Blog post

Monday, October 14, 2013

Brightening my world, or at least my screen

One of my goals is to improve my skills at digital photo restoration.

All the tutorials and practice in the world won’t get me me good results correcting the colour in photos if my monitor isn’t displaying the results correctly. With this in mind, I bought a middle-of-the-range monitor calibration device.

I have just calibrated my monitor for the first time. I’m now trying to get used to the richer, bolder colours on my screen!

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Back again

Although my posts of late have been non-existent, I’m still here.

One of the most useful things about blogging, aside from the interaction with like-minded people, is the record it provides of work done. As I ease back into the blogosphere, I am going to concentrate on just that. Recording the genealogy work I am doing.

There are a few areas I am focusing on right now.

  • I’m getting back in to the courses I booked at the National Institute for Genealogical Studies. My next course starts Monday. It’s “Electronic Resources: Using The Internet” which I think I will find pretty straightforward, so a good one to ease back into things.
  • Research work – not doing a lot for now. I’d like to try and get more information on James Bennett, the hope of determining his death date. My lead on this is the land records and I think it will require a research trip to Melbourne.
  • Cousin correspondence. I have been an infrequent correspondent of late. I have some catching up to do!
  • DNA. I have had both myself and my father tested, and two of my father’s cousins have tested as well all at FTDNA. I’ve also tested at 23andME and AncestryDNA. I’m trying to work out a way of semi-automating looking at the details, so that there’s not a whole lot of manual work to so when a DNA match gets in touch with me.
  • Photo restoration. One of the things I really love doing is learning to digitally restore photos. I would like is to become really, really good at it – if I do, prospectively, say so myself! For me it’s the perfect way to blend three things I enjoy: art, playing with tech tools, and of course genealogy. I have in mind a series of posts – again, mostly in order to document for myself what I am doing but they may also be of help to others. 

That seems like plenty to be getting on with.