MyHeritage Photo Enhancer Goes Viral: One Million Photos Already Enhanced!

This was just received from Daniel Horowitz of MyHeritage.com.

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I’m pleased to share that in just a week and a half since launch, the MyHeritage Photo Enhancer has gone viral, with over ONE MILLION ENHANCED PHOTOS!

We’ve received amazing feedback from users who are excited, impressed, and even moved to tears as they see their family members in crystal-clear focus. One user commented that this feature “has enabled me to ‘know’ my grandparents in a way that I could not have otherwise.”

Read our blog to see more reactions to the new Photo Enhancer, and to see the striking examples of enhanced photos that users have been sharing on social media.

Make the Most of National Photo Month

Did you know that May is National Photo Month?

Our sponsor, Vivid-Pix, just published an article in the Vivid-Pix News at https://vivid-pix.com/news-blog/entry/make-the-most-of-national-photo-month.html that tells you more. It's a great time to consider working to digitize and clean up your photographs and clean up your other document and newspaper images.

Enjoy the article, and look for a press release from Vivid-Pix on May 1, 2019!

Adding Metadata to Your Digital Photos

One of the greatest challenges with working with digital images is how to keep track of people and information within the image itself. There are no naming convention standards for digital images. For example, if you want to name a photograph of an individual, you might consider using the name plus any other descriptive data. Here's an example:

HOLDER-Brisco Washington - 1906 - RomeGA.jpg

When naming a group photo, however, it isn't practical to list all the names of the people pictured, is it? The file name could be huge and not necessarily easy to find later. 

When naming a digital image downloaded and saved from an online database, you might try this:

WILSON Family-1900 US Census-Mecklenburg County NC.jpg

However, if you have a multiple page document, you will download it and save it one page at a time. For example:

WILSON-Lenora Lydia Patterson-Will-1914-Page1.jpg

WILSON-Lenora Lydia Patterson-Will-1914-Page2.jpg

WILSON-Lenora Lydia Patterson-Will-1914-Page3.jpg

And what about a newspaper clipping? How much information do you include in the filename?

MURPHY-Jeter Earnest-Obituary-07091898-Statesville[NC]Landmark-Page6.jpg

Filenames are not necessarily the most efficient way to organize and document your digital images. Fortunately, however, there are other ways to organize information about and in the images. One way is by using Metadata. 

A two-part article in the RootsTech Blog describes what Metadata is and how to add it to your digital images. 

• Part 1: https://www.rootstech.org/blog/adding-metadata-to-your-digital-photos
• Part 2: https://www.rootstech.org/blog/metadata-basics-how-to-keep-your-stories-alive-digitally

Take some time to read and understand Metadata. You'll open up a new way to add data to your images.

Old Pictures Never Die

While both George and I enjoy our own collection of family photos, some of which are framed and displayed on the walls of our living room, we have many other photos that need a little more loving care to be better appreciated. But neither of us is an expert with photographic restoration or preservation.

So I'm very happy to share a link to an article written by Randy Fredlund, one of the fine folks at Vivid-Pix. They are the experts when it comes to restoring the quality of old, faded photos, and I know you'll appreciate reading and learning from their expertise:

Old Photos Never Die

Labeling Photographs in an Archival-Safe Manner

People in earlier times didn't know how to protect documents and photographs in an archival way. They didn't necessarily have access to acid-free pens, pencils, mounts, sheet protectors, and other items. Unfortunately, photographs were glued into albums or mounted in "magnetic" albums that used materials that caused fading and disintegration of the very paper. Papers filed in cardboard boxes and in wooden drawers also suffered from acidic conditions that permanently damaged and discolored them. And materials filed with newsprint were practically doomed to destruction.

We, on the other hand, can easily obtain archival-safe items from office supply stores and vendors on the Internet. It is our responsibility as "family archivists" to properly store and label items, and to help preserve even those things that have been damaged in the past.

The use of acid-free polypropylene sheet protectors, available from any office supply store, should be used to encase every item. This isolates each document or photograph and prevents it from "contaminating" adjacent items. Newspaper clippings, city directories, and other things printed on newsprint should be scanned on acid-free paper and stored to preserve them. The original newsprint item should then be discarded or isolated from all other materials.

Finally, we should never label photographs or other documents with ordinary lead pencils or ink pens.  Ordinary pencil can fade over time. Ink may bleed through the paper, and the chemical composition of the ink may be injurious to other materials. Ink, too, may fade and become illegible over time.  

There are special archival-safe pencils available specifically for labeling photographs and other documents.  Check with office supply and photo supply companies for these pencils and for other archival supplies such as acid-free binders, folders, boxes, photo mounts, and other related supplies.