Hi from the PacNW

[Runscott]

Hi everyone. This forum is probably a bit technical for me as far as restoration skills, but I have found some great information while browsing through threads and doing searches for information I need, so thought I would join. I'm very creative in my restoration, so perhaps I can add something.

My photo background has been primarily collecting pre-wwi sports photos. I have only attempted to restore the ones that were absolute disasters;e.g-cleaning horridly dirty albumens, 'saving' silver gels that were so warped and stained that they were barely collectible, soaking off albumen prints from mounts that were destroyed and replacing the mats. Really simple stuff. I've also conducted some albumen cdv and cabinet photo experiments to determine what forgers might be capable of (scarily enlightening stuff).

I'm here now because I'm doing a 'history of photography' interactive display at a sports card show and, in preparation, have acquired my first dags and ambros. As is inevitable, some have issues I will post an example in another thread.

Thanks for making this forum available!

[shift studio]

Re: Hi from the PacNW

Welcome Runscott. Sounds like you've got some interesting projects that you are passionate and knowledgeable about. That will make for good topics here - both for receiving and giving advice.
If you get a chance, please make some of your work available online.

--Shift Studio.

[Runscott]

Re: Hi from the PacNW

Thanks for the welcome!

I would love to, and tried, but there are some limits on image size that make it difficult to show work effectively. I'll try again later today - perhaps it was user error

Today I received a wonderful 'time capsule' of eight 1800's images. Among them were two 1/4 plate tintypes, images of two soldiers on each - same backdrop and one soldier appeared in both. The wonderful thing about these two tintypes is that one was in a half-case with no glass, while the other was protected by glass. In effect, you get to see a realistic 'before and after' of how a tintype ages in 130 years. I'll use these as my first image example. As they are colloidal, I was able to clean some residue off of the rough one. The other has a lot of dust on it, but is so minty I didn't want to mess with it. As a bonus, there was also a melanotype (stamped with 1856 patent) in the group - perfect for the show we are planning!

[shift studio]

Re: Hi from the PacNW

Hey Runscott.

Sounds like you've got some real interesting pieces to work on!
I don't know anything about restoration or older photographic print making either. There are a lot of people here that do though. It can take a while for posts to get answered so sometimes you just have to be patient

To get images to 100kb or less, you can use Photoshop's Save for Web export feature. You need to strike a balance between acceptable compression and image size (number of pixels)

50% quality is often acceptable - start there, then reduce image size to around 1000 px high. The corresponding image file size is shown in KB in the lower left corner.
If you're under 100KB then you can increase the quality and/or increase the image dimensions. Generally stay less than 1000 px in height though, so browsers won't usually need to scale it to work with the display being used.

Of course, if you want to display full-res versions, there are 1000s of image sharing options on the internet that you can link to.

good luck.
--shift studio.

[Runscott]

Re: Hi from the PacNW

Thanks for the information. I have several 'before and after' pieces I would like to document, so I'll figure out the appropriate place and use your recommendations to size them correctly. I won't be concerned about getting responses - I have no problem with a forum that is oriented toward people sharing information but not really discussing it. I need somewhere to organize what I'm doing, and a tiny chance of feedback is better than what I get by just storing it on my computer.