sarah_fox

<p>I think the issue is that there's effectively only one color channel, so apart from applying different curves and crops, there's not much latitude for doing something different... which is not to stop me from doing something different. I noted in Gerald's edit that there's a little bit of hue information in the original image, so I played with that. I hue-shifted a bit to get away from that 0/365 deg hue divide point, and then I split up the image into hue, saturation, and brightness channels. I contrasted each channel to bring out more variability in the image, and then I recombined. I don't like it as much as a dramatic black and white, but it's still a bit different.</p> <p> </p><div></div>

<p>Peter, I think the problem is that the magnetic traces on the hard drive fade with time, to the point that they eventually become unreadable. There's also a problem that complex microcomputer circuitry can't just sit, unused, and remain functional. I've tried saving aside old devices (e.g. computers with early busses that could take the old MFM and RLL hard drive controllers and hence the earliest hard drives). This seems to be in my nature, as I do a lot of restoration work on antique equipment. I haven't had complete success with "antique" computer hardware. Many devices simply stop working as they sit in storage. This is sometimes due to bridging of traces, creep of metals within the IC packages, contact corrosion, and leakage of electrolytic capacitors (less in use nowadays), probably among other things. Some of this is fixable, and some is not (at least from a practical perspective). The only digital preservation strategies that make sense involve continuing to migrate to newer forms of storage from forms that are nearing obsolescence.</p> <p>Also you can forget the idea of a printer being useful too far into the future. Printers die when supplies are no longer available. Heck, they act up if you look at them the wrong way or even if they decide to have a bad day. ;-)</p>

<p>Yes, it's coming! It's going to be the next huge thing! Or not. I went to a museum the other day and saw some late 19th Century stereo photography, used to amuse people at the same time in history as the "magic lantern" with hand-painted slides. Ah well...</p> <p>Perhaps if the equipment were more commonplace. I think the monitor with alternating directions of polarity (from alternating directions of current flow) is not particularly exotic/difficult a design, so perhaps all LCD monitors could have this capability? And perhaps when we buy polarized sunglasses (for driving/boating), they could have circular lenses and one lens that will rotate 90 deg for 3D usage? The only problem with this notion is that polarized glasses rely on linear polarization, and the 3D monitors put out circular. However, I think they would be just as capable of linear output, with the omission of a quarter-wave layer.</p>

<p>If you email/transfer a photo from your phone to your computer, can you see a line on the monitor (but not on your phone)?</p> <p>If you open up a photo with a web browser, do you still see the line? (Usually File/Open and then select the image.)</p>

<p>Nice, Brad!</p>

<p>What the heck... I turned the image into chrome by applying a zig-zaggy contrast curve. Interesting.</p> <div></div>

<p>This reminds me of a little dog across the fence that wouldn't stop barking at me yesterday. I got annoyed and walked away. So in that spirit, I congratulate you on your victory! However, all the yapping in the world cannot convince me of the points you are trying to argue.</p>

<p>Negotiating logic and principles of probability and statistics? Seriously?</p>

<p>In the words of our beloved Spock, that's illogical. Once the data are irreparably corrupted (which will eventually happen), then uncorrupted data become an impossibility thereafter. ;-)</p> <p>Anyway, the statistician in me wishes you the very best of luck preserving your data with 100% accuracy forever! (Damn the Poisson process and its confounded distribution! Full speed ahead!)</p>

<p>Then my answer to you is that archiving indefinitely into the future with no loss of data/fidelity is not possible. Any statistician will tell you that whatever is possible will eventually happen, given enough trials/time. The vernacular term is "Murphy's Law." If data loss is possible, then it will occur. Period. You can either accept that and do the best you can to preserve data as long and as well as possible, or you can simply not try. But to expect 100% success in your preservation methods is foolish.</p> <p>Now if you'll pardon me, I've got to make bread.</p>

<p>Are you certain the original digital image (even the RAW file) is 100% accurate? Is it even possible to have a 100% accurate image?</p>

