You should be able to scan right to your OCR software with the newer scanners. There is a transparency adapter that can be order separately for this scanner that allows it to scan up 4 x 5 inch film. I do not have it. Tom Chuck Prickett <[email protected]> wrote: I presently volunteer to find and copy newspaper obituaries. I usually scan the newspaper microfilm on a reader-printer, print the image, then scan that printed image using OCR software to a MS Word document which is then attached to an e-mail. On older films I usually just transcribe them due to the poor quality of the film. I would like to be able to use my OCR software to directly scan the microfilm. My question, is it possible to use a photo scanner to read newspaper microfilms? Is there a better way to scan microfilm? Thanks, Chuck Prickett T. Risinger Home Page: http://www.t-risinger.com/ Webmaster for Eastern Nebr. Gun Club: http://www.engcinc.org/ Assistant Coordinator for Knox Co. NEGenWeb Proj.: http://www.rootsweb.com/~neknox/ Webmaster for The Butterfield Family: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~butterfield/ --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!

There are both 35mm and "other" sized slides. The 35mm ones usually scan right. The ones that are square in shape are the ones that will generate the problem. This only happens to maybe one out of twenty or so. I think it is the software that is cropping the image and I can not get it to stop. For what ever reason the software is not recognizing the edge of the picture. The scanner, scans the long film strips negatives and puts them into individual pictures very well. Tom "E.Rodier" <[email protected]> wrote:A 35mm slide is rectangular. You might have some slides that are verticals and some horizontals. Use the image software to rotate any that have to be scanned sideways. If that isn't the problem, the image software may be set to scan a cropped area of one slide and you need to select the whole rectangle shape for the next one. -- Elizabeth ----- Original Message ----- From: "T. Risinger" > I recently purchased an Epson Perfection 2400 Photo scanner. I bought this to scan film and slides. When scanning slides it will crop off part of the top and bottom or left and right sides occationally. I will scan about the middle half of the picture, usually. Can anyone tell me why this is happening? T. Risinger Home Page: http://www.t-risinger.com/ Webmaster for Eastern Nebr. Gun Club: http://www.engcinc.org/ Assistant Coordinator for Knox Co. NEGenWeb Proj.: http://www.rootsweb.com/~neknox/ Webmaster for The Butterfield Family: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~butterfield/ --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!

A 35mm slide is rectangular. You might have some slides that are verticals and some horizontals. Use the image software to rotate any that have to be scanned sideways. If that isn't the problem, the image software may be set to scan a cropped area of one slide and you need to select the whole rectangle shape for the next one. -- Elizabeth ----- Original Message ----- From: "T. Risinger" > I recently purchased an Epson Perfection 2400 Photo scanner. I bought this to scan film and slides. When scanning slides it will crop off part of the top and bottom or left and right sides occationally. I will scan about the middle half of the picture, usually. Can anyone tell me why this is happening?

I presently volunteer to find and copy newspaper obituaries. I usually scan the newspaper microfilm on a reader-printer, print the image, then scan that printed image using OCR software to a MS Word document which is then attached to an e-mail. On older films I usually just transcribe them due to the poor quality of the film. I would like to be able to use my OCR software to directly scan the microfilm. My question, is it possible to use a photo scanner to read newspaper microfilms? Is there a better way to scan microfilm? Thanks, Chuck Prickett <[email protected]>

I recently purchased an Epson Perfection 2400 Photo scanner. I bought this to scan film and slides. When scanning slides it will crop off part of the top and bottom or left and right sides occationally. I will scan about the middle half of the picture, usually. Can anyone tell me why this is happening? Thanks, T. Risinger Home Page: http://www.t-risinger.com/ Webmaster for Eastern Nebr. Gun Club: http://www.engcinc.org/ Assistant Coordinator for Knox Co. NEGenWeb Proj.: http://www.rootsweb.com/~neknox/ Webmaster for The Butterfield Family: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~butterfield/ --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!

Probably hand coloured with water paints, Kathy. This was a quite common procedure pre Kodacolor. These sites will give you a bit of insight into the technique: http://www.palmermultimedia.com/SVS/SVS%20Articles/Tech%20Tips/hand_tint ing_photographs.htm http://www.imagerestore.co.uk/tint.htm http://www.creativescrapbooking.com/topics/hand%20tinting.htm http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0103/pov.html Lance Got Outlook? Get NEO and have instantly organized email... http://www.caelo.com/a/rl.php3?i=GKM65 -----Original Message----- From: Kaytt [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, 4 June 2003 7:13 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [SP] 1930s - 1940s colored picture Hi, I have some colored pictures from the 1930s to early 1940s, before the days of coloured film, and I'd like to know the technique that was used to add the color to these pictures. Some pictures have just the cheeks and lips colored, and some have the entire picture colored. Does anyone know how this was done? Thanks, Kathy

