Old Slides and Negatives and Family History...

Oh, the things I have discovered that I can do with my iPad and new HTC Sense with its cool digital camera. I have thousands of old slides and negatives that I have put off purchasing a slide/neg scanner for but now I do not have to! You can also use a light table but the iPad acts like one with a little app called Hello Photo which works quite well with my HTC cell phone camera.

This is a slide strip of my daughter Julie that is over 25 years old.

This is cropped, tweaked and enhanced. Not very good for making prints straight on but might make a nice transfer and other mixed media. 

Since most of the negatives I have were large, I used my Light Tracer table for these. I grouped them together and took the photo with my phone camera.

This was a photo negative that I cropped out of the group.

This is what I got after inverting image in Photoshop:

Again, images are not crystal pristine but I am loving what you can create even with the negatives themselves!

In my very next post (maybe later today) I will show how and why I got involved in going through my stacks of slides in the first place.

Hint: It involves the murder of a family member and is a spooky read for this time of the year! 

Networking...

At breakfast this morning with hubby looking out kitchen window:

With 8 month old I-Pad between us playing this video:

We looked at each other at the same time in amazement. Who knew that on this day in 2012 we would be eating breakfast watching this thing on an unplugged little piece of electronics, metal and glass?

I can understand why our grandchildren have that vacant look in their eyes when we describe the absence of technology when we were kids. Knowing there is still more to come can be a bit overwhelming.

It has come time for a new computer. I have a Sony Viao running WinXP that I purchased used five years ago for $100 bucks. Paid the same for a later model of same computer that I hooked up for my husband because it had Excel which I never use. Networked us together and believed we would be good for at least 10 years. Ha!

Of course, I am the culprit. With Photoshop, my picture and font files, videos and apps, I have pushed memory to its limit. So I ordered a ZT Infinity with 2 TB's and sporting a 6-core processor! Whoopee!

Should be here today. Now my old Viao will be just somebody I used to know. 

It's hot in LA!

My time here at Moss Cottage came to an end with a heat wave that is keeping me and the posee indoors until the sun goes down. 

We fight over who gets closest to the air conditioner. It's that hot.

Of course, I let them win. I am like that.

I hit a few thrift stores. Found some stuff. Almost bought a desk and had it shipped until I came to my senses. But sense tells me I will be sorry.

Going into my Love 1942 Journal. Some of it. Oh yea. 

On Loving LA

Delicious salad we had. Vietnamese Cafe. Yummy. Notice the coconut milk? My first ever.

View from a certain window.....

A day later out for a stroll. Lovely singing bird I had to stop and take a photo. Won't tell you what the angry man said. Not important. I think he thought I was hurting the bird.

Adore white picket fences.

Speaking of fences - love this gate! A new take on chain link.

Okay, this is the bottom of the palm tree. Love the vine growing around base...

And this is the top! Tallest palm I have ever seen!

Maybe Californians are used to such tallness...I am used to the short fat variety. 

I am picturing a local native over in Tahiti climbing up there to collect a few coconuts.

Flowers in bloom everywhere.

And it is only March. Hope you have enjoyed our little stroll. MAM has given me directions for the 25, 75 and whole buck tour de gris to explore whilst she is traipsing around in Paris. 

I can see why she loves LA