Palmer's World

I’ve had a phone for many years now, and have never put into a washing machine, until today!

I’m not entirely sure how I went from taking all my items out of my one pocket of jeans, but failed to take out my phone from the other pocket, and then proceeded to throw it into the wash!

To my horror, I realized that the phone was missing and the only logical place it could be was IN the machine!  I went to check the machine and it was locked because of spin cycle.  I did all I could, but I could not figure out how to override the lock so I just let the cycle complete.

Sure enough, I found my phone in the machine.  Nooooo.  I think I came out pretty lucky though.  The screen was still functional when I fished it out of the wet pants pocket.  I turned the phone off, and read all the things I should do with it (and somehow rice was not a tip that some folks adhered to?).

I left it in Ezra’s bedroom with the fan pointed on it for most of the day and I can say that the next morning the thing seems to be working fine!  I really lucked out.  I’m not sure if it’s the waterproofing on these new phones, or God was looking out for me?

My cousin Troy contacted me, asking some questions about scanning his mother’s photo albums.  It got me thinking about my quest of scanning photos and I realize that I have a lot of knowledge and opinions on the subject, so I decided to write them down here.

Quality vs. Quantity

I remember when Google Photo Scan came out.  It was easy to use, and I had a scan of my childhood memories?  Sign me up!  I remember  borrowing all my parents photo albums and getting to work.  I remember scanning most of them and I had a good collection of my childhood photos.

Years later, I was staring at a photo that my Uncle Gary had scanned and I was thinking “Wow, this photo is incredible quality, compared to the one I have.  What’s the difference?”

I believe this photo was scanned using the Google Photo Scan app.  Not bad.

This was scanned using a V600 scanner.  While I am no expert on colour accuracy, since I don’t have the original in front of me as I type, you can see that the one taken with a scanner is better quality.  If you take a look at the bottom right corner of the first photo, you can see white sprinkles.  You also see evidence of these sprinkles in the middle of the photo..all around the first photo really!  It’s just artifacts that Google Photo Scan leaves.  Whereas, the V600, does not.

Also, the megapixels (which can be adjusted), is much higher on the second photo (21MP) vs. The google photo scan photo (9.2MP).  You cannot adjust this on Google Photo Scan, whereas you can control those types of things on the scanner.

If your goal is to get through things fast, and you don’t mind the tradeoff in quality, then maybe Google Photoscan is a viable option.  Maybe it’s even changed over the years and it’s a better product.  It’s worth trying out to see if it’s suits your needs if you prefer quantity over quality.

But if quality is your goal, and long term preservation where you never have to scan these photos again…a proper scanner is probably your best bet.

Negatives vs.photo prints

If possible, scan the film negative instead of the printed photo.  I was lucky that my mother taught me to keep all my negatives.  My project benefited from scanning the negatives as the quality was even better than a great scan of a printed photograph!  I wish I knew that from the beginning.  I went from scanning prints from a photo album using Google PhotoScan, to scanning prints using a proper scanner, and then my uncle showed me the magic of scanning film negatives so I scanned film negatives as well!  I’m still going through those film negative scans to try and organize things.

Scanner software

My cousin was asking me about a photo auto-crop service that is powered by AI that he found on the internet.  You scan a page of an album, take the scan, upload it to a website and bam.  They crop the photos, and spit out individual photos for you.

I’m sure it works, fine, but if you have some good scanner software, it already does that for you.

When I bought the V600 flatbed scanner, it came with Silverfast which seems to be a very powerful scanning software in the scanning community.  I’m still trying to figure out different options I can use.

It does what Troy was asking about…I scan an entire page of an album, decide the DPI/quality of the scan I want, it auto-crops and spits out individual photos (JPG, or TIFF, or whatever format you choose), and even does colour correction that you can preview beforehand.  Ever have those old photos that have an orange tinge to them?  You can fix those with this software and it does it right away while scanning the photos.

