Other Projects - Photo Restoration

In addition to scanning the negatives and pictures that Ellen sent, I have been working on some other projects unrelated to family history. One of the more interesting ones is a photo of President and Mrs. Johnson that I restored for a friend at work.


In these before and after pictures, you can see (click for a larger image) that the original was very faded and retained very little color information. After scanning, and using only Photoshop Elements 5 (I still have not invested in a newer program!), I was able to tease some color and detail out of the picture. The steps I took were:

1. Straighten and crop the picture;
2. Fix and saturate color;
3. Improve the contrast and highlight/shadow detail;
4. Sharpen image;
5. Remove dust, scratches, and other blemishes; and
6. Reduce grain and other noise in the image.

The results are not perfect -- certainly not as as nice as a new picture -- but they are not too bad, especially considering the original image. It took a lot of trial and error, but short of painting on color (which I did not do) the picture is quite usable. I even received a box of cookies and brownies out of it!

I am not trained in photo restoration, and undoubtedly a professional could do more. But, if you poke around at a hobby long enough -- and I've been poking around a digital archiving for a little while -- you can get pretty good results.

UPDATE

Ellen writes in the comments, "Way to go, Rob. That's pretty cool how you can do that." Thanks, Ellen. I enjoy doing it!

Craig then adds, "Now see if you can photoshop grandma next to LBJ."


I'm not great at photo manipulation but, what the heck, here by request is Ladybird Stutz. Now, if you can identify which image Grandma's face is from -- it is from one of Grandpa's slides -- I will be really impressed.

Mystery Picture 100330

Well, we didn't have any luck identifying the kids in the previous mystery picture. Today, though, we have something a little more unusual.


This picture was from today's proofsheet post. I would assume they are atriplex seeds, but, well, I know what some of you might say if I did that. So, let's put the question out there. Does anyone know what these are and why there is a picture of them?

Proofsheet - G&G 03

As we slowly add more proofsheets to GAP, here is from a roll of film that Ellen sent.


Click for a larger image. Let us know in the comments if you would like GAP to post larger images of any of these.

Poll - John, the Complete Man

GAP proudly presents its first family poll.

John's recent comment that he "would have been a complete man if only Mom and Dad (Grandpa and Grandma) would have bought me the coon skin hat" followed by a laundry list of his childhood heroes got us thinking. Hmm, there must be something we can do with this.

In Which Hero Costume Would John Look Most Like a Complete Man?

Vote early, dip your finger in purple, and give thanks that you live in a democracy!

Rippin'est, Roarin'est, Fightin'est Man the Frontier Ever Knew!

Fess Parker died today. He is not family, and his television fame as Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone predates me. In fact, I would not have noticed his passing had I not come across his name earlier in a family picture.

When I was scanning some of Grandpa's slides a few months ago I became curious about this picture of John and Susan playing in the snow (developed in April 1967). What was John holding?


I opened the largest scan I had, zoomed in (click to see the big picture), and made out the words "Fess Parker" and a picture of a frontiersman.


After some poking around on Wikipedia and eBay (thanks, interwebs!) I found a better picture of the lunchbox and some history about Fess Parker.


And now I'm curious. What other Fess Parker gear did John have? For that matter, what other childhood heroes were people fans of?

As I look at the family pictures, I sometimes wonder about the details in them and the stories they hold.

UPDATE

Susan writes in the comments "wow, now that's a blast from the past" and John adds:

That lunch box was one of my favorite treasures including the matching thermos inside. I would have been a complete man if only Mom and Dad (Grandpa and Grandma) would have bought me the coon skin hat. In addition to Daniel Boone, I had my eye on Flash Gordon, The Lone Ranger, Jungle Jim, Zorro, And of course Super Man. Oh the good old days....!

Thanks, Susan and John!

Shari also writes, "You guys must have been walking home from school. :)" Ah, the fond memories of walking home from school. I should do a post on this, because in my memories I did enjoy the walk home. Thanks, Shari!

Proofsheet - G&G 02

We are making our way through a couple of projects right now, so the postings have been (and will continue to be) quite sparse. Things are moving along, though! We did get a chance to add Merissa to our Facebook link list (Hi, Merissa!).

The following is another proofsheet of a roll of film that Ellen sent.


Click for a larger image. Let us know in the comments if you would like GAP to post larger images of any of these.

Proofsheet - G&G 01

The following is a proofsheet of a roll of film that Ellen recently sent.


Click for a larger image. Let us know in the comments if you would like GAP to post larger images of any of these.

Found On The Interwebs - Bloody Tongue, Bald Head, and a Budding Political Future

Tyrel, Karla's oldest, not only made the second round in the Wyoming state wrestling tournament this past weekend (as a freshman!), he also was featured in a Casper Star-Tribune picture with the bloodied mouth he endured during a first round match.


Woohoo, we're proud of you, tough guy!

Former wrestler, and Tyrel's grandfather, Joe appeared recently in a Billings Gazette video about about his employer, Alternatives Inc., which provides treatment programs for inmates.


Joe's the old man at the end who looks like his nose is two inches from the computer monitor. He said that he was actually looking through the window, not at the monitor, and I'd probably tell people the same thing, too.

Lorna, Joe's wife, was featured several years back in a Billings Gazette article about her work at a "Congress" held by her company, Aware Inc., which provides services to persons with disabilities.

