Rephotographing Old Photos

1912 My father with his baby sister. (Check his outfit!)

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Around 1935 My parents in San Francisco before they got married.

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August 1945 My father somewhere in Italy.

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October 1953 My father and me (at 6) in downtown Sacramento.

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All captured with Google PhotoScan with only slight tweaks in Snapseed.
 
Cool photos! How does the Google Photo scan work? Are you happy with?
PhotoScan works pretty well. It really only does this one special thing -- try to eliminate glare -- but it does that pretty well, so I'm happy enough with it. It does sometimes get its automatic cropping wrong (as do all the similar apps I've tried), but you can adjust that before you save. It doesn't have any "unfade" or adjustment features.

I took a screenshot to give you an idea of how it works. You move to get your photo inside PhotoScan's frame and then tap the shutter button. PS takes the overall shot and then prompts you to position the camera for four more shots by moving the center circle over each of the corner circles one by one. As I read it, it uses those four shots to remove the glare from the original shot. (After the first shot, you don't need to use the shutter button. PS automatically snaps the other shots when the circle is suitably aligned.)

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PhotoScan works pretty well. It really only does this one special thing -- try to eliminate glare -- but it does that pretty well, so I'm happy enough with it. It does sometimes get its automatic cropping wrong (as do all the similar apps I've tried), but you can adjust that before you save. It doesn't have any "unfade" or adjustment features.

I took a screenshot to give you an idea of how it works. You move to get your photo inside PhotoScan's frame and then tap the shutter button. PS takes the overall shot and then prompts you to position the camera for four more shots by moving the center circle over each of the corner circles one by one. As I read it, it uses those four shots to remove the glare from the original shot. (After the first shot, you don't need to use the shutter button. PS automatically snaps the other shots when the circle is suitably aligned.)

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I have a boat load of photos to scan. I'm hoping to set up a shared photo folder with the family. I'm assuming that Google Scan will save to Google photos. Considering the near disaster I had trying to remove a photo from a family album, taking four shots to get rid of the glare seems absolutely worth while. I'm looking into that. Thanks!
 
That is close to the best part!!

I sometimes wonder when Google is going to start charging. I'm as deeply enmeshed in Google as I am in Apple!
With Google your data is the product. They pay you with shiny stuff and sell your data for profit. This transactional arrangement is downplayed but it's all in their terms of service. You are already paying, it just might not be an economy we're all familiar with.
 
With Google your data is the product. They pay you with shiny stuff and sell your data for profit. This transactional arrangement is downplayed but it's all in their terms of service. You are already paying, it just might not be an economy we're all familiar with.

Saaayyy what?????? Do you mean fishing for my preferences and selling it to spam generators?
 
Saaayyy what?????? Do you mean fishing for my preferences and selling it to spam generators?

I'm apologizing for the sarcastic tone here. I was typing what I was thinking. At first I thought you meant my person data, pictures and documents, then I realized you were talking about the Duluth Trading Co. shoes that show up on all my searches. I guess I always knew that was going on but never really stopped to think about it. I didn't mean to have it come out that way.
 
I'm apologizing for the sarcastic tone here. I was typing what I was thinking. At first I thought you meant my person data, pictures and documents, then I realized you were talking about the Duluth Trading Co. shoes that show up on all my searches. I guess I always knew that was going on but never really stopped to think about it. I didn't mean to have it come out that way.
Oh, I didn't take it as sarcasm, no apology needed, I hope you don't think I went quiet on you for your response. I got a bit sidetracked in the mobicolour what with one thing and another.
But yes. Preferences, personal details, familial connections, facial recognition of people in your pics, location and movements, interests and allsorts of whatnot depending on how deep you are in the google ecosystem.
 
These first photos were all shot handheld, laying each piece on a flat surface by a window and hovering above with an iPhone using the native camera app. I've done only a little editing and no restoration so that you can get a feel for what the originals look like.

First up, two photos from 1902, of my maternal grandmother, Laura Jones, with three of her friends in her room at "Ma Park's boarding house" while she was attending Fremont Teacher's College in Nebraska. According to my grandmother's notes on the back, the ladies are, from left to right, Miss Cora Foxworthy, Miss Addie Mills, Miss Ina Shea, and Miss Laura Jones.

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There are no notes from Laura about why everyone's cracking up in the second photo. Perhaps because the photographer just stumbled into the camera and knocked it off angle?

Note the ink bottles on the table along with the books and glasses.

I just have to say, "Don't blink!" Followed 1.5 minutes later by, "Oh no! I think I blinked! Were my eyes open?"
 
Cool!
It's funny to me how people never smiled in photos back then. I wonder what they'd think about the selfie craze nowadays. o_O

I was just thinking the same thing and then here you've posted my thoughts! This is happening sooooo often! Are you me in another dimension?
 
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OK, the oldest photos I can put my hands on quickly are of me at the babysitter's house.
Her daughter sent them to me when she was cleaning out her moms house. I was 4 in most of these so it would have been 1959.
They are all framed so I'm loving the ability to photograph them under glass with the google app. Thanks :)
I am the one pointing ;)
Here's me with my "Old Woman in the Shoe" cake :) (my mom was a cake decorator at a bakery.) I always had wonderfully creative birthday cakes.
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My hair had been down to my knees and my mom was so sick of doing it that she cut it all off in a "pixie" haircut and my grandma cried when she saw me and didn't speak to my mom for weeks.
 
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I was just thinking the same thing and then here you've posted my thoughts! This is happening sooooo often! Are you me in another dimension?
If you asked my friend who's into string stream theory and sacred geometry and all kinds of other stuff, I just might be..... :alien:
 
View attachment 93102 OK, the oldest photos I can put my hands on quickly are of me at the babysitter's house.
Her daughter sent them to me when she was cleaning out her moms house. I was 4 in most of these so it would have been 1959.
They are all framed so I'm loving the ability to photograph them under glass with the google app. Thanks :)
I am the one pointing ;)
Here's me with my "Old Woman in the Shoe" cake :) (my mom was a cake decorator at a bakery.) I always had wonderfully creative birthday cakes.
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My hair had been down to my knees and my mom was so sick of doing it that she cut it all off in a "pixie" haircut and my grandma cried when she saw me and didn't speak to my mom for weeks.
Too cute!! I had a pixie cut too a la my mom. And those same saddle shoes.
 
Oh, I didn't take it as sarcasm, no apology needed, I hope you don't think I went quiet on you for your response. I got a bit sidetracked in the mobicolour what with one thing and another.
But yes. Preferences, personal details, familial connections, facial recognition of people in your pics, location and movements, interests and allsorts of whatnot depending on how deep you are in the google ecosystem.
Yes. Google has me linked up all over the place. My privacy has been the cost of my Google penchant.
 
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Another cyanotype print, circa 1904, newly-married Laura Jones Reed in the kitchen of their house in or around Fremont, Nebraska. Quaker Oats and Pillsbury flour on the top shelf.

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Same time and place as above, printed by a different process.
Wow these are fantastic!! Look at that beautiful stove!! :inlove: And I'm loving the Quaker Oats and Pillsbury flour...amazing some of these brands that have been around for so long. I can't tell, but is that some type of tissue paper decoration on the two shelves of the cabinet? Interesting...
 
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