Not a bad scan from the Google Photo scanner, right?  It’s pretty good!  But there’s an orange tint to it, which can probably be removed by some colour correcting software.  Also, if you start zooming in, you will see the quality isn’t the best.

This photo was scanned using a Kodak film negative scanner.  Now that I think about it, I didn’t even use scanner software to remove the orange tint…it just happened because I was scanning the film negatives.  That being said, the difference is the same if I had an orange tinted print scan and used scanner software to remove the orange tint.

I notice in the film scan that there are artifacts like scratches and dust on it.  That’s one thing I haven’t cared about touching up at this point in my project.  I figure that’s an entirely new set of skills to work on when I’m retired!

Again, it really comes down to what you want out of your project.  Do you want to keep the orange tint to evoke the memories of looking through an old photos album?  Or are you looking for colour accuracy of the moment?

Speaking about colour accuracy, I remember borrowing Nanny’s photo albums and going to Wal-Mart to use their scanning booths.  They had a colour correcting feature and I was toying around with it, thinking it was great.  When I got back home, Nanny said “We look like we have been down in Jamaica for an entire year!  Look at our skin!”  I guess I went overboard with that!  After that moment, I realized I should try and go for colour accuracy at all times, and I’m still not an expert on that stuff.

Back to the Silverfast scanner software…it was a steep learning curve and a lot of trial and error, but I feel that I’ve figured out what I like to do with it, and I think it makes my workflow easier.  Other scanner softwares are probably comparable.  Even those AI tools to auto-crop images might be useful if you have dozens of photos to go through and crop.  But scanner software does a lot of that for you (and more!).

Conclusions

It’s Sunday morning, I’m starting to get hungry, and I’m realizing the only person who will read this is Troy and this blog post is probably overkill for his question.  I’ll stop here for now, but I’m sure I’ll come back and add things when I think of them.

But if I had to look back on my entire photo scanning journey, I think I would have liked to have started with a dedicated scanning machine from the beginning, as I have spent a lot of time in my life just re-scanning the same photos using different methods (example: Google Photo Scan vs. V600 scanner).  My goals were: 1) Quality over quantity 2) colour accuracy 3) sharing these memories with others.  If my goals were quantity over quality, maybe I would have stuck with Google Photoscan, because it’s not a HORRIBLE application.  It does the job, and it does it much quicker than scanning on a traditional machine.

Last night we had quite the treat in the house.  Sierra made us supper, all by herself.

She made some tacos.  We were very impressed.  I especially enjoyed how she thought that she could put a cucumber through a garlic press and it would come out in little strings.

They did not.

It came out as a mush type concoction.  She added some soya sauce and said it was kind of like wasabi so use it sparingly.  I proceeded to try and get a little bit and the entire thing fell into my taco!

All in all, I would consider the entire supper a big success.  Bravo Sierra!  We even let her in on the secret that whoever prepares supper gets to relax for a few minutes while everyone else cleans up afterwards.

Us: “So, what did you think of your experience making supper?”

Sierra: “It was hard!”

Sierra holding up the sign with her foot

I think Ezra wanting to be a driver for a driverless car is quite interesting!

I’m not entirely sure who they were trying to imitate, but they seemed excited by it!

Special thanks to Maman for dying their hair and the to the kids dying Maman’s hair!

A few neighbours typically get together to walk the kids to school on the first day.

Waiting to go in

I quite enjoy the annual ‘kids start school’ event in the playground.  I will miss it when the kids stop going to this elementary school.

When I got back home, Sierra convinced Maman to watch the Descendents: Wicked Wonderland movie.  I then realized it was the last night of summer before we would have to have ‘normal’ bedtimes again, so I suggested we made it a full movie night with chips and pop.

It has been a great summer, even though Vero and I didn’t have the full summer off.  It will be hard to go back to the ‘routine’!

What a great photo of Bruce!