Kathy, You can still purchase kits of colors from photographic stores for this purpose. This is a fine art. I have seen some beautiful work. Phillip ----- Original Message ----- From: "Kaytt" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 2:13 PM Subject: [SP] 1930s - 1940s colored picture > Hi, > > I have some colored pictures from the 1930s to early 1940s, before the days > of coloured film, and I'd like to know the technique that was used to add > the color to these pictures. > > Some pictures have just the cheeks and lips colored, and some have the > entire picture colored. Does anyone know how this was done? > > Thanks, > Kathy > > >

Thank you for the explanation. I thought it might be b&w photographs which were painted , but I wasn't sure. However, I didn't know that coloured pencils were sometimes used too, and I sure never knew about the smudging . Kathy From: "Al Jensen" <[email protected]> > These pictures are actually black and white photographs which have been > colored using colored pencils or oil paints. You used to be able to send > photos out to have them colored, or you could even buy coloring kits to do > them yourself. I have seen some that were very well done, with nice > skin-tone tinting and flower renditions, etc. I believe most were done by > applying the color and lightly smudging it using cotton swabs or Q-tips. > Al Jensen >

My suggestion would be to take your pictures and save them in a format such as tiff or jpeg. Then I would go to a word processing program or desktop publishing program such as Microsoft Publisher. From there you can import your file and work from that. I have never had much success with OCR. Evelyn At 05:02 AM 06/03/2003 +0000, you wrote: >Your computer already has a word recognition feature, (i.e.edit, find >text in message) in most browsers or programs. You will have to figure >out how to group all those messages on MS Word or Excel before using the >find command! >On Tue, 3 Jun 2003 06:34:52 -0500 "Max Yates" <[email protected]> writes: > > Hello all, > > > > Can someone tell me if this is possible - > > > > To use a digital camera to photograph obits from old newspapers (1 - > > 110 y/o), then bring them home to PC, and run it through some type > > of word recognition program. > > > > Ultimately, I would like to record about 500 obits to genealogy > > program and future personal website. > > > > Can someone make a suggestion on type of camera and recognition > > program for this purpose? > > > > Thanks, > > Max in FL. > > > > > >

These pictures are actually black and white photographs which have been colored using colored pencils or oil paints. You used to be able to send photos out to have them colored, or you could even buy coloring kits to do them yourself. I have seen some that were very well done, with nice skin-tone tinting and flower renditions, etc. I believe most were done by applying the color and lightly smudging it using cotton swabs or Q-tips. Al Jensen -----Original Message----- From: Kaytt [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2003 2:13 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [SP] 1930s - 1940s colored picture Hi, I have some colored pictures from the 1930s to early 1940s, before the days of coloured film, and I'd like to know the technique that was used to add the color to these pictures. Some pictures have just the cheeks and lips colored, and some have the entire picture colored. Does anyone know how this was done? Thanks, Kathy

Hi, I have some colored pictures from the 1930s to early 1940s, before the days of coloured film, and I'd like to know the technique that was used to add the color to these pictures. Some pictures have just the cheeks and lips colored, and some have the entire picture colored. Does anyone know how this was done? Thanks, Kathy

> Your computer already has a word recognition feature, (i.e.edit, find > text in message) in most browsers or programs. You will have to figure > out how to group all those messages on MS Word or Excel before using > the find command! In order for the Edit --> Find text in message, to work the message needs to be in a text format. A digital picture of a document cannot be searched in this way until it has been OCR'd and changed from an image into a text document. It may be possible to successfully OCR a digital photograph of a newspaper article as long as the camera used has a high enough resolution and a good OCR program is used. Even at that it will probably require some time and effort to do a reasonable job. It maight be better to simply use the image and supply a transcription John Zillwood [email protected] Communications Officer Abbotsford Genealogical Society http://www.rootsweb.com/~bcags/

Bob Kirk in the UK, it is not true that "with a digital camera you always get a tonal image." My Sony Mavica MVC-CD300 (now superseded by the MVC-CD450) takes regular "tonal images," and it also takes black-and-white only, which Sony calls "text images." To do so only takes the turn of a switch and the camera only records black and white pixels-- no tones in beween. This is great for recording text and with a very low image file. The Sony Mavica records images on a mini-CD (costing about 35 cents each) and I can get several hundred text images on each CD. The camera also records "tonal" greyscale images also, of course.

