Help needed to validate photo

[GrandPaw]

Hello, I am trying to verify the civil war soldier. Can anyone tell me any of the writing on the back that has faded over the past 153 years. I would love to have a name or date pop out to someone who knows how to do that.

Thanks much!

[Robert-D]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

As far as I can edit it seems to be annet

[GrandPaw]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

Thanks, that part seems to be in ink, but there is writing all over the back that I just cannot make out. That name is unknown to our family. Thank you for trying.

[Wolly55]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

I also tried but came up with the same outcome as Robert-D.
Have tried looking on The Library Of Congress website, as they have a large collection of civil war negatives and photographs.
You might get lucky and see the photo that you have, just an idea.

[GrandPaw]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

Thank you, will try that website. Thanks for trying!

[Robert-D]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

If you use a U/V light it might capture the writing

[GrandPaw]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

Thanks, I will try that!

[shumicpi]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

Its looking difficult to restore the writing in Photoshop to me!

[GrandPaw]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

Thanks for trying. I do not have photoshop, only basic scanner options.

[John Wheeler]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

Hi GrandPaw

It would really help to have a scan about 4x or more the resolution of what you have already done and also have the file saved in TIFF and then shared through a sharing site such as DropBox

As you can see from the image blown up below, it is very pixelated and there are a high number of JPEG artifacts.

That would be the first step to better recovery steps as any PS steps are severely limited by the original image that can be accessed with your post.

Just a suggestion

[GrandPaw]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

Yes, that put me over the 100kb limit. Not familiar with drpboxes.

[John Wheeler]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

Yes, that put me over the 100kb limit. Not familiar with drpboxes.

There are many image/file sharing services out there. DropBox is one at https://www.dropbox.com/ and Google Drive is another popular one https://www.google.com/intl/en/drive/

Both are free with a small number of GB of storage/sharing. With either you could store an image in TIFF and share a link so others could access a higher resolution TIFF image.

Hope this is helpful and others may suggest other sharing services

[GrandPaw]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

Thanks John, I will try that and post when it is done.

[GrandPaw]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ry2gm808nm7fsgc/Reverse%20Side%20Civil%20War%20Photo5.jpg?dl=0

John,
Did this link work? Dropbox is pretty confusing to me.

[John Wheeler]

Re: Help needed to validate photo

Hi GrandPaw

The link worked great and the image is about 600kb now. However, it is still a JPEG that is considerably compressed by either your scanner software or how you saved it.

Having it in a high resolution TIFF really makes a difference for the type of recovery that your are requesting forum members to attempt. Some of the techniques involve color channels or rotation colors.

Even though you may not see now badly compressed the image is by itself, I provide the image below to explain what is going on. It is the section of the most visible writing. JPEG compression settings in editing software often compress the luminosity more than the color components because the eye does not detect the color compression anywhere near as well as the color components.

To bring out the compression issues, I took your image and broke it into quarters with the left quarter being the original image, the second quarter is just the luminosity, followed by the hue component, and then the saturation component.

Note that the Hue and Sat components are heavily compressed and very blocky. Some of the recovery techniques are limited by this JPEG compression.

Now that you have Dropbox working, you don't have a much of a limit on file size. Can you scan and save in TIFF format (preferably 16 bit mode) and at very high resolution (e.g. where there are 4 pixels in the smallest element you want to recover such as a pencil width).

Can't guarantee something will be recovered yet this wil give it the best shot.