My Legacy Project - My Grandfather Boris Lenoff

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My Legacy Project - My Grandfather Boris Lenoff

Permanent.org is a personal legacy archive platform created to enable people to preserve family history, tell their stories, and most importantly, ensure that it is safely passed on and available to others for years to come.

They recently launched a project they called the Legacy Lab, which encouraged participants to do a start-to-finish archive on a particular family member. I’m still in the process of doing mine, which is on my maternal grandfather Boris Lenoff, who was a portrait photographer who had his studio on the Coney Island boardwalk in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn.

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Slide and Negative Scanning

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Slide and Negative Scanning

I just finished a large slide scanning job for a client of over 4500 slides. The camera scans I did on the 50-70 years old slides made them look like they are taken yesterday, the camera scanning quality is that good.

I can’t show you my clients work, but here are some slides and negatives of mine I recently scanned. Some of these I haven’t seen in decades, but all wonderful memories.

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Lightroom Update and New Features

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Lightroom Update and New Features

Adobe just updated Lightroom Classic with some interesting new features. I’ve had a few clients call me as they were confused about some changes in the way the tools in Develop mode now display. If you wish to set up a session to go over these new tools, or anything else, let me know and we can go through them.

Here are the basics of the new changes.

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How they steal your money

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How they steal your money

I’m going to write today about a topic I don’t usually cover, unfortunately it’s one of those topics you don’t think about until you have to. I’m talking about identity theft and bank theft, both of which happened to me several weeks ago.

Getting your online bank account hacked is not something I ever thought would happen to me, but when it did, it was not only dealing with the shock of what happened, but also a growing awareness of how easily it can happen, and how easily it could happen again.

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Apple discontinues My Photo Stream

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Apple discontinues My Photo Stream

On July 26th of this year, Apple will be discontinued something called My PhotoStream. My PhotoStream was a feature that iPhones used before there was iCloud to sync photos and videos from your iPhone to your computer. Its now basically obsolete so nothing to worry about unless you might be still unknowingly using it to transfer images from your phone. That might be the case if you are not logged into your iCloud account.

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The Photo Managers annual conference – looking forward Part 1

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The Photo Managers annual conference – looking forward Part 1

I just got back from the annual conference of The Photo Managers in Orlando which brings together photo-organizers, archivists, tech companies and all professions and services related to family photos from all over the world. As usual it was a fantastic time to hear and talk about the latest trends in our field and find out about all the new products and services that will be enhancing the work we do with our clients. I can’t go through all of them, but will mention a few in this newsletter in Part 1 and some more soon in Part 2

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Lightroom – setting up view options

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Lightroom – setting up view options

Lightroom – Information is everything

One of the most common things I come across when I first see my client’s Lightroom catalog is this generic display on their thumbnails, displaying absolutely nothing of importance. So one of the first things I do when helping to set up a catalog for a client is to show them how to display important and helpful information in the Grid view of their catalog

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AI restores old photos

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AI restores old photos

Maybe you’ve heard or read about some of the new AI software that can create crazy surreal images by simply writing some descriptive text. I will put aside my opinion of these things for now and instead tell you about some of the really cool and helpful abilities AI does have when it comes to restoring scanned photos that may be damaged or faded. There are a number of products out there, but I used some easy-to-use features and tools in Adobe Photoshop to achieve some really good results with just a few clicks.

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Should I scan my old albums?

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Should I scan my old albums?

Albums have traditionally been the place we put our favorite prints to display our most memorable events, trips, and family and friends. Ironically, placing our prints in albums puts our favorite prints way more at risk than if we just stuck them in a dark box and never looked at them.

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Now offering slide scanning

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Now offering slide scanning

For years I’ve had requests from my clients to offer slide scanning as one of my services, but I wasn’t able to find a method I thought would do a good enough job, until now…

I just set up a slide scanning system using camera scanning. Instead of using a traditional slide scanner, which are typically slow and varies in terms of quality, I use a digital camera on a copy stand, and the results are amazing. The scans are sharp, the quality is excellent, and I can scan each slide quickly and precisely.

I am offering two tiers of slide scans: Standard and Pro Scan. Prices are below but I am offering 20% off if you get your order in by July 21, 2022

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Setting up and working with PhotoSweeper

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Setting up and working with PhotoSweeper

I just launched, in partnership with The Photo Managers™, a new online course to help all you Mac users identify and remove the duplicates from your photo collection. And the good news is that you can save 25% by ordering before July 31. Regularly $59, but now on sale for $44.25.

PhotoSweeper is one of, if not the most powerful photo duplicate removal applications you can get for your Mac system.

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Should you keep your old negatives?

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Should you keep your old negatives?

People are always asking me what to do with their old negatives. It is not an easy question to answer. Most of the scanning I do for clients is of their older prints, anywhere from twenty to a hundred years old. If the prints are in good shape, they can yield a perfectly good scan for most of the uses we would want them for.

So do you throw away all the negatives you have?

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Become a Better Photo Editor… and a better story-teller and photographer

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Become a Better Photo Editor… and a better story-teller and photographer

Photo editing is story-telling. When we edit our photos, whether it’s for a photo album or just our general library, we are telling stories of an event, a trip, a person’s life or even just a great day we had.

As part of Save your Photos Month, I will be giving a free 20 minute webinar on how to become a better photo editor. I have over 20 years as a professional photo editor and will talk about the editing methods I have found to be the most effective, ways to train your eye and mind to work efficiently, and utilizing best practices to achieve consistent results with all your projects.

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Webinar - How to properly set up and start working with Apple Photos and iCloud

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Webinar - How to properly set up and start working with Apple Photos and iCloud

What you'll learn in this apple training: Apple Photos and iCloud is an easy to use and maintenance-free photo-system for your iPhone and Mac computer, but if it isn’t set up correctly from the beginning you can end up with a real mess and even risk losing photos. It would be nice if Apple did a better job of explaining how it works and how to set it up, but they don’t…

I have been working with my personal clients over the

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Life during crisis - Life in Focus

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Life during crisis - Life in Focus

I’ve always wondered how people get through wars and other frightening times that can occur during one’s lifetime. My mother and father lived through the depression and then later WWII. My grandmother was a medical practitioner treating German Soldiers during WWI and then later had to endure the Spanish Flu which came just as the war was ending. My God what a time!

Last week I found myself, like most of us, cycling through a range of emotions: fear, hope, hopelessness, despair, denial and as much acceptance as I could muster. As both the parent of a teenage boy and the son of a very at-risk mother in an asssited living, every decision I find myself facing carries many potential consequences. I get absolutely exhausted just trying to navigate what used to be the simplest daily decisions in my life.

But I don’t really have to tell this to anyone do I?

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