Old books and newspaper clippings are difficult to convert to text using Optical Character Recognition even if the original is available. I've had fair results using full-featured OmniPage Pro OCR with a 1930 will typed in a lawyer's office and photocopied. A less expensive OCR product (downloaded) converted every syllable as a separate word from a manual typewriter. Attempted to use photocopies of pages from books published around 1900 and it was faster for a touch typist to copy word for word than edit the text from the OCR. Have not attempted to use OCR with printouts from digital camera photos. Some short obits have been kept as images and printed in family books along with cropped areas of census images. Most obits in my family files have been copied to individual notes so that they are available in GEDCOM transfers when data is shared with other researchers. Obits copied to source text are sometimes cut short or do not print as desired. -- Elizabeth, scanner of family items since 1996 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Max Yates" > To use a digital camera to photograph obits from old newspapers (1 - 110 y/o), then bring them home to PC, and run it through some type of word recognition program. > Ultimately, I would like to record about 500 obits to genealogy program and future personal website.

Hello all, Can someone tell me if this is possible - To use a digital camera to photograph obits from old newspapers (1 - 110 y/o), then bring them home to PC, and run it through some type of word recognition program. Ultimately, I would like to record about 500 obits to genealogy program and future personal website. Can someone make a suggestion on type of camera and recognition program for this purpose? Thanks, Max in FL.

Your computer already has a word recognition feature, (i.e.edit, find text in message) in most browsers or programs. You will have to figure out how to group all those messages on MS Word or Excel before using the find command! On Tue, 3 Jun 2003 06:34:52 -0500 "Max Yates" <[email protected]> writes: > Hello all, > > Can someone tell me if this is possible - > > To use a digital camera to photograph obits from old newspapers (1 - > 110 y/o), then bring them home to PC, and run it through some type > of word recognition program. > > Ultimately, I would like to record about 500 obits to genealogy > program and future personal website. > > Can someone make a suggestion on type of camera and recognition > program for this purpose? > > Thanks, > Max in FL. > > >

Hi I was the originator of this item and I have followed the replies with great interest. Thanks to all that have given their two penneth. I do have a Digital Camera (Cannon G2) which gives superb photographic results of anything I point it at. However there is one major difference between the results from a Scanner and a Digital Camera (DC) and that would appear to be the software that processes the image. With a DC you always get a tonal image, whereas most of the Scanners have software that will give you a choice of Colour, Black & White and Grey scale, as well as Line Diagram, Magazine, and OCR. The original material I am trying to copy is hand written on various shades of white paper in sometimes fading ink. I know from experience that a good B & W line image is possible from my existing scanner but these original books are just to fragile to be continually turned upside down and thrown onto an upward facing scanner. Thats why I was so intersted in the Docupen. The professionals use scanners that in effect are a camera facing downwards and the books are placed face up on a well illuminated baseboard. All that is then needed is to turn each page and scan it. They even have software that takes out the curvature of the page as it takes the picture. Of course these are well outside my budget. Kathy mentioned "HP Capshare" and I will be looking into this asap. Meanwhile thanks again for you suggestions. Bob KIRK Dukinfield Cheshire Http://KirkSoft.co.uk http://www.fhsc.org.uk/dukinfield.htm Interests Are: KIRK (Crewe & Manchester) DAWSON (Manchester) ----- Original Message ----- From: "K.DeLosReyes" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 5:59 PM Subject: RE: [SP] Docupen Scanner: use digital camera instead > There are a couple of things to look for. First figure out how much you > want to spend. Then within your amount look at what is available. > > I have a Nikon Coolpix 995 with the 3.3 megapixels which does a great > job anywhere in any light. With it's flexible head, you don't have to > contort your self in different directions to get that shot. It takes > great pictures with available light. I used it on my genealogy trip last > June, taking pictures of tombstones in all kinds of light without doing > anything to the headstones and they turned out great, even better than > my cousins who stood next to me taking pictures as well. It has also > taken great shots of documents and from microfiche readers without using > a flash. > > I believe the new 4500 runs around $399. Two things to look for are the > number of megapixels available and if you can change the settings. How > close can you get to your object, some of the digital cameras do not > allow you to get close enough to read the print. > > The other thing is look at is the number of the optical zoom rather than > the digital zoom. > > With your budget in mind, you can get a good camera that will do a lot > if you shop around. Check the websites of several cameras before you go > shopping. > > One other thing you might want to consider if you are focused only on > doing documents is the HP Capshare. I don't know if they still make > something like it or not. It is similar to the docupen, only it does a > larger area and will scan photos as well. You might be able to get one > on ebay or write to HP and ask them. I have used mine and it does a > good job although you have to put it directly onto the document. It is > a neat little scanner. I am not sure if it will work with Windows XP. I > have not use it in awhile at least not since I upgrade to XP. > > Just my two cents, Kathy > > >

