Some time ago Digby gave me an old scrapbook containing many black and white newspaper clippings --- all relating to the Guernsey breed. Someone had taken the time to carefully cut these out and glue them into a scrapbook, and I suppose Digby wanted to preserve this information.
Because of the large size of the pages, it was impossible to scan this on "normal" scanning equipment. I tried to take high-resolution digital photographs of the pages, but the results weren't very good.
And then I found ScanCafe in the States. They specialise in scanning old negatives, photographs, etc. --- and their website specifically mentioned old scrapbooks. I sent the Guernsey scrapbook to them, along with a whole shoebox of our old negatives, and I received back the scanned images.
These images are all quite large --- each page resulted in a 115,000KB TIF file (and 350,000KB in some cases). To put that into context, most of the photographs on the ECGS website are about 350KB - 400KB.
I have converted four of the large TIF images to smaller JPG images, and have posted these four in the ECGS photo gallery. One can be seen by clicking here --- and then double-clicking on the image itself to see it full size.
I don't know if all 110 images (of which these are the first four only) are of any use to anybody. I see that there hasn't been a huge interest in Richard's posting on the forum to dispose of hard-bound herd books from 1952 - 1970. So perhaps there just isn't much (or any) interest in this type of historic information.
I am happy to convert the remaining 106 scanned images to smaller JPG files and post them all in the photo gallery if anybody is interested in this information. I have, after all, paid to have the scrapbook scanned. (The original scrapbook has, incidentally, been returned to Digby for him to return it to its owner.)
If there is no interest in this information, I will keep the scanned images safely on my hard drive, and will be glad to furnish this information to anyone who might be interested.
Please either post a comment below, or please e-mail me --- just click here.
Comments
Sonja Gaffer
04 Apr 2008, 16:45
HI Craig, great to see this sort of thing on the site, i for one have been
spending a few minutes looking at the clips and find them facinating.
lovely to see the old cows and how they have changed over the years. Any
chance of seeing come more or getting hold of a disc of these images??
Regards
Sonja
Anne Kennard
04 Apr 2008, 16:45
Hello Craig
Was fascinated by these old photos and reports and would love to see more.
Any chance you could put them on to a disc for sale?
Craig Walsh
05 Apr 2008, 03:41
Your wishes are my command.
I will convert the remaining 106 images to web-friendly format, and will
upload to the EGCS photo gallery --- hopefully later today.
I think I can automate the conversion process using Aperture on my Mac.
The pre-conversion files are huge and difficult to work with: it's taken
52 minutes to just move the files (via our internal network) to the Mac.
I will post a message here when the rest of the scrapbook is uploaded to
the photo gallery.
Thanks for your feedback.
Sonja
05 Apr 2008, 07:21
Hope this doesnt put you to too much trouble Craig,thats why i thought a
disc might be easier, but it would be better for others to see i agree.
thankyou for your time
Craig Walsh
05 Apr 2008, 12:30
This proved to be an interesting exercise for me -- finally forced me to
figure out how to do "actions" in Photoshop.
The rest of the 110 pages have now been uploaded to the EGCS photo gallery.
I tried to reach a balance between the size of the file (so it wouldn't be
too difficult to download or read in an internet environment) and clarity
of the text.
Please remember that each image on the website in three sizes. The
smallest is the thumbnail, then the mid-size image. Please double-click on
the mid-size image to see the larger image, which should be easy to read on
most (if not all) computer monitors.
The album is at:
http://guernseycattle.com/copper/thumbnails.php?album=4
If anyone would like a still larger file of any of the images, please let
me know.
The images have not been keyworded. If someone is going to take the time
to look through these clippings, it would be great if they could keyword
them at the same time. This would enable them to be searchable on the
website, and by search engines (like Google). Any volunteers? Please get
in touch and I will set you up with a user name and password and give you
(I promise) very simple instructions on how to add keywords in the photo
gallery.
I hope this information is of interest.
Anne Kennard
05 Apr 2008, 15:58
Have just spent an hour looking through some of the "scrapbook", it's a
wonderful record of shows and sales from years ago. Thank you for the time
spent doing this, I hope many people will enjoy looking at it.
Sonja
06 Apr 2008, 05:42
Thanks for this Craig. I too intended to spend a couple of minutes having a
quick look through the scapbook and have now realise i have been here
nearly an hour!!
Craig Walsh
06 Apr 2008, 05:56
My pleasure. Glad you enjoyed it.
If anyone has more photographs, articles, etc., that need to be scanned,
I'm glad to do so.
Laura Sales
06 Apr 2008, 15:46
Hi craig
im just gunna have a look at these pics i love looking at old stuff like
this so im sure i will be spending the rest of my evening doing so now
thankyou in advance for doing all that work to make them see able.
Laura
