long, cut it into usable lengths.

A good many of the photos that I copied had white boarders around the edges, so if it wanted to curl, I just placed the magnetic strips on the boarders and they would hold the print/letter down. If I did have an extreme case I will admit that I did have a nice large sheet of glass that I could use.

[plugsnpixels]

I can see doing that for a *few* prints, not hundreds... ;-)

[Mike]

One can get the hang of it rather quickly. If I had "hundreds" to do I would rather use a camera because its so much faster. My camera (Canon) would be tethered to the computer so I would be able to see what it looked like and have it on the hard drive in less than 20 seconds. So even if my set up time was a bit longer than laying the print on the scanner, it was still quicker than the scanner I have.

This discussion kinda sounds like Photoshop, if it can be done, it can be done at least 5 different ways!

[plugsnpixels]

THAT is true, the camera is much faster! I do this with old books or such that I want to make into PDFs. Forget scanning them! If you look at Google Books online you'll see they shoot books with DSLRs (sometimes rather sloppily, getting their hands in the frame or turning pages while the shutter is tripping...).

As for my scanning, I was using an old Epson Expression 1600 and their software supported batch scanning, so I was able to do several prints in one shot. I think Apple's built-in Image Capture app does as well.