<p>This begs the question of whether you'd like to have something that's 95% accurate or have nothing at all. I choose the former. But of course my response, if you had read it carefully, is to archive both ways. The digital data might just survive, in which case the OP would still have the original image as faithfully represented as digital photography will currently allow. But if that fails (and it probably will, given enough time), the print is the fall-back. It might be spotted, and slightly yellowed. It might even fade a bit (even if it's a pigment print), but heck if it isn't still usable and restorable! Will it be as good as the digital file that was lost 50 years previously? Of course not. But at least it will be something, which is infinitely better than nothing.</p>

<p>... which is acceptable to me.</p>

<p>Here's a 10,000 year old digital* pigment inkjet print. It looks pretty good to me:</p> <p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting#/media/File:SantaCruz-CuevaManos-P2210651b.jpg">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting#/media/File:SantaCruz-CuevaManos-P2210651b.jpg</a></p> <p>And I examined a 17th Century book today, printed on linen paper. It was difficult for me to read, but only because my French isn't so good. Otherwise the book looked perfectly fine.</p> <p>I do question whether the plastic in an M-disc will remain clear and distortion-free for a millennium, and I also wonder what will be required to read a DVD 1000 years from now -- or even 100 years. I would consider a claim of 100 years longevity more credible.</p> <p>I've been working with digital data since the 1970's and still have almost all of my earliest files intact. However, I also recognize there has been data loss throughout the years, even when I've been the one tasked with transferring it from medium to medium, format to format, technology to technology. I have no trust that future generations will preserve my digital data properly. In fact it's been my experience that data suffer a half-life of between 5 and 10 years in the hands of others. So if I want something to last for future generations (e.g. a family photo), an archival pigment print is just about the only thing I trust to make the journey. No other medium can withstand nearly as much neglect and still be usable.</p> <p>*resembling or relating to a digit, especially a finger.</p>

<p>Alan, LCD monitors work by polarizing the light anyway. Unless you're viewing the screen through circular polarization filters (which would drop out one set of rows or the other), you wouldn't notice anything different from an ordinary LCD screen. The colors look great, and the 2D image is great. A 3D set operates in either 2D or 3D mode, depending on the signal and the settings. So ordinary viewing will be pretty much the same as any other LCD TV.</p> <p>BTW, I did find this piece of software:</p> <p>http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Graphic/Graphic-Editors/StereoPhoto-Maker.shtml</p> <p>I haven't played with it yet, but it looks like it might do what I'm needing.</p> <p>I'm looking forward to the day when Netflix assembles a more interesting collection of 3D films, but I note there are now a few cheesy horror flicks that might be fun. Y'all are invited! Come on over to Virginia! ;-)</p>

<p>M-Disc sounds rather exciting! I hadn't heard about it and will definitely be using it.</p> <p>However....</p> <p>I would highly recommend something rather old-fashioned. In addition to state-of-the-art digital archiving methods, I would also create state-of-the-art archival digital prints (pigment inkjet prints on archival paper). I'd frame them well, with archival materials, under glass, and display them in areas of the religious institution artificially lit with either incandescent/halogen or LED lighting. Avoid sunlight and fluorescent lighting. Or you can store the prints in good conditions -- low humidity, moderate/low temperature, and in the dark. There are no guarantees with any storage form, but a good print may outlast our digital technologies, provided it is well treated.</p>

<p>Thanks, guys! :-)</p> <p>Gerry, I didn't know there was such a thing as a modern, digital, 3D camera! Very cool! Unfortunately I'm a fiddly sort of person. One of the things I want to fiddle with is the distance separating the two images, which I think would be a cue that scales the perception of object size. Imagine, for instance, putting a camera down low and close to a cat, photographing it in tiny format (e.g. iPhone) with maybe 1 cm distance between channels. Will the cat become a huge, furry monster?</p> <p>Even so, the camera does have appeal. There are also a number of more affordable film cameras from times gone by that I might enjoy having in my collection. And in fact I once made a stereo camera out of a couple of cheap "Nintindo"-branded P&S 35mm cameras I found on clearance somewhere. I mounted them bottom-to-bottom and made a shutter release linkage that allowed me to trip both shutters at the same time.</p> <p>My main motivating factor right now is that I already have the 3D TV. The 3D feature is of the passive variety, so it really didn't add much cost. We've owned the TV for a couple of years now, and I have only now watched a feature-length film on it. My son was visiting, so we broke out his Play Station and watched Superman in 3D. The movie was "meh," but the 3D was really quite good. Unfortunately, 3D offerings are still very meager and pitched mostly at kids. I've got to look for "Kiss me Kate!," and I'd love to see "Avatar" come out on Netflix. And JDM, I'd love to see some of those old Sci-Fi flicks in 3D! I'd enjoy having both of you in my living room for a 3D Fest! I've got 6 pairs of glasses and more Boy Scout popcorn than I can ever manage to consume by myself.</p>