What features,etc would you say were a good digital camera for this work? What exactly makes a good digital camera? Sorry, I know this must be elementary to most but I quite new to camera, let alone digital ones. Thank you Ginger ----- Original Message ----- From: Bill Pease <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2003 12:13 PM Subject: Re: [SP] Docupen Scanner: use digital camera instead > Bob, sorry, I don't know about the Docupen Scanner, but I'd suggest that you > use a good digital camera instead if you cannot readily handle the > manuscript books. I've used mine many times for copying pages from books > (including manuscript books from church archives) and it works superbly. You > can use normal picture mode or text mode (black & white only.) Try both > beforehand & experiment with lighting. Be sure to get a camera with Macro > (close-up) ability. Don't use the in-camera flash (it will bounce right back > at you & glare out the page) unless you have a detachable one that can be > held out from the side; instead use near window light if possible or a light > at 45 degrees from the book surface from the sides. Buy, or borrow, or rent > a good digital camera; you won't get good results from a cheap one. > > I never go on genealogy research trips without my digital camera now. It's > just like taking an excellent scanner with you wherever you go. > > Bill Pease > Lancaster, Pennsylvania > USA > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Bob Kirk" <[email protected]> > To: <[email protected]> > Sent: Saturday, May 10, 2003 10:59 AM > Subject: [SP] Docupen Scanner > > > > Has anyone on the list had any experience with the Docupen scanner? > > > > I desperately need a scanner that will scan books (parish Records) that > are > > too fragile to be thrown around on a conventional scanner and the Docupen > > would seem to fit the bill. Although some of the results leave a bit to be > > desired. > > > > I found the Docupen scanner at: > > > > http://hh385.hiphip.com/merchant/docuport_home.htm > > > > > > If anyone has any Experience of scanning this kind of material or can > > suggest an alternative scanner, I would be grateful for your input. > > > > > > Bob KIRK > > Dukinfield > > Cheshire > > > > Http://KirkSoft.co.uk > > > > http://www.fhsc.org.uk/dukinfield.htm > > >

There are a couple of things to look for. First figure out how much you want to spend. Then within your amount look at what is available. I have a Nikon Coolpix 995 with the 3.3 megapixels which does a great job anywhere in any light. With it's flexible head, you don't have to contort your self in different directions to get that shot. It takes great pictures with available light. I used it on my genealogy trip last June, taking pictures of tombstones in all kinds of light without doing anything to the headstones and they turned out great, even better than my cousins who stood next to me taking pictures as well. It has also taken great shots of documents and from microfiche readers without using a flash. I believe the new 4500 runs around $399. Two things to look for are the number of megapixels available and if you can change the settings. How close can you get to your object, some of the digital cameras do not allow you to get close enough to read the print. The other thing is look at is the number of the optical zoom rather than the digital zoom. With your budget in mind, you can get a good camera that will do a lot if you shop around. Check the websites of several cameras before you go shopping. One other thing you might want to consider if you are focused only on doing documents is the HP Capshare. I don't know if they still make something like it or not. It is similar to the docupen, only it does a larger area and will scan photos as well. You might be able to get one on ebay or write to HP and ask them. I have used mine and it does a good job although you have to put it directly onto the document. It is a neat little scanner. I am not sure if it will work with Windows XP. I have not use it in awhile at least not since I upgrade to XP. Just my two cents, Kathy

Ginger I have an Olympus d-520 that I got last year. It is my first and I love it. From what others told me, cheap is not the way to go, but you also do not need to sell your first born. There is plenty of middle ground. Look around and read all you can before you buy. Like anything techie, you can get a lot more today than you could even last year. You'll be very happy in probably the 200 to 400 range. Then just go for it and don't look back. Try these links: http://pcphotoreview.com/ http://www.dpreview.com/ http://www.shortcourses.com/ - maybe the best overall for learning - check out the glossary at the bottom Don't be fooled by zoom and megapixel numbers. Megapixel is more important for good pictures. Course, what I wanted may not be what you want. I wanted to be able to take close ups of my roses so you could see a dew drop on them. I can. It is called a macro feature. That will also let me copy papers and forms. Great for my genealogy work. Use IrfanView http://www.irfanview.com/ - freeware. This is great software and very easy to use. You can crop and rotate your pictures with ease. Take your picture in as high a resolution as your camera will permit. Save that version. Use save as for the new ver and manipulate the picture with irfanview. That way you will have 2 copies and not have destroyed your original. Add a letter like s for save as for the second ver so you can tell them apart. The copies you can reduce in size and crop or whatever and make them suitable to send as emails. By not destroying the original high resolution, you'll be able to print good pictures from that ver. What you print and what you send via email are two different animals, but irfanview lets you do both. Also, there is no substitute for good photo paper. It is expensive, so practice on the cheap stuff. Have fun. J Pat Foley wrote: > What features,etc would you say were a good digital camera for this work? > What exactly makes a good digital camera? Sorry, I know this must be > elementary to most but I quite new to camera, let alone digital ones. Thank > you Ginger -- Joyce Ragels It is easy to sit up and take notice. What is difficult is getting up and taking action. - Al Batt