scanner/monitor calibration, Alberta photos

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Parents:

  • None.
A while ago I bought a scanner to scan some of my photos,
did a few hundred with it over a period of months (boring
and time-consuming), and was never really happy with the
results: muted colors and not much clarity, even if I upped
the scanning resolution and fiddled with gamma correction.

(I could scan at up to 600 dpi, but usually used 150dpi
since it didn't seem to make much of a difference for the
target size I wanted, ~900x600 pixels.) Samples:
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/1999/09/nyc/

Anyway, I came across this site tonight that might have been
useful back then:

   SCARSE: Scanner CAlibration ReaSonably Easy
   http://www.scarse.org/

> What is it?
>
> Scarse is a free color calibration and management software
> package. It lets you build and use ICC profiles. Custom profiles
> can be generated from variety of calibration targets. Scarse is
> intended for (and developed on) Unix machines and is distributed
> under the terms of GNU Public License.
>
> Scarse project was born out of my desire to be able to get good
> scans which are consistent across large batches, and do it with
> minimal amount of manual tweaking. It is intended for serious
> photographic or prepress applications, and is most useful with
> high-end film scanners. If you just want to occasionally scan a
> snapshot of your aunt on your $100 flatbed and don't care about
> the colors as long as they are snappy, don't bother, this package
> is not for you.

It's written by a guy at the U of Alberta (Andrei Frolov), who
has some other useful stuff nearby, including:

   Adjust Your Monitor -- test patterns and notes on adjusting
     computer video systems
   http://ohm.phys.ualberta.ca/photo/calibrate/

| Before you start working with photo images on your computer (or
| even view them), you should really make sure that your
| video system is displaying things correctly. These pages will
| assist you in this task by providing patterns to test different
| things.

Also, he some great photos of the Albertan rockies:

   http://ohm.phys.ualberta.ca/photo/gallery/alberta.html

including:

   Fryatt Lake
   http://ohm.phys.ualberta.ca/db/image/PCD0589/013-8.html

which I *think* is the same lake as the one in the background of
this photo:

   http://impressive.net/people/gerald/1992/07/valley.jpg

(which may be my all-time favorite photo, though it's a lame scan.)

also:

   Northern Lights over Edmonton:
   http://ohm.phys.ualberta.ca/db/critique/PCD0589/003-2.html

(cool, but not nearly as cool as the real thing)

--
Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/

Copyright-free community-indexed photo archive

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On Sat, Sep 02, 2000 at 12:13:01AM -0400, Gerald Oskoboiny wrote:
:
> also:
>
>     Northern Lights over Edmonton:
>     http://ohm.phys.ualberta.ca/db/critique/PCD0589/003-2.html
>
> (cool, but not nearly as cool as the real thing)

surfing around a bit more, I happened across a much better shot:

   http://gimp-savvy.com/cgi-bin/img.cgi?noaaZTsXLnuQ3EU7161

linked from:

   Most Popular Images
   http://gimp-savvy.com/cgi-bin/favorites.cgi

which is part of a much larger collection of copyright-free images:

   http://gimp-savvy.com/PHOTO-ARCHIVE/

] A Community-Indexed Photo Archive
]
] The photo archive at Gimp-Savvy.com has more than 15,000 images
] consisting of over 1Gb of data. The goal is to make this archive
] a resource for collage and photo-montage using digital image
] editing techniques such as those described in Chapter 7 of
] Grokking the GIMP.
]
] To improve the archive's usefulness, full indexing of the images
] is planned.  However, this job would be taxing for a single
] person, and would probably produce only mediocre results.
] Consequently, the solution is to provide an interactive
] environment allowing the community to participate in the
] labelling of archive images.  The expectation is that the
] resulting index will be both richer and more robust than one
] fashioned by any so-called master architect.
]
] In looking through the archive you will be able to browse pages
] of image thumbnails, which are linked to the full-size images.
] Clicking on a link provides you with the means to examine the
] list of current keywords for that image and to propose some of
] your own.  In addition, it will be possible to examine the list
] of all keywords, and these keys will be linked to the images that
] they label.  Finally, images will also be searchable by keyword
] and by image association.  Hopefully these tools will allow you
] to more easily find good materials for your image editing
] projects.

Hey, cool! Want more pics of northern lights?

   http://gimp-savvy.com/cgi-bin/keysearch.cgi?words=aurora+borealis

--
Gerald Oskoboiny <[email protected]>
http://impressive.net/people/gerald/

HURL: fogo mailing list archives, maintained by Gerald Oskoboiny