[Nhcoll-l] Reading fadded/scratched off ink?

[William Shepherd]

Hello Ben,

                All the suggestions have been great. I’ll also suggest raking light. Get a flashlight, not too too powerful, and hold it at a low angle to the label in a low light/dark area. If the pen or type was pressed into the paper hard enough you’ll see some of the valleys and ridges in shadow and light. This could also be combined with the photography mentioned below.

                Good luck!

William Shepherd
Collections Officer
Swift Current Museum
44 Robert Street West
Swift Current, Saskatchewan
S9H 4M9
Phone: 306-778-4815
Fax: 306-778-4818

From: nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu [mailto:nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu] On Behalf Of Catharine Hawks
Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2016 2:16 PM
To: Rachel Hawkins <rhawkins at fas.harvard.edu>
Cc: Frable, Benjamin <bfrable at ucsd.edu>; nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Reading fadded/scratched off ink?

Sometimes photography using an infrared filter is very successful.

Cathy

Sent from my iPhone
Catharine Hawks

On Jun 7, 2016, at 1:45 PM, Rachel Hawkins <rhawkins at fas.harvard.edu<mailto:rhawkins at fas.harvard.edu>> wrote:
Where I've worked with images of specimen labels, I've used Photoshop (or similar program) to play with contrast and color channels, and that was somewhat helpful in picking out faded characters.

On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 1:23 PM, Frable, Benjamin <bfrable at ucsd.edu<mailto:bfrable at ucsd.edu>> wrote:
Hi all,

I am processing some older samples and am encountering a lot with faded pen ink or old type-written with the characters falling off the label. I can see that there is still evidence of the other characters, but cannot make some of them out. Does anyone have any recommendations for this such as a using a blacklight or some other sort of light/method to read the ink?

Please let me know!

Ben Frable

><;';> ~ ><;';> ~ ><;';> ~ ><;';> ~ ><;';> ~ ><;';>

Ben Frable
Collection Manager of Marine Vertebrates
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
University of California, San Diego 0208
La Jolla, CA 92093-0208
USA

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Rachel L. Hawkins

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