All good things come to pass, and unfortunately, the news came that Bruce Losier had passed away.

Bruce and Louise welcomed me (and others) into their home like they were members of the family and it really hurts to see him gone.

Here is a note I wrote for Bruce:

We made 11 jars of pickles this year and gave one to Mia who came and helped out.  Quite a few of them didn’t pop, even though we wiped down the jar tops after pouring in the brine.  Not sure what went wrong there.

Vero and the kids got a sweet deal and got a whole lot of cucumbers for the task.  Unsure of how many baskets there were, as it was in a large cardboard box.

It was a nice hot day on Tuesday so we set up a lemonade stand.  It was open for 3 hours and the kids said they got around 40 dollars.  Not bad!  They said they made sixty the year before, but I remember Ted Sullivan sending 20 dollars their way, so they made about the same.  I tried to explain to them that they owed us money for the frozen lemonade they used but they seemed pretty upset by it.  I ended up charging them $2.25 for one can and said that next year they will need to pay for all three cans that they used.

Soccer season ended this Tuesday.  Vero volunteered as a coach/assistant coach for the second year in a row.  It’s fun seeing her out there wrangling young kids together to try and achieve a goal!  This year she was the coach for Ezra’s team and assistant coach for Sierra’s team.  It’s weird to think that soon enough, the kids will be too old to join the Vars soccer league.

A few years ago, I got Vero a gift to go to a ‘tea on the lawn’ event and she brought Sierra.  Every year since then, Sierra asks to return so it’s become a bit of a tradition.  Ezra went one year, as well, but declined this year.

Considering he had a gift card from Poppa and Grandma for his birthday, we decided to head to the Lego store while the girls went to tea on the lawn.  Look at that massive lego figure in the photo!  Ezra asked if he could buy that with his $50 gift card.  “Maybe it was $50,000!” I replied.

We perused a few things in the store, but he honed in on a fun fry truck and said “Oh, this is what I probably want.”  We continued on through the store and I pointed out a few other sets, but he kept saying “No, it’s not as a good as the fry truck.”  We then put the last fry truck in the store into our hands and walked around the store looking for other options, but nothing could beat this awesome french fry truck!  Success!

Ezra and I went to the food court and he showed me this neat trick of opening the ketchup pack horizontally and you could use it to dip your fries in.  Genius!

Logic Pro Stem Splitter, I love you!

This morning, while waking up, I was thinking about our wedding anniversary and a flash of brilliance came over me.  I could use Logic Pro’s artificial intelligence stem splitter to save some audio from my wedding!

Background

At our wedding, there were a bunch of people playing songs and we plugged into a soundboard and PA system.  Unfortunately, the beginning of the set never had my mic recorded properly, so it was really unusable as a capture of the moment.

We did have some video of the moment, but the audio on one video was distorted, and the other video was decent, but not soundboard quality.

For years, I was thinking of ways to salvage it, but my tests didn’t work.

Until now!

Now

I have been using the Stem Splitter for a year now to help out some of my live concert recordings and it works quite well!  I tried it on the audio from the wedding and BAM!  It worked!  I managed to boost my vocals, reduce Vero’s vocals, and add some reverb to the guitar.  I think it turned out pretty darn good!

I somehow forgot to get some photos of Ben and Krista’s family when they were visiting.  I blame the lack of daylight after 9PM!

It was a fun night filled with a lot of s’mores, some popcorn over the fire, a verbal introduction to Magic Commander, the projector set up at a decent hour, and the sounds of kids screaming at each other while they chased each other around the yard.

A great summer night!  I even got to play a couple of rounds of ‘Let’s get to know you better’ from Once We Were Spacemen.  I found out that Ethan really doesn’t like the veiny parts of an orange and Krista can play the clarinet and the alto and tenor saxophones.  So interesting!

Ezra was NOT impressed that he had to go to bed at 11:30pm while the others got to stay up and play.  I assured him that everyone else was going to bed soon enough.

