Happy 124th Anniversary, Great-Grandpa Edwin & Great-Grandma Georgia!

Portland Women’s Show
Friday, October 8 – Sunday, October 10

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OK, until just now, I had no idea who this guy was.  (He’s Ricky Paull Goldin, aka Dr. Jake Martin in All My Children). The truth is, I have never watched a soap opera in my life…unless you count the ones my mom watched when I was too small to be left alone in a room by myself.  And even then, I didn’t so much watch them as whine the entire time they were on.  (Oh, and there was that one time way back in college where our entire dorm gathered for Luke someone’s wedding – I went for the party.)  Anyway, if I ever do have a rare minute to watch TV during the day, I’m more of a Perry Mason kinda gal.

Which is the great thing about the Portland Women’s Show – it offers something for everyone.  Sure, when you go to their web page, Dr. Jake is there to greet you, but then dive into the schedule and you’ll find a vast menu of great things to do and see:  yoga demonstrations, craft workshops, wellness clinics, charity benefits (including a Fireman’s Fashion Show), authors (yea!), celebrities, food, chocolate, more food.

There will also be over 200 vendors on site. We’ll be there with iPerserve NW to explain how we can help you with all your media conversion needs – be sure to stop by our booth (#1061) and say hi!

Click the coupon below and print it to receive $2 off your admission. You should go: who knows – you might even get to meet Dr. Jake.  As for me, I’m thinking I may just have to make the sacrifice and sit back with a good piece of chocolate and enjoy that Fireman’s Fashion Show.

Nipper ~ 1884-1895, Bristol, England.

Nipper is an image that takes us all to some place or time.

Where does he take you?

(Read about Hound Dog Day)

*  Francis Barraud’s original photograph of Nipper looking into an Edison Bell cylinder phonograph.

Was your mom like mine, insisting that you include all your siblings or classmates when you played a game or planned a party? Did you really want to cross the class bully’s name off the guest list, but Mom made you include everyone? Take heart! When it comes to creating a first-rate photo collection, “It’s Okay to Play Favorites.”

Professional photographers have to master the business end of taking pictures. This means that photos cannot languish away on memory chips. They have to be uploaded to a computer, sorted, minimally touched-up, and then presented to a client for selection and (hopefully) purchase. Customers also want to see only The Best, after all that’s why they hired a Pro.

When the family photographer begins to think like a Professional, it becomes easier to realize that Playing Favorites is not only Okay, it is necessary to building a quality photo collection. Of course, the family historian has other considerations as well. An out-of-focus or poorly framed shot of Aunt Mildred may be the only photograph of her at all. By all means, this one is a Keeper.
These same techniques are useful if you are working with a shoebox of family prints. Any photo collection will benefit from judicious sorting. As a bonus, your family will come to thank you that the slide show features minutes of fabulous photos instead of hours of marginal memories.

So, your images are in front of you – either in a software program like iPhoto, PS Elements, or Lightroom, or spread out on the dining room table. How do you select The Best?

First, pull together the “Photo Shoot” or set. This would be the Rehearsal Dinner, the Birthday Party, or your walking tour of Paris. From this set of photos you want to choose the best, which also means dumping the worst. Why waste time and effort with bad photos? Some photo programs tempt you to use Star Ratings, but why? As Photo Pro Scott Kelby notes, do you think you will ever want to look at one or two star photos? Those should be the ones that are out of focus or have heads cut off. Even three star photos? The Star selection system is slow; pros would never earn a living if they spent their time deciding if a photo was worth two stars or three stars. If you think you might want the picture some day, there is a way to keep it without inviting it to the party. Read on.

Lightroom2 Compare Window Select Left or Right as Keepers

How to Play Favorites with your Photos

1.  Assemble Photo Shoot pictures

2.  Ignore typical Star Ratings; instead quickly select the Best, reject the Worst. Use stars (or flags) to assign one star Keep and five stars Reject. That’s it; two choices. Keep or Reject. (Using stars or flags allows you to create a group which can be easily selected later.)

3.  Can’t decide which of six is the best? Place two similar photos side-by-side (Lightroom2 and PS Elements allow this comparison view.) Choose the best of the two, reject the other. Bring a new photo in to compete with the winner. Audition each photo against the winner. Try to move quickly; don’t let yourself get bogged down in selecting; go with your instinct.

4.  Make a New Collection Set and drag all the Keeps into this set. Label it Rehearsal Dinner. (You could call it Rehearsal Dinner Keeps, if you like).

