40 years of marriage celebrated…now it’s 10 years later and they’re still going strong! 10 years ago, one of our clients created a slideshow on VHS as a gift for her parents 40th wedding anniversary. Currently, she is updating this slideshow (on to DVD) to include the most recent 10 years of their marriage. Additionally (as technological innovations have expanded our digital creation possibilities) she is substituting parts of the original audio with music, and may even choose to add some narration. After 50 years, I’m sure there are plenty of stories to be told!One client made the trek from Vail down to our Denver store to update her memory books (after laying idle in her attic for way too long. She brought in armload after armload of boxes full of scrapbooks and loose photos then left her memories for us to consolidate and modernize. We are currently working to meticulously remove all photos and memorabilia from the scrapbooks, scan everything, and compile on to one disk for her viewing convenience.
We all think our dads are the best, right? Well what if the entire city of Denver agreed with you? One of our clients’ dads was such a notable figure in Denver’s history that the Denver
Public Library asked to commemorate him by displaying his scrapbook in one of their libraries. Hesitant to give away such a precious keepsake, he has asked us to transfer the treasure to a digital format that he can cherish forever. We have scanned everything from the scrapbook to an online format and currently he is using our compatible software to proof the working draft from home. As soon as he gives us the final edits, we will print and bind the photobook which will include an attached sleeve for the DVD version. Then finally the Denver Public Library can celebrate in knowing that they possess such an important piece of history.
pages from Reta's Legacy Book
Here we show four pages from the Reta’s Legacy Book made for my Grandma Reta Washnok. Created at my Leave A Legacy studio in Denver.
Reta was about to celebrate her 95th birthday and I thought it would be nice to create a “Legacy” project for her. I asked all the aunts, uncles and cousins to contribute photos and captions for a special project for her. About 700 photos were contributed. It was quite a chore to organize them from all the different sources and keep their captions with them. Once I organized them all on the computer it was pretty simple to create the book (about 140 pages). I also created a DVD slideshow with the photos so that they could play it at her big party. I used a photo of her with some of her flowers to decorate the front of the disk. I attached the DVD to the inside of the back cover of her book.
It turned out to be quite a project but an invaluable one as well. I made additional copies of the book for her to give to her children.
It is a challenge for me to do any work at my studios for my own family but I squeezed it out between deadlines this time.
Note that the happy little baby in the red dress is me….Marsha (Washnok) Knackstedt…from just a few years ago.
Photo Mosaic
Leave A Legacy has loads of graduation day project ideas. One of them is to create a photo mosaic. This uses numerous small versions of your photos to create a single overall image. This image was created using 300 unique images of Clinton growing up to make 1000 tiles. We allowed the software to adjust the color of the original small image and allowed it to turn the image sideways. The single large image was Clinton’s high school graduation photo.
If your photos aren’t digital we are more than willing and able to scan in all of your print photos, slides, negatives and documents so that you can use them in your creations.
Greek Heritage Book
One of the favorite types of projects that we get in is creating a family history book. We work with your style and make the book just how you imagine it. You may bring in a stack of old photos like this client. Bob’s photos were of his father and his aunt. Some photos had Greek writing on the back. We scanned in both the fronts and the backs to make them digital. We laid out the pages for him on our Aspen Kiosks; one photo per 12″ x 12″ page with a charcoal background. He came in and added text to most of the pages. The photos and text (from 1956-1970) tell of their brave move from Greece to Canada to start a new life. What a wonderful way to preserve your heritage for later generations. His book was bound in a bright, Greek blue buckram hardcover.
Other clients have a lot more text that tells the story and photos are used to give a visual. Another client Doris emails us the text she has written as she composes it and then brings in a few photos to add to it. Her’s will be laid out on white pages with the images inserted at the end of a section of text. Her book is laid out as a portrait 8.5″ x 11″ hardcover book. The Fausts brought in a lot of material. They brought all the text already typed up and market for where the photos should be inserted. Their book was about 650 pages of 8.5″ x 11″. We also created a DVD version of their entire book so that they can watch it on their television.
Lyle is a current client who is finishing up his work on his book. His pages are landscape 17″ x 11″. He has chosen to have it spiral bound so that later generations can continue adding information to the book. He brought in his photos, document and text on the installment plan as he came across it in his collection. So most of the organization of his book occurred in our studio and with several rough draft prints that he took home and reorganized. His is now about 340 pages. He has included everything from his family’s history (notes, letters, poems, songs, photos old and new, health records, autobiographies, awards, certificates, old cards, newspaper clippings, and much much more!
The bottom line is that at Leave A Legacy we work with you and your materials in the way you want it done and make it professional whether it is one copy or thirty.
