Okay, I normally wouldn't pass this to the list, but there are times when I would love to be able to read those Census images better that are too black, have tape on them, or other stuff. Why does NASA have to have all the good technology for reading ancient text? If you have an interest in Science, Archaeology, or Pompeii take a look at this site. I know it doesn't have much if anything to do with Genealogy, but maybe we can sneak one of the machines out and re-do those census images. http://www.msnbc.com/news/562226.asp?cp1=1#BODY Kim Pollard -- http://www.cableone.net/jamez/family.htm Check out some of the other websites I'm running. http://drew-ms.netfirms.com/ http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/beautiful/877/ or http://nav.to/Merick

Kim, Interesting article. The ease of using a digital camera with infra-red capability would definitely make this technique fast and easy to use. The technique is not really new to photography. As a photographer who studied in the Air Force I was aware of the ability to use infra-red to photograph text which had been rendered unreadable by being obliterated by black magic marker. I was many times called to copy documents in the lab and improve the contrast so the copy appeared better than the original. Census documents are really not much of a challenge for a good copy photographer. Using the correct filter will do wonders for enhancing the contrast. Regards, Michael -----Original Message----- From: Kim Pollard [mailto:merick@cableone.net] Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 1:07 PM To: MIGRANDT-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [MIGRANDT-L] Why can't we use this on those Census images? Okay, I normally wouldn't pass this to the list, but there are times when I would love to be able to read those Census images better that are too black, have tape on them, or other stuff. Why does NASA have to have all the good technology for reading ancient text? If you have an interest in Science, Archaeology, or Pompeii take a look at this site. I know it doesn't have much if anything to do with Genealogy, but maybe we can sneak one of the machines out and re-do those census images. http://www.msnbc.com/news/562226.asp?cp1=1#BODY Kim Pollard -- http://www.cableone.net/jamez/family.htm Check out some of the other websites I'm running. http://drew-ms.netfirms.com/ http://www.fortunecity.com/westwood/beautiful/877/ or http://nav.to/Merick