5.  Now, you have to make one more decision. If you want to get rid of the bad photos, select the Reject group and Delete. If you just can’t throw them away, make a second New Collection Set and drag all the Rejects into this set. Label it clearly Rehearsal Dinner Rejects. There, you saved them, but no one has to look at them ever again if they don’t want to!

Playing Favorites will eliminate bullies from your photo collection and give you the best and the brightest to work with for your slide show, album, or web page. You may even gain a reputation as the Family Pro Photographer.
For more ideas on organizing, editing, and sharing your photographs, visit The Family Curator.

Further reading –

• Do Try This With Your Photos at Home
• Old Framed Photo Yields a Surprise Underneath!
• Setting Up a Genealogy Photo Workflow, Part 1
• Setting Up a Genealogy Photo Workflow, Part 2

Just a couple of kids ~ August 10, 1985

Happy Anniversary, Scotty!  The first 25 years have been “Magic” ~ I’m looking forward to sharing the surprises of the next quarter-century with you!

♥ Renee

We founded Photoloom on the principle at that every image has a story to tell – and each story is a thread in tapestry of our lives.  “Family Threads” is a periodic column here on Above the Trees that celebrates that philosophy, and we’d like you to be a part of it!

If you have a photograph and family story  (200-500 words) that you would like to share with our readers, please send them in today!

How to Enter:
Send your photo and story to renee(at)photoloom(dot)com, with “Family Threads” as the subject line of your email.  Please include your story in the body of your email, and attach your image as a jpg file.

Prizes:
Winners will receive a FREE one-year Premium Membership to Family Photoloom, and winning entries will be published in Above the Trees.

Contest Deadline:
August 31, 2010.  All stories are subject to editing for space and content.

Lester in the Land of the Lost

This is my older brother, L.A. (now a professor at Iowa State) in about 1958.  Any ideas about where this was taken?

Missouri Summer ~ Gracie & Livy

It’s National • Watermelon • Day!!

How will you celebrate?

• My Top Three Melons of all Time
• All Things Watermelon
• Watermelon Recipes

Enter iPreserve. We were first introduced to iPreserve when we met McKay Murdock, the manager of the St. George iPreserve, at the St. George Family History Expo last March. As he explained to us, iPreserve is a national chain of independently owned franchises, dedicated to digitizing family history.

iPreserve is a localized service, so there is no need to mail anything anywhere.  They come to you.  They sit down with you, explain your digitizing options for whatever media you have, and take the time to find out exactly what you want done. Then they convert everything onto DVD or CD, either in your home or in their labs.  They have the most awesome equipment for doing the best possible job, too.

It took Scott about a minute (and me a minute more) to decide that iPreserve was the answer we’d been looking for.  Within the month, we had made the decision to expand the scope of Photoloom LLC – and signed the papers to purchase the first iPreserve franchise in the Pacific Northwest (which we ingeniously named…get ready….iPreserve NW).

We are really excited about this new adventure!   iPreserve dovetails perfectly with Family Photoloom, and provides a solid, viable solution to an important, but often overwhelming problem facing family historians – or anyone really – who has media that predates the digital world. (Isn’t that just about everyone?)

We’ve always been in the business of preserving memories. Now we have a practical way to address that process from start to finish. We knew going into this venture that it would be rewarding, and though our iPreserve franchise has only been up and running for a short while, it’s already clear that even we underestimated both the need and the rewards of such a service.

It seems like the moment I broach the subject with someone, a misty look will inevitably cross their face, and then they’ll say something like, “I’ve got this box of slides that used to belong to my Dad…” or “I have all these old movies in a box in the basement…”

Just yesterday, I had that experience myself.  I watched an 8mm movie of my seven-year old self from Christmas 1970.  I’ve never seen it before – I guess it got tucked away right after being developed, and it didn’t see light of day again until Scott converted it. It has the best footage of my cat, Shelia, on it.  And a moment where my Mom is really, truly happy.  That probably doesn’t mean much to you, but it means a lot to me.

And that’s the thing – these memories, they are precious reminders of a life well-lived. All people want to do is see them again, and save them for their families. We do that for them – both iPreserve NW and Family Photoloom – and it’s great.  I couldn’t ask for more.

If you live in the Portland area and would like to contact us about converting your media, please contact us at (503) 628-2228, or visit our iPreserveNW Facebook page and leave us a message.   Or check out the iPreserve website to find a location near you.