Lynn brought in this Polaroid of her rental property. She said she couldn’t
polaroid photo that we scanned
find anything on our website about working with Polaroid prints. We were glad that she brought in her photo because we certain do work with Polaroid photos and we can do some restoration work on them as well. This was Lynn’s only photo of the property and she needed to show some evidence of the fence that was once in her yard.
restored polaroid photo
It was unfortunate that the photo had been left in direct sunlight and had faded. We scanned in her Polaroid and did some quick restoration and color adjustment and then printed out a larger print for her to use as evidence in a court case. Today’s message is that we do work with Polaroid prints as well as any other type of print, document, map, slide, negative or most anything else you can think of.
Most of us appreciate the ease of our point and shoot camera. We don’t really want to mess with lenses and filters and adjusting focus. Understanding a bit about speed, aperture and ISO may help you take your photo taking to the next level.
from camera with incorrect setting
All three of these settings help to determine the exposure on your camera whether digital or film. The shutter is a cover that allows light to enter into your camera. When you hit the button to take a photo it causes the shutter to open and close for a brief period of time. The amount of time that it is set for or shutter speed determines how long the film or sensor is exposed to light. The setting for the shutter is measured in parts of a second.
Aperture is the size of the opening inside your lens through which all light must pass before it reaches the shutter. Aperture size is expressed as “f-stop”. The smaller the f-stop, the larger the aperture or opening is.
Shutter speed and aperture control how much light gets to the sensor or film. Shutter speed also controls time. A very fast shutter speed will capture the briefest of moments on your photo like people who are in motion. A slow shutter speed will give you a better photo if your subject isn’t moving.
with optimized lighting and contrast
The aperture also controls how much of a photograph is in focus. A very small aperture opening will keep everything in the frame in focus. While a very large aperture opening (a small f-stop) will only focus at one distance.
Since both shutter speed and aperture affect the amount of light let in when you adjust one you need to adjust the other. If you widen the aperture, letting in more light, you also need to shorten the shutter speed to compensate. The good news for those of us point and shoot photographers is that our cameras make the adjustments for us.
The final setting we are going over is ISO sensitivity. ISO sensitivity also affects noise or graininess. The higher the ISO, the grainier/noisier the image will be. But higher ISO also allows you to shoot with faster shutter speeds in low light. For most amateur photographers keeping ISO lower is preferred.
fond memories of the cows
A recent client asked us to create a one of the kind mug for him to give to his father for a gift. Taking 2 photos of his dad pulling a cow out of the mud hole that it was stuck in and adding the requested text. The story behind the sentiment is that his father has recently sold his herd and this image will remind him of difficult times with the cows.
memories trapped on floppies and zip disks
Another type of media that we can convert for you is floppy disks and zip disks. Though they are rather obscure today we can certainly do this digital transfer as well. The files that clients typically want captured from these disks are photo files. Recent client Eva brought in a record breaking 60 floppy disks and not so record breaking 4 zip disks. From these we captured 239 photos. She wants to use these long lost images to create several versions of a photobook about her late husband. Today we printed out some sheets with a small version of each image arranged with 16/page and with dates and titles so that she could work on arranging them at home.
glass stereo slide
This was a new one for me. Recently a client brought in about 5 of these glass stereo slides. I’ve seen and scanned both glass and stereo slides but not both rolled into one. We scanned in one of the two images and saved it as a jpg file for him on a CD.
The slide consists of two images (this is the stereo part) that are shot from a slightly different position. When put into a stereo viewer you looked through it and saw a 3D image of your photo. So the people are all three dimensional…kind of like what is coming out now…all of those 3D cameras! Anyway the two images are sandwiched between two pieces of clear glass and then it was held together by some thin metal. One slide is actually quite heavy for how large it is.
So when you see those new 3D cameras hit the store know that they are nothing new but rather something that great grandpa once owned and cast away for cameras that make single two dimensional images!
Bob a very friendly business man of Denver came to our Leave A Legacy
Bobs faded photo that we scanned
studio in Denver with a very special project. He had large folders containing special historical family photos. The photos in the first folder were particularly interesting to him and he wanted them restored as necessary. We scanned all of his photos to make them digital. A 8″ x 10″ photo of his wife has definitely faded from its original beauty.
Bob's photo that we restored
This photo needed more than a quick fix. We took note of what color different parts of the photo should be. He said that the sweater was navy, the hat was royal blue, here eyes were blue green and her hair was blond. He was happy with the result….and I’m sure his wife was too. Projects like this are quite rewarding. We at Leave A Legacy in Denver we happy to have been able to restore this youth.
Can you remember what color things should be in your family photos that have faded?
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