Comment regarding Technical Notes
From: starfleet2@sbcglobal.net
Subject: Technical Notes
Subject: Technical Notes
Read with interest some of your issues. Love what you're doing.
Suggest you upgrade to Adobe Photoshop CS2, at least. This version opens up new opportunties not found in the previous "eight" versions.
I've been using the software in my work. Much easier to work with – especially in restoring old photos.
Best wishes.
—Jim
posted from CPRR Discussion Group at 12:43 PM
8 Comments:
We're planning (subject to sticker shock) to upgrade to the latest version of Photoshop once the Intel multiprocessor Macintosh desktops are available from Apple and Adobe gets around to releasing an Intel native version of Photoshop for the Mac which also takes advantage of the extreme Core Image acceleration which is possible by using the much more highly parallel architecture of the graphics card. With lots of RAM installed this should be an amazing combination for instant image processing, especially of large high resolution files, such as maps.
From: Holly Dunn "team5dunns@gmail.com"
Subject: Reporting a corrupted link in the railroad game
I'm writing on behalf of Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool, a free, online homeschool curriculum found at www.allinonehomeschool.com. We link to your website for one of our Modern History transcontinental railroad lessons and a parent reported to us today that one of the links in the is corrupted and redirects to an adult website.
This link is on this page, and it's for Theodore Judah.
http://CPRR.org/Game/Interactive_Railroad_Project/cp3.htm
I'm not sure if that link will go directly to the page. It's the Central Railroad page that starts, "CPRR Crew - We need money!"
When I click the Judah link, it starts to go to linecamp.com but then redirects. It's something different each time - domain name for sale, pictures of girls in lingerie, inflatable sex dolls, etc.
I have included the message I received from a parent with her pictures. I'm hoping you can fix this link quickly, as our school year is just starting up and this is in our third lesson of the year.
Thank you,
Holly Dunn
Easy Peasy All-In-One Homeschool
We are most grateful to you and the alert mother for spotting this distressing random sounding redirect on that other website and bringing it to our attention. Certainly unacceptable!
We were not able to reproduce this unfortunate corrupted link behavior, so can't determine whether this it was a problem with that linked page about Theodore Judah, a hacked server, or even perhaps advertising malware infecting the mother's computer.
WE HAVE REPLACED OUR LINK so that it now shows the linked page as it was two decades ago, using the internet archive, instead of the current third party page online that you reported as malfunctioning.
We sure hope that this change fixes the issue. Please check if this game page correction has been successful on your computer, as well as on the computer of that alert mother, who we hope you will thank for us, and please do let us know if you ever find that this type of very distressing internet redirect happens again. (When checking, be sure you have first cleared the browser history, to see the current updated cp3 page showing today's revision date of 8/24/2021.)
Most appreciated! Something, after two decades, that we have never experienced before.
We hope that the Interactive Game continues to provide a useful resource for your educational program about the Transcontinental Railroad.
Unfortunately, effective internet protection is not simple or easy, but you might be interested to know about countermeasures that we use ourselves in addition to advertising blockers, in an attempt to protect from the "Wild West" of the internet, such as the Quad9 DNS service explained at, https://www.quad9.net
Use of such a curated DNS lookup that excludes malicious hosts likely would have blocked this from happening. (Our inability to reproduce seeing the reported redirects could be due to our countermeasures in place having been effective to block our computer from receiving that unwanted material.) For further internet protection countermeasure details see our CPRR Museum Privacy policy, especially the links with item "(15)".
Thanks, again, very much for the alert!
Regards,
CPRR.org
Central Pacific Railroad Photographic History Museum - Photographs, stereoviews, engravings, maps, and documents illustrating the history of the first transcontinental railroad.
From: "Holly Dunn" team5dunns@gmail.com
Thank you! That archive link worked. I did check the original link again on a different device and it was still redirecting for me. If you try www.linecamp.com, I think you'll see the same issue. It looks like that website may have failed to renew it's domain name (possibly?). But the archive link is working for me. Thank you for replacing it. I'll let that parent know.
