I wasn't really trying to clean house, but I turned over a few stones ... and found some images from old projects. This project took place in 1998 -- there were about 100 poses by about 30 people -- couples were shot as a couple and also as individuals, plus some other small groups as well. The primary images were shot in 6x6 cm format using VPS-120, The "insurance" shots in 35mm using the same emulsion. The setting was an ad hoc studio, portrait lighting, heavy duty tripod. What did I learn from doing this project? ... Sorry, but this space is too small. MGD

An additional image ...

Wow.... those costumes are really beautiful! Looks like the camera should have been moved a tad more to the left on that bottom shot... the lady on the left seems cut off a bit... Especially like the top shot, but her facial piercing ruins the authenticity of it for me....

No no ... the Renaissance did end and it was because of outfits like that guy in the first shot is wearing. :) hehehehe "What do you think, Baldric?" "I think he looks like a bird what has swallowed a plate." -=>Donald

Thank you very much for your comments. > costumes "costumes" ... please m'lady: clothing, period clothing (G) As to the 2nd shot, that was a little unplanned, and when I encouraged a tighter grouping, the 4 of them moved left or right as a group ... so I released the shutter with what I had. On the first shot, what seemed to be a facial piercing is actually a scanner artifact -- dust/dirt to be exact. Good catch. Should I resubmit? MGD

Not swallowed a plate, ninnie! They put thos on to keep em from licking their bum.

ROFLMAO @ Misha.... ewwww...!!!

And to think, he use to be such a nice, normal man. The age of innocence is truly gone. :) hahaha

Just going through your gallery and looking at some of your posts and wondered what you're doing to your photos once you scan them in? If you don't wanna hear it, lemme know. I won't take offense. :) Just noticed where your white/black points are as well as slight color casts. Then again, may be my monitor at work (it's not fully calibrated). Did a little 3 minute correction on the first photo above. Let me know if you wanna see it. -=>Donald

@Donald ... Yes. I did notice a slight red cast to these 2 images -- they were scaned from prints using my hp G85 all-in-one printer/scanner; in my gallery, Extreme Fog was from a CD that the Camera Store burned from 35mm they developed; all the rest (both gallery and forum) are from my Nikon 4300. Yes, I do want to see how you did the correction. MGD

Must ... go .. to ... bed. :) Did this at work with minimal tools. Think color is right, but can't tell for sure because the monitor at work isn't calibrated (I think my work monitor is a little bright, so this might be a little dark, but gives an idea. Level/Curves adjustment, simple color correction and slight sharpening. 3 minute deal. -=>Donald

Attached Link: http://www.scantips.com

Anyway, since I was so tired that my brain wasn't actually functional at the time, what the whole point was that looking at some of your images in the gallery and in the forum, it looks like many of them could use a bit of basic tweaking. Take a look at the link I've posted above ... especially the "Scanning 201" section of the page. Good stuff. Oh yea, and the one I posted above was a little dark. Delete it from the message and then lightened it a bit (but of course, loading and resaving JPEG is screwing over the quality). Like I said, not perfect, but you get the idea. -=>Donald

Thanks, I've looked at ScanTips.com and will study it. Most of my gallery pictures come from my Nikon Coolpix 4300 ... Photoshop processing is usually limited to crop, resize, and add my tag. I think the camera settings are OK ... but I'll review them again. How would I callibrate the camera? MGD

You can't calibrate your camera, but you can (under certain programs) import a color profile for your camera. I have no idea if the Coolpix 4300 has any profiles available and most of the software that use it are higher end and require you to takes your shots in RAW mode. Every digital camera and scanner adds some color cast, shift in contrast, etc. to an image. It's just the nature of the device. You need to compensate for that in your post processing. You get somewhat automatic correction of these device specific things using a device color profile. Also, every digital camera and scanner (with the exception of the Sigma SD9 and SD10 Digital SLRs) will output a somewhat soft image - nature of the Bayer pattern of the imaging array; although I think I remember the Nikon Coolpix cameras use a weird CMGY pattern instead of RGBG). Many digital cameras try to compensate for this with in camera sharpening (I don't apply any sharpening in camera to my photos, I want full control of that). Finally, almost every digital camera will need at least some level or curves tweaking to pull the black and white point to where the image looks good; stops the image from looking dull and flat. In-camera settings are made to be OK in most situations, so there is room to improve it with your post processing. Sorry if this isn't too clear. Just spent 5 hours working on a laser imager and my mind is sort of jumping around. -=>Donald

Thanks you Donald for the reemphasis on how important post-processing is.... It really does make a big difference... it doesn't matter if it's a film image that has been scanned or straight out of the digital camera.... every image that finds it's way into your computer has to be tweaked or it's not going to look it's best.

those outfits are awesome!

very nice pics MGD. how long does a lady take to get dressed up in that? i only ask - because it seems that it would take longer & be more complicated than the male outfits.

@georgedvore - I'm not sure how long; I understand they had to have servants to help them get dresses; sometimes the were sewn into the clothing; also that once dressed, they might stay in that outfit for 2-3 days -- that would have been for a social event (formal ball, ...) that was more than one day long. And I know that your next question will be what's the name of the book ... I don't have a specific reference ... many different sources, verbal, classes w/o a handout, etc. MGD

lol - no problem! thanks very much for the info :o)