INSPENCE-L Archives

From: J A S Murphy <>
Subject: [INSPENCE] Reading census
Date: Sun, 28 Oct 2007 19:27:56 -0700 (PDT)

I keep putting this off for several years and figured while on my mind I will send to ya'll - it is a hint on how to read censuses better.

If you have access to a digitized copy (you make photo of the census reading and then digitize it yourself or you look at a copy at places like Ancestry, etc) then you can actually manipulate it so you can get to see what it says better.

Once you have the census page copied to your machine then you want to use a photo program that allows you to manually adjust the contrast, gamma, brightness, colors (like red, green, blue) etc. My personal favorite is Photo Editor that I got many years ago.

Using the adjustments if you adjust the gamma first (make it less gamma) it will actually darken the writing on the page.

Sometimes that is not enough and you can play with the various contrast, brightness, and colors until you can read the writing much better. But usually just adjusting the gamma (making it less) will do the trick.

Sometimes persons will have programs that allow you to put filters on your pictures too -- I have an old one that I would look at photos of astronomy images that have been digitized. Using the various color filters it will amaze you what you didn't see before.

Just experiment with the various photo programs that you have on your computer - don't go out buying new photo program unless you check out WHAT it allows you to adjust.

If the list allowed attachments I would give you a good example of what a page looked like before I did the adjustment and after the adjustment - it would truly amaze you.

Hope this helps ya'll,
Judith Sandage Murphy



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• [INSPENCE] Reading census by J A S Murphy <>