“I have SO much to write about when the teacher asks me what I did this summer!” – Sierra, walking home from Cirque du Soleil in Montreal.

This encapsulates exactly what we’re in this for.  We want life to be full of memories for our kids to look back on with a smile.

I have always wanted to stop near this sign when entering Quebec.

Vero is the queen of booking Airbnb’s.  When she found a Friends themed apartment in Vieux-Montreal, we knew it was an instant acquisition.  It was the highlight of my trip.

It even came with a chick and a duck!

For all the years I have been to Montreal, I cannot recall ever going near the waterfront.  It felt like a different city.

A ride up in La Grande Roue

A photo for my cousins.

From the top of La Grande Roue, Ezra spied some bumper cars below.  We tried them out and it was great fun!  My bumper car wasn’t working all too well at the beginning and it turned out that the batteries needed changing, so we got some extra bumping time because of that!

At the end of our trip, Ezra said that this was his favourite thing he did in Montreal.  It was also on Sierra’s list.  This is an important point to remember for the future.  Sometimes the fun things are things that can exist in any city in the world.

Night view

The kids thought this looked like PacMan

Having a chat with Gladys before bedtime

Showing the kids an episode of Friends, as they have never seen it before.  Various objects in the apartment had little papers next to them explaining what they were, and what episodes they were from.

Early Wednesday morning.

Ezra and I walked around to find some food for breakfast.  The kids mentioned that we were going to get some crepes so we picked up a few cinnamon buns from Olive + Gourmande.  Ezra and I waited 20+ minutes to get them.  Popular spot!  

I thought we were going to get crepes fairly soon after arriving with the buns, so I suggested we just split one of them.  This turned out to be a mistake as we didn’t leave until closer to 11am and then I was getting too hangry to be a nice guy.  Mental note: always eat, especially on a trip!

We headed to an aerial park, but found out that there were no spots until the afternoon (because of summer camps?).  We ended up at SOS Labyrinthe which was a super fun experience going through a labyrinth trying to find four treasures.  I thought we would be done in 20 minutes but I was surprised when we came out of there 1.5 hours later!  I was also surprised to see that they change the labyrinth up every week, which is cool.

I had left my phone at home because they said not to bring it to the aerial park.  No pictures from SOS Labyrinthe exist, but we will always have fond memories of Sierra telling us “I told you so” when she found the right path through the labyrinth.  I will also remember a whole lot of dead ends, and the funny circus type mirrors to look into.

We took this photo a day later while walking to Cirque du Soleil because I wanted at least one photo of the place.

After SOS Labyrinthe, my feet were sore so we walked back 15 minutes to the apartment.  I loved being that close, but it was a bit too much to expect the kids to walk back and forth multiple times a day. 

We then headed back to the old Port to check out the aerial park which was part of a pirate ship!  It was very cool.  I felt like I was on the set of Pirates of the Caribbean with kids flying overhead and underneath me.

The four of us all started out together on the ‘green’ path.  You start on green, then can advance to higher levels if you wish.  Ezra’s shoulder was hurting from a fall at Shannon’s cottage a few days earlier, and he was also having a hard time reaching some of the wires so after going through the green path, he didn’t want to take part in the activity any longer.  It allowed me time to hang out with him, eat some popcorn and take some videos of Sierra and Vero going through other obstacles.  Let’s not kid ourselves, I’m not the most adventurous person, so I didn’t really mind hanging out with Ezra on the ground.  However, I wish I would have known this would happen before spending a lot of money for us to hang out on the ground!  We could have just paid $5 if we knew we were hanging out on the ground from the beginning.  Ah well.

After the aerial park, the kids wanted a treat.  Ezra bought some candy called Toxic Waste which was supposedly very sour.  It was.  Vero’s reaction is captured here on video.

We had some supper at a nice patio in the main tourist area of Vieux-Montreal (Comptoir 400)

With an hour before closing time, we went to the Musée des illusions which was a ton of fun!

