Sepia Saturday 89: Asa Manchester, Buckeye Plumbing and Heating

Picking up on the thread of store fronts, I selected this photograph of Buckeye Plumbing & Heating with Asa Manchester standing in the far left of the picture. This is a restoration of a badly damaged photograph. The lower left corner was almost entirely missing and the photograph was badly faded.

Based on Asa's estimated age in the photograph (about 30ish) and a 1902-03 Dayton Directory listing for Buckeye Plumbing and Heating, I suspect this photo was taken ca 1900. The identities of the two other gentlemen in the photograph are unknown. One possibility is J. Volney Russell, manager of Buckeye Plumbing in 1902.

This is my first contribution to Sepia Saturday having just learned about it today!  I hope to have larger pictures and links to online catalogs up and running soon.

Handling Digital Photographs: What do I really Need?

I’ve been using Adobe Photoshop Elements to catalog and edit photos. Am I missing out by not taking advantage of the capabilities of Flickr and Picasa? Before I even start to look at their glitzy websites, I need to decide what I don't want to live without.

Hundreds of tagged photos are in my Adobe Photoshop Elements catalog. How will I find the pictures my kids need for school without tags?  Keeping the catalog current and transitioning it from one computer to another has been a less than pleasurable experience. But, I hate to lose all those tags. The ability to either import the tags or convert them to meta-tags would be ideal.

I use my photos in a lot of different ways: high resolution photos for print publications, small jpgs to email to family and friends, something in-between for slide shows on our TV and pdfs to share across platforms. In the past, I ended up with multiple versions of many photos. I’d really like to keep one master photograph at high resolution and be able to easily morph it into whatever form I need.

Online photo backup or storage is a must. I LOVE Dropbox but don’t have enough space to keep all my photographs there. My digital photo catalog is divided between Dropbox and an external hard drive with backups on DVDs.  Yech!

Photo-editing? Does reconstructing a leg, pixel-by-pixel count? Changing from black-and-white or color to sepia? Removing pen and crayon from images? Okay, there is probably not a photo-editing feature in Jasc, that I haven’t used. I really miss Jasc!

So, what’s new to love on Picasa or Flickr? What do you love?  What are you looking for in an online digital cataloging system and/or editing program?  Are there other solutions I should consider?

Welcome to my attic!

Well, at least my virtual attic.  My house doesn't even have an attic!  This blog was inspired by a Genealogy Guys podcast.  Drew Smith had just received a couple of boxes of memorabilia.  As items were pulled from the box, some inspired further analysis - a clue, a new research avenue, a question ....  The program was intriguing and inspiring.

I thought of my boxes at home and all the boxes scattered amongst various family members.  First I was struck by the shear immensity of the task and secondly,  by how to make the family treasures available to those who would be most interested.  What good were any precious documents and photos in unlabeled boxes?  Convinced that the boxes would somehow magically empty, sort themselves and jump into archival sleeves, I blithely went about my way.

A year later, the only movement of the boxes was from a corner of the living room to a less obvious corner of the kitchen.  I clearly needed an impetus to begin. Inspiration arrived in the whirlwind that is Kathy Reed.  She is fanatical about blogging and soon convinced me that a blog would be a perfect way to share any treasures.  Maureen Taylor's seminar in Kentucky provided the step-by-step procedure for tackling a box of photos and memorabilia

I can't wait to get started!  This is a record of my journey.  From evaluating scanners and software to learning how to properly preserve and archive, it promises to be a great learning experience.

Thanks for stopping by,
Liz Stratton

By the way, there really was a skeleton in the attic.  More on that later ....