Thanks, Dariush and Brian!
This is a stereo photo of the dalmation which belonged to Gen. Rufus Ingalls (1818-1893), who was Quartermaster of the Grand Army of the Potomac (under Gen. Grant) during the "late unpleasantness". Because it doesn't contain very many clues to its age, I thought it would make a fun project to guess.
The picture was taken in June of 1864 at the Union army main supply depot at City Point, in northern Virginia. This supply base was where the logistics of the final campaigns of the war originated. I'll need to look up the photographer; he wasn't Matthew Brady, but I think it was George Bernard.
Why did I select this photo?
Brian, it was a good guess at being a 2-D conversion, because I'm doing some work with that, and thanks for your guidance! However, I have also always had an interest in antique stereo and the possiblities of locating some good images which could be restored in anaglyph (because of the crisp, non-panchromatic B & W). Most of what we see in books or online are third generation copies of faded stereo cards, often reduced to dots for publication. I have an neighbor with an antique Holmes stereoscope, but the stereo cards (he has over 100, in good condition) are curved because of the nature of the system which was employed. Thus, they are impossible to scan on a flatbed, and hand-held wand scanners are obviously going to give some warping of the image.
I then remembered over the weekend that the Library of Congress has several thousand Civil War and other 19th century stereo pictures, many which
have never seen the light of day for nearly 150 years. The main subjects we've all seen, either as a left or right half image, or full stereo in the case of popular pictures of Lincoln, General Grant, Gettysburg war dead, Chattanooga's Lookout Mountain (very big with those old photographers), etc. But what about the others?
And why has there been no digital restoration of the cracks from the glass plates, the scratched emulsions, the dust, the rendering of each side for equal contrast and balance? In the days of Ken Burns' documentary series, they were using photography instead of digital scanning to obtain the enlargements. We have Photoshop and other photo restoration software now! But there seems to be no one working in the field of bringing this history back to life for the digital age* (see note further down)
Curious, my early searches of the Library of Congress didn't
bring me to the links I was seeking. Most of what they put out there are collections of stereo cards, often just one half of the pair, and only thumbnails of about 40 kb or so. Finally over the weekend I found the link to bring me to the jackpot -- digital scans of the original glass negatives!
For the time being, I've only been downloading JPEGS of about 200 KB for each stereo half, but you can download some TIFF files of about 200 MB each, which should be adequate for getting down to the pixel level for cleanup. I've been doing it with the smaller resolution pictures, and it works fine up to about 400% enlargement. I'll eventually work with the TIFF files, but this is tentative for the moment. I'll need an external drive and I don't plan to download all 1800+ pictures in TIFF, anyway. But I do plan to restore every picture I can get my hands on and upload them somewhere for scholars and the
public to enjoy.
There's a website/Facebook page called "History 3-D" which is pushing an iPhone app to view some of their restored Civil War pictures. This is how I learned that there is some good primary material available, and out of copyright. However, they've been around since March (I think) and they haven't restored more than a very few images.
I'm using Stereo Photo Maker for the final alignments. After cropping out the extraneous material (the scans go beyond the borders of the images) and the monocular portions, I usually need to re-size and you'd be surprised how many pictures also need some slight rotation. Brian, your points are well-taken about some of the flaws in this photo, and I'll definitely keep working on perfecting my technique.
I hope I'm not violating the format of this discussion group by presenting a photo which is
not my own and not recent (!), but with the hours it's taken me to restore these, I have some intellectual property ("performance rights", LOL) invested here on my own account.
Cheers -- and thanks very much for your comments! I leave you with another picture which I dashed off late last night, so it's probably not ready for prime time yet. It's a beautiful spring morning in 1864, with a row of artillery parked and ready for the next killing assignment!
--Bob
From: Brian Wallace <Starg82343(-at-)hotmail.com>
To: anaglyphs(-at-)yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, 25 July 2011 8:44 AM
Subject: Re: [Anaglyphs] Brian/Coach Dog - Dariush
?
I definitely think it's from an old picture of some sort Dariush. I
have next to no knowledge about side-by-side slides so you may very well be
right.
Brian
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2011 11:40
AM
Subject: Re: [Anaglyphs] Brian/Coach
Dog
| I am absolutly sure that the Bob's anaglyph is generated
and made from a side by side stereo photo, so it can not be a 2D>3D
conversion! I hope he riveal it's origin here soon:-)
ciao,
Dariush --- Lun 25/7/11, Brian Wallace <Starg82343(-at-)hotmail.com>
ha scritto:
Da:
Brian Wallace <Starg82343(-at-)hotmail.com>
Oggetto:
Re: [Anaglyphs] Coach Dog
A: anaglyphs(-at-)yahoogroups.com
Data:
Luned́ 25 luglio 2011, 17:33
?
I'm "guessing" a conversion Bob?
Pretty well done I might add but the image has a couple of small
problems. The dog shows some movement which slightly blurred a
portion of his head, and there's some slight R/R in the background
which could have easily been removed. There's some mismatch
artifacts on his hind leg on my monitor. As for everything else,
I'd say well done!
Brian
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2011
5:22 AM
Subject: [Anaglyphs] Coach
Dog
|
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