Technology Tuesday - IPhoto - It's So Easy!

First of all,  this "blog" entry is heavy on images today.  So if you are on dial up you may have trouble with delayed loading.  So you've been warned.

I've always been a windows user, UNTIL about a year and a half ago my son introduced me to the world of MAC.  I love my MAC.  There was a bit of a learning curve, won't deny it.  And I must say I'm still learning.  The hardest thing for me was not having that photo editing software to work with.  I'm a creature of habit, once I find something that works for me, I don't change it. Ever.  Well toss that out the window.  Being on this Mac I had to change my editing software.  No choice. 

So I sat down one day  and went thru the video's at UTube until I found some on using iPhoto.  Wow.  If you get someone who really knows their stuff you can conquer about anything.  So let me show you how I learned to work with my images in iPhoto!

First thing you have to do is figure out where you have the images you want to work on and then where you want them to go when you are done with them.  Once you have that you've got it made.  Now comes the fun part.  So here we go!  The captions UNDER each photo will explain the process for that screen....  READY?

 Above -  The screen that starts it all.  Ignore the "Recent". Look at the pull down window.  See where it says, IMPORT TO LIBRARY?  Yeah that one.  Click on it.  When you do it opens .....

 Yep, it opens this window above.  I have a windows photo storage thing going on here so I follow the path to where the photo's are stored.  In this case I had previously removed some images from flash drive #3 and stored them as you  see above.  So I followed the path  you see above and clicked on that folder.  It will immediately grab those photos (yes that entire file folder) and import them into iPhoto.

Once your download is complete you will see your photo's displayed as you see above.  Up in the right corner it will even tell you how many photo's you have in that download.  Next you need to choose the image that you want to edit.   You need to choose the photo that you need to edit.  When you click on the photo, it will put a yellow "frame" around it. 

After you see the yellow frame, look down into the bottom right hand corner of your iPhoto screen.  You want to find the image you see above.  Pretty straight forward eh?  You want to click on EDIT.

 Once you click on EDIT,  the the window above will appear.  Not rocket science at all.  It does exactly what it says it will do.  The primary ones I use are straighten and crop.  It should offer a bit of comfort knowing that you can always UNDO or REVERT TO ORIGINAL. 

As you can see in my image above the headstone photo is a bit off kilter.  So I've chosen "straighten".  The Slider bar and grid on the screen make it easy to straighten about any image you have need to.  Not complicated, simple and functional.  Just what the technology challenged need! 

 Once you have finished straightening you click on Crop and the window you see on the right opens.  It gives you all sorts of choices.  You can start at the top of the list and work your way down.  As you choose you can see right on your screen what it will be like on your image.  How can you miss it when its showing you as you do it?  When you get it done the way you like, you simply click DONE.  That's it.  You edited your photo and had no strokes or heart attacks.  No you are ready to move the images you've edited into a folder.  Once again you'll have to decide where to put the photo's. 

 Next step is back to the window again.  File>EXPORT.... yep you are going to send the images to a new home.  No stress, No worry!  Its really quite simple.  Click on Export and you'll get another window....

When you get this window you've really been busy.  So you choose the kind of picture - I chose TIFF, but Jpg and others are in there as well.  I always mark HIGH QUALITY, and I include Title & Keywords and Location information. I also tell it to USE FILENAME......

Finally It will say SAVE AS....  and you name the image you want to send and where it is going.  Be careful here, because once you fill these in and click OK.... the images will be moved INSTANTLY. 

SEE, I told you it wasn't that big a deal.  And once you do it a couple of times it makes things so easy!   Hope this helps.  I'm not the biggest techie in the world but when I find something and it works I like to share it.  I know that not everyone likes or uses iPhoto,  but if you've thought about it, now might be a good time to give it a try!  

Happy Researching!
  Karen

14, 15, 16, 17......... 20... What?

Yesterday (Sunday) Mr. Brown Eyes and I decided to take a Sunday drive over to photograph some headstones. The headstones are located in Oakwood Cemetery, Lenawee County, Michigan which is about 1.5 hours from our house. With all the family we have staying with us right now, a little drive like this is just what we needed for some time for the two of us.

I had the section & plot numbers and had a pretty good idea of how the cemetery was laid out.

The first headstone(s) we were in search of was that of Frank Britt and his wife Margaret. According to what the cemetery had sent me Frank and Margaret were in section 32. We came in one of the side/back gates and immediately came across section 32. No problem at all. The section was rather small, so we decided to drive around the section to see if we could locate the stone(s)from the drive. As we came full circle, I said guess I'll have to get out and walk it, see if the stone is up in the middle or maybe flat. I took about five steps in and there behind a large bouquet of flowers was the stone for Frank & Margaret. All you could see was the B and then the T at the end. But it was found!

The other stone we were in search of was Howard Fisher. Howard died in 1905, was married three times and I was curious to see which of any of the three wives were buried with him. The cemetery showed Howard as being buried in Section 19. No problem. So we started to drive... 31, 30...27...25...23...Okay try the other way....14, 15, 16, 17.....20... WHAT? What happened to 18, 19..? Maybe we missed it. Drove around yet again. Still no 18, 19... Okay. After several attempts I decided I was NOT going home without this headstone photo.

How was going to search for a headstone in section 19 without finding section 19? Office is closed... hmmm.. I got out the iPad and checkeds my Legacy file, yep, I had written it down correctly. Now what was I supposed to do? Enter technology & buddies.

I called my good friend and best genealogy buddy, Diane. Did she have a map of the Oakwood cemetery by chance? I knew she had been there several times. Sure enough she did. She was able to not only give us directions to section 19, but she texted over the map to make sure! I love technology!

Because of her help we were able to figure out that there was NO signage for those two sections they just sort of blend into the others in that area... and we found Howard Fisher, buried alone, no sign of any of the three wives. A flat stone several rows in. SUCCESS!

So the moral of the story is never leave home without the techie toys... you just never know when you can put them to good use... even the texting!

Thank you Diane!

I'm Female So I Can Change My Mind RIght?

When I started working on my family history research over 20 years ago,  technology was not what it was today.  DVD's and flash/thumb drives were unheard of, let alone all these digital images being posted all over the web.  We've come along way!

At the outset of this journey, I made decision about how I wanted things set up.  My poor husband, Mr. Brown Eye's thought we'd made these decisions about how things were set up and they were set in gold...  or so he thought.

As I continue down this road, as technology changes, I keep rethinking the way I do things.  In several of my posts I discussed my research notebooks.  Bound notebooks with maps and lists in them for my research trips.  I'm now working on trying to "construct" one on my iPad.  Only time will tell. 

But other things have changed as well.  I'm rethinking the way I am linking & naming images, the way I enter things in different fields, and how I record my notes and research paths.  Mr. Brown Eyes is probably more involved in my research than most spouses so it does involve him.  The poor man hates change and I seem to thrive on it.  But I think that change is a good thing, and re-evaluating how my data base serves me, well that's a good thing too! 

After all, I am female so I can change my mind if I want right?