The Congress, which operates in much the same way as a state legislature, adopted 23 measures including one co-authored by Stutz that would provide flexible hours, more part-time employment and refresher courses in handling administrative chores. Aware delivers services for persons with challenging mental health, emotional and/or physical disabilities who otherwise would be served in a more restricted setting or not served at all.

Is that a political career I smell brewing at the Stutz household?

If anyone has other stories from around the Interwebs to post on GAP, send them our way!

Earthquake in Chile - Sarah Is OK

GAP is not a great source for current events. Heck, we're lucky if we get items posted once a month! This one's important, though, so we wanted to get the word out quickly.

Sarah Landeen, who is on her mission in Santiago, Chile, is OK after the earthquake.

Ellen, her mother, wrote on Facebook:

There was an 8.8 earthquake in Chile last night. Sarah is serving in Santiago West and is on the coast, but (being the nervous mom that I am) I called Church headquarters this morning, and all missionaries in her mission are safe and accounted for. :) We hope that is the same for all missions in Chile.

Sadly, many people have died in this disaster, which had 500 times the energy of the recent quake in Haiti. Please keep them and all who are suffering around the world in your thoughts and prayers. Please do what you can to help.

UPDATE

Ellen just posted more information about Sarah on Facebook:

I just got a phone call from Sarah in Chile. She is ok. Her house in intact, they have food and water, and there was no flooding from the ocean in her area. She said she woke up Friday night to the earthquake, they jumped under a table, stayed there until the shaking stopped. As of today, there is no power in her town, so she may not get to email tomorrow. It was so good to hear her voice!!!

Mystery Picture 100228

Oh my.

It seems we've gone almost the entire month of February without a mystery picture. Where does the time go? And, we don't even have a leap year to give us an extra day. It's now or never, so we chose now.

Ellen sent GAP some negatives with these and many other pictures. (Thanks, Ellen, and yes, the scanning is still progressing!) Unlike slides, negatives do not have the date that they were developed; we're guessing they are from the early nineties.




As always, the first picture can be clicked on to view a much larger image. The second, picture with the numbers over the heads can be clicked on to view a somewhat larger image. Some of the faces are easier to see in the third picture, so we threw that in for good measure. If you leave comments with the names of the people, we will fill in the numbered list as people are identified.

1 - Grandpa
2 -
3 -
4 -
5 -
6 -
7 -
8 -

Moss Mustache - Revisited

One of GAP's earliest posts had pictures from the 1970s and 1980s of family members wearing moss mustaches. On a recent trip I decided to revitalize the moss mustache craze of yesteryear, bringing it into the 21st century.

Locked Out!

In the short period since we last ran a Family Blog Roundup the blogs for The JEM Show and for Wyoming Toomer have switched to invitation only access. And, GAP is not invited! Perhaps we overstayed our welcome? In any event, we have updated the label on the Family Links list on the right to reflect that they are "invite only". If the status changes, please let us know.

In the meantime, you can add family links or add family Facebook links if we have missed any.

Then and Now - Olympics

Mr. GAP and family visited beautiful Vancouver last week to catch a women's hockey match at the Winter Olympic games!


Our trip took us through Seattle, but unfortunately we did not have a chance to call Lori. (Hi, Lori!) I guess we will have to go back!


Joe, my dad, told me that Grandma and Grandpa took the family to the Seattle World's Fair in 1962 when the Space Needle opened, but I have not yet seen any pictures from it. Does anyone have a story or two to share about the trip?

This was our family's second trip to the Olympics, the first being in 2002 to the Salt Lake Winter Olympics when Boyd was three months old.


He is on the far right in the top picture, which provides a nice then and now comparison.

At the Salt Lake games we attended the women's halfpipe competition in Park City with Karla and Brian Toomer, as well as with some friends -- very good friends (our children's godparents) -- from Montana.


We crashed at the farm with Grandma and Grandpa, who were enjoying some unseasonably warm weather. We could not have asked for better hosts!


We also attended a women's hockey match in Provo with Lucas. I should get a more recent picture of Lucas so we can do a then and now of him, too.


We vowed at the time that if the Olympics ever came back to our neck of the woods we would have to attend again. Since we were in Montana when the Vancouver games were announced, we told the boys their whole lives that we would take them to the 2010 games. Although we now live in Virginia, a promise is a promise, so we went.

Now, if the Olympics ever come back to our neck of the woods again....

Updates

We love it when GAP gets comments on older posts! Please feel free to contribute comments to any post, regardless of when it was originally posted. We update the posts as the comments come in, so you may want to peruse and comment on old posts from time to time. Darrel Crawford recently posted his first comments on on Mystery Picture 091019 and Mystery Picture 091027. Thanks, Darrel!

A Soldier and His Horse

Ellen provides the following story and picture of Grandpa. Thanks, Ellen!

While going through some of Grandpa Stutz’s papers, I found this picture and asked him what it was. He said that when he was in the army during WWII, he was stationed in the town of Garmish-Parkenkerchen at the time that the war ended. While he was there, he found this horse that was starving in an abandoned stable. He saved it and nursed it back to life. This is a picture of Grandpa riding the horse. He said he gave the horse to another soldier when he came home.

GAP has posted other stories about horses, but this is the first we've heard about Grandpa and his horse in the war. Does anyone know its name? In fact, does anyone have other stories about Grandpa and Grandma from the war years (where he was, what he was doing, what Grandma was doing, etc.)?