Recently, I’ve taken it upon myself to archive some of my grandmother’s pictures of our family. Archiving photos is a daunting task for anyone who does it correctly. Hundreds of images, (many of them with important information on the back such as names and dates) need to be scanned (matching both front and back image), and cataloged in some way. I am not a person with a lot of time on my hands, so I came up with a more automated solution to archiving by modifying some GIMP plug-ins to help me with most of the tedious parts. This is the first part of a series dealing with archiving and genealogy.
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Installing Archiving Software, Scripts, and Plugins
For archiving scanned images of family photographs, I modified some scripts to use with Gimp to speed the process along. This post will explain how to install these scripts to the correct folders in order for them to work.
First, You need to install Gimp photo manipulation software. This is similar to photoshop, but it is free and open source. Gimp is available for Windows, Linux and Mac. Since I run Linux on my computer, I can’t easily install photoshop, and Gimp does just as well once you learn to use it. Instructions for downloading and installing Gimp can be found on their downloads page.
If you want the script to automatically attempt to straighten your individual images automatically before saving them to file, you will need to install the ‘deSkew’ plug-in. You can find which folder to install it in GIMP in a similar fashion to above “Edit–> Preferences–> Folders–> Plug-ins.” Note that this is different from the scripts path! For some reason the original host of this plug-in has disappeared, but the files are available in links in the comments of the ‘deSkew’ page of the GIMP Registry.
Windows:precompiled executable available here.
Linux: Download this project by clicking the “Zip” button on the GITHub page. Unzip the folder and read the install instructions from the README file. You have to make the project, but it isn’t complicated. You will need to give the resulting program executable permissions, and then copy it to your /…/gimp-2.0/plug-ins folder.
UPDATE: As of 2023, The links I marked out above do not work. deskew is no longer maintained from what I can tell. I did find this github site with a copy of the plugin.
You can download the archiving scripts I modified from our GitHub Code site. You will need both of the scripts shown on the webpage. If there are multiple version, be sure to get the ones with the latest dates. Simply install these into the “scripts” folder in the gimp installation directory as shown in the video.
This video explains where and how to install all of these files:
Resources for Creating Background Images
I had this idea that Microsoft Paint would be a capable background image creator. I am sure it is, but I didn’t have much success with it today. During my semi-failed attempt, which I will still share, I found a new site and rediscovered an old favorite.
Repticon Revisited
I might be a bit more loving of reptiles than the average person. I have a pet leopard gecko and sand boa who I affectionately call Gizmo and Mr. Snake respectively. Adam and I have been to Repticon in the past and were excited to visit again. If it comes to your area, I suggest going even if you are not in the business of buying a new pet. It is like a cool reptile zoo and is perfect for the kiddos. Here are some highlights of the visit.
My Word for 2013: Be
I never understood why people were obsessed with simplicity until my life become, well, not simple. Then I wanted simplicity; I needed simplicity. I work full time as a teacher at a high school and then I work part time as a teacher online. My commute is an hour long. I just finished working full time as a student in a master’s degree program. These our not obstacles in my life as much as they are reasons why it is difficult. Difficult to be all the things I aspire to be. But these are also the things that help me be what I aspire to be. Again, not simple. Everyone as a different story, but can relate to the complications of life.