<p>Bill, I once suffered a scratched "sensor." (To be more accurate, the AA/IR filter covering the sensor was scratched.) I am meticulous about keeping the entire mirror box clean (not just the sensor), but apparently a hair got into it and tangled up between the shutter blades, causing a wild enough excursion of one of the blades that the filter was scratched -- or so goes my theory. (I'm not talking about a tiny, thin little hair, but rather a very thick, somewhat long hair that I had to tease out from between my shutter blades.) You could see the scratch very clearly through a loupe, and when knowing where it was, also with your naked eye. It glistened a bit in the light. The shadow of the scratch had no color. It was gray, just like a dust spot. Canon replaced the filter for me for about $250, as I recall. I know repair costs vary considerably by camera model.</p>

<p>There's got to be an app!</p> <p>Our LG smart TV reverses the polarization of each row of pixels for 3D viewing. It's of course possible to view ordinary 2D still photos on the TV, and each successive row would have polarization reversed. Perhaps there is some app that interleaves 2 channels of info into a single channel for viewing on an LG 3D TV? I suppose I could do that in PS, but it would really be a pain in the rear. It would take a bit of experimenting to get the correct channel to the correct eye, displayed at native resolution, without interpolation.</p> <p>Surely there's an app! Yes? Or am I the only person who wants to do this?</p>

<p>I bet that was a fun shoot!</p> <p>I think the horizontal was off, as there should be keystoning from that perspective. I tilted just a bit. I then did a B&W conversion with the channel mixer, emphasizing greens to bring out the drama of the facial features. I did a bit of touch-up work on the gun to add/emphasize highlights. Applied a sigmoidal curve with a very small toe and very broad shoulder. As much as I love the lamp, I thought a tighter crop was more effective.</p><div></div>

<p>I question the British sense of singular and plural. For instance, in Great Britain, the queen refers to herself in the plural ("we"), and yet she is not called "they." Very odd.</p>

<p>Nice photo.</p> <p>So I hue-shifted the image to make the brass red. I had to do a separate hue adjustment layer for the gauge. Then I used the channel mixer to brighten reds and darken greens (especially) and blues. I applied a general curves adjustment layer to darken the shadows a bit, and then I adjusted the brightness and contrast of the gauge with a masked curves adjustment layer. My intent was to invoke a tonality somewhat reminiscent of the old steam railroad photography, e.g. by Link.</p> <p>One picky issue I didn't fix: The pressure gauge reads 0 psi! ;-)</p> <p>FAIW, I look forward to these little exercises. They're fun, and I occasionally learn something new. It's a nice little corner of PhotoNet where people seem to leave their snarkiness behind. I haven't been able to participate in some of the more recent challenges for reasons of "life getting in the way." But I'm definitely interested in continuing.</p><div></div>

<p>Another vote for Microsoft Security Essentials, recommended to me long ago by Matt Laur, who I think administers a room of computers. I had tried and been/become dissatisfied with just about everything else, although I've not tried Avast free. MSE doesn't bog your system down and does a very competent job. However, it is not good at detecting malware threats. For that, you should use Malwarebytes. (There's a free version.)</p> <p>To be perfectly truthful, I haven't found any security application that doesn't have holes. I was recently socked with a piece of malware that had no cure with any of the security applications, including the trial version of the powerful Hitman Pro. Even the community of malware experts (e.g. bleepingcomputer.com) didn't have an answer for how this malware kept reinfesting my machine. I finally figured out on my own that I needed to clear the prefetch folder and throw every tool I had at the infestation in safe mode. That did it, but the prefetch folder seemed to be the key to the repeated re-infestations.</p> <p>I understand from a security-conscious neighbor that the most sophisticated spyware (including from the NSA?) infests your firmware. I don't think there's a security tool/app anywhere that has any way of scanning your firmware. And the problem goes beyond computers. For instance, you can try turning off your iPhone for the ultimate in security, but firmware modifications have been developed that simply make the phone "play dead," leaving cameras, microphones, and GPS receivers up and functioning. I have no idea how widespread any of these issues are.</p>