—Holly
From: "Joseph Hummel" jhummel73@gmail.com
For many a long time I have enjoyed the CPRR history museum site, but in recent years have not frequented the site as much, but thank you for putting this together and keeping it up.
My question is, why the low resolution images? That is one of the greatest things I have enjoyed about the site through the years is studying the photos. However, it seems the image quality has been drastically lowered and no longer are the photos something to marvel at. Instead they are blury indistinct images and very unsatisfying. Am I mistaken that the image qulaity has been lowered since I fist started viewing the site in about 2005?
I hope it is possible to restore the higher photo resolutions where possible.
thank you,
Joe Hummel
Fairbanks, Alaska
Actually, the resolution is unchanged since the CPRR Museum website's creation, a quarter century ago. We chose 600dpi scans, as that seemed to capture all the available resolution of the stereoviews.
Remember that the originals are only 3 1/2 inch size 19th century albumen prints. Twenty-five years ago, 600dpi was a bold choice, as the internet was mostly dial-up at 300 baud, so pages loaded very slowly. We predicted that internet connections would become faster, so we chose the higher sampling resolution to capture all the resolution actually available with the small 19th century photographic prints.
We also tried 1200dpi scans, but the files were unmanageable at the time, and the only visible difference was that the fine cracks typically all over the albumen prints' emulsion were easier to see.
What has changed, mostly is that we are now able to compare the 19th century small stereograph images to 24 or 48 megapixel digital images from modern cellphones and cameras. If you look at the 35mm film you may have taken years ago, you likely will be similarly surprised at how inferior those images now look to you (compared what you think you remember), in comparison with the amazing digital cameras we enjoy today.
Another consideration, is that the small stereoview images may not look as good if excessively magnified. We can be using much larger screens now compared to years ago. So you could try using less magnification on your computer, or perhaps take a look at the CPRR.org website on your cellphone held in landscape orientation, to see if the images are more pleasing when small on a high resolution display.
Another consideration is that Lloyd Chambers advises not to attempt to evaluate sharpness using a high resolution digital displays and instead recommends the need for using a lower resolution professional monitor.
Vision can often deteriorate with advancing age, so everything might be blurrier now. In case this might apply, perhaps an ophthalmologist might identify steps that could provide some improvement, by checking if the prescription for eyeglasses needs updating, if computer trifocals would help due to reduced ability for accommodation, if the cornea is not smooth, there is a retinal issue, perhaps cataracts are interfering, or use of gel eyedrops is causing blur, etc.
Speaking of high resolution, you might enjoy seeing some of the A.J. Russell and Carlton Watkins images printed from large glass plates. The Oakland Museum has the large glass A.J. Russell negatives. The Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan has displayed scenic Watkins contact prints made from large glass plates – they are spectacular!
The small railroad stereoview colodion glass plate negatives were presumably all destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, so are not available to attempt to extract higher resolution than the surviving prints have.
From: "Joseph Hummel" jhummel73@gmail.com
Thank you for the very thorough explanation. I guess I had thought the small stereographic were clearer, both when made, and some years ago on the website. I guess the small image just couldn't capture the detail we are used to today. My apology for the criticism.
Further, I would like to express how much I have enjoyed viewing this site through the years and it always gives me a warm and happy feeling to visit it, like visiting a favorite park or historical place.
Thank you for your efforts to keep this up.
Sincerely,
Joe Hummel
Re: Photo resolution
One other issue is that the simple photographic lenses available in the 1860's did not have nearly the resolution or freedom from aberrations of the much more complex amazing modern lenses that may include aspheric surfaces, various specialty glass, apochromatic color correction, and surface coating.
Also the collodion wet plates were not very light sensitive, requiring very long exposure times, so anything not completely still would get smeared.
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