I saw this on the sidewalk near our apartment.  I thought it was thought provoking.

On Thursday, we took a trip on the metro as the kids were excited to try it out.  It is quite the marvelous way to travel across a city.  We ended up at the biodome!

The kids were extremely excited to see a capybara

I thought these jellyfish were extremely cool.

A quick lunch before heading over to the planetarium.  Passport holders, don’t forget you get 15% off for lunch!  We ended up buying a yearly passport because it was cheaper to buy a family passport than individual tickets for the biodome, planetarium and insectarium.  Plus, we can go back sometime this year!

The planetarium had some really cool movies about black holes and the cosmos. The screen envelops the entire room and I felt like I was in space.

Check out this story about a meterorite from Penouille!

The city was celebrating 50 years since Olympics 1976

It’s incredible to see these ants at work at the insectarium.

The butterfly garden was incredible.  I had never seen so many butterflies.

After an afternoon visiting the biodome, planetarium and insectarium, it was time to dress up and go out for a nice supper at some Mediterrean restaurant that we walked by.  I quite enjoyed the chicken. The kids found that the lemonade was too sour to drink!

I enjoy the fact that when we asked Ezra to dress up nice for supper, he brought his Angine de Poitrine shirt along with some ‘Live Fast, Pickle Hard’ socks!  I know my bud Clive would appreciate that.

The kids pointed out this hilarious sign.

Going to see Echo, a Cirque du Soleil production.

The show was quite incredible.  I always get a bit overwhelmed seeing a Cirque du Soleil experience.  I just can’t get over how magical it feels.  But it’s just some humans pulling off some incredible super-human feats.  The family really enjoyed the circus.  It’s important to point out that Ezra said that if he had to choose between the ‘infinite cube’ toy he got after the show, or the show itself, we can get him the toy in the future.  Duly noted!

The walk back after the show.  Final night in Montreal!

I went to pick up an assortment of baked goods for breakfast.  Ezra really wanted a breakfast sandwich, but I found a hotdog wrapped in some dough and he said that was even better!

The Friends-themed apartment on Rue de la Moyne 

One last shot before we packed up and left the apartment

Before leaving the city, we checked out a Quick Room which was an hour long game show type experience for the entire family to enjoy!  It was quite fun and I enjoyed the fact that you had access to ‘jokers’, which were limited superpowers like blocking someone from answering a question, or stealing someone’s points.  Ezra won the first round, Sierra won the second round and she was also the gold medal winner.  Ezra came in second and I came in dead last.

After the Quiz Room experience, we knew we had to try some smoked meat from Reuben’s before leaving town.  I had never been in the original Reuben’s which is a diner down in a basement.  I quite enjoyed the experience compared to the other Reuben’s down the street.  The kids said that the lemonade was life changing.

The final photo is of Ezra trying on his night vision goggles he bought at Indigo while Maman went shopping at Simon’s.  We hit the road at rush hour and were back home in 2.5 hours.  It was an incredible trip.  I personally felt that we were living in an entirely different city that I am used to.  I have spent time in Montreal going to concerts, or visiting Philipp in the Plateau and Mont Royal.  But I haven’t spent a whole lot of time in Vieux-Montreal.  I really enjoyed just having a little corner of the city to spend time in.  A day into the trip, I kind of had a sense of where we were in the neighbourhood and how to navigate to the waterfront and back.

I also really enjoyed the vibe of the port area.  I wish Ottawa had something like that going on.  Maybe that’s what they are attempting to do over in Hull near the water.

I also enjoyed how it gave us a taste of what to expect if we wanted to go on longer trips with the kids, and have them walk around a lot.  I can say that the next time, we might want to have them walk a bit more to get their leg muscles ready before the trip, as they said their legs were hurting the first couple of days.  Mine were too!

The weather was great, the activities were fun, and everyone emerged happy from the experience.