<p>It has its technical problems (e.g. focus/shake), but I like it. It's actually an interesting image, socially. I enjoy observing groups of people doing artificial things. With the photographer removed from the image and the alternative point of view, we are forced to reflect on the odd behavior of the subjects. (At least it looks odd to me.) Anyway, I tend to think "plastic people" when I see groups of people frozen and baring their teeth. So for this photo, I added a plastic observer. ;-)</p><div></div>

<p>I think it's a little bit of both -- crumbling media and obsolete devices. I, too, worry about this "black hole," and I have never stopped archiving the most important things (which aren't my photographs) in hard copy. I consider digital representations only my "working" copies.</p> <p>Hector raises an important point about nondestructive methods for reading old media. However, some of our media are quite robust, and they have been around so long that we are still very much invested in them. We have so many printed books that you can still go to a library and put your hands on them. That's not likely to change for a good while, and if we're smart, it never will. We have so many vinyl records that you can still buy a record player, adapted via USB to this new gizmo called a "personal computer." It's only the less common media forms that are doomed to disappear from obsolescence -- like beta-max video tapes and 8-track tapes. However, even these recordings can be resurrected if they are important enough. I think it's fair to say that less important information will be lost because of media obsolescence, simply because it's not important enough that someone would go through the heroic efforts necessary to retrieve it (like even replacing the gooey belts on an old 8-track tape player).</p> <p>And then there's a question of media permanence. For instance, I've been going through old photographs and old music. My mom's record collection from the 1940's was a delightful find, and I modified a turntable (I own 3) to play the 78's. I still have a decent amp with a "phono" input, and if I didn't, I could certainly cobble up the necessary preamp. I have to tell you, those records sound pretty good -- somewhat scratchy, yes, but still good. By comparison, my somewhat large collection of tapes (mostly cassette) from the 1970's are somewhat faded now, and the signals will continue to fade. What's worse, the binder is deteriorating on many of those tapes; the media are literally falling apart. Even so, I think those audio tapes have been more reliable than the floppy discs of the 1980's and 1990's, half of which seem to be unreadable. (Yes, I save/preserve old equipment, and I have working units for reading all but the 8" floppies, which I never used.)</p> <p>We see the same thing in photography. In my collection of family photos, nothing beats an old B&W negative or a well processed silver gelatin print. Many/most of those prints probably look as good today as when they were first printed. Color C41 photos (even those processed by Kodak and stored properly in a cool, dry environment in the dark) have faded noticeably over the decades.</p> <p>With respect to our digital data, yes, we can keep porting our data from one format to the next. However, format transitions sometimes require recomputation of data, reorganization of headers, etc. Some/most format transitions preserve all the fidelity of the original record, but it's possible some transitions will degrade the data. I don't know of examples pertaining to photographs or sound; however, I do know that database records transition poorly from format to format. Each transition is "good" to "OK," but numerous transitions can cripple a database.</p> <p>Even assuming the format transitions can be made flawlessly (which is probably the case for photography), digital records are not robust at all. It only takes a dropped/flipped bit of data in the wrong place to make a record unreadable without reconstruction. By contrast, high quality analog records (e.g. photographic prints) are quite robust. They may fade/yellow or get spots or scratches, but that does not render them unreadable.</p> <p>So like the google people suggest, I put my long-term trust in paper and toner. Maybe someday I'll make high quality pigment prints of my entire portfolio, as though my work is somehow great enough that it should be preserved for future generations!</p> <p>I will say one thing: If <em>Google</em> warns us of an information black hole -- and considering that they are in the business of warehousing digital information -- I'm a tiny bit more worried today than I was yesterday.</p>