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US, New York—Birth Indexes, 1881–1942 Documents too dark

MarjorieDowney
MarjorieDowney ✭
April 18, 2022 edited August 16, 2024 in Get Involved/Indexing

Most of the batches I check out for this group is very dark and very hard, to almost impossible, to read. I have been 'returning' them as I am not sure what to do with them. Do I mark them as Yes, and then attempt to index the 5 out of 60 records, or what?

Thank you in advance for your help.

Tagged:
  • Indexing
  • Birth record
0

Answers

  • samshicat
    samshicat ✭✭✭
    April 18, 2022 edited April 18, 2022

    Click on the two-horizontal-lines-with-dots icon on the left of your screen. Click on the sun icon. When you see the BRIGHTNESS/CONTRAST menu, move BRIGHTNESS all the way to the right; for CONTRAST, move it to the right as well. Play with both until you get the preferred result then click on APPLY.

    Screen Shot 2022-04-17 at 4.36.08 PM.png

    This is what you'll get. Try making the image larger by pressing the + icon--sometimes that helps.

    Screen Shot 2022-04-17 at 4.36.31 PM.png

    Unfortunately other NY projects seems to have the same visual problem. The project I'm working on is bright in the middle but too dark on the corners to make anything readable.

    1
  • MarjorieDowney
    MarjorieDowney ✭
    April 18, 2022

    Thank you! I am from New York, so I am enjoying reading all the cities. :D

    0
  • PATRICIABAUMANN4
    PATRICIABAUMANN4 ✭
    April 19, 2022

    I am having the same issue with some of the NY birth index records, and playing with the brightness/contrast does not seem to help at all. Neither does enlarging the image. It looks as if the ink just blurred right into the paper. So..... same question: do I send the record back, or mark yes with the faint hope of making out a few words here and there?

    0
  • Thiemychree
    Thiemychree mod
    April 19, 2022

    @PATRICIABAUMANN4

    It is often the case that documents need their brightness and contrast adjusted constantly all over the page, in other words, no one-size fits all. Look at each part of the page and do the best you can to read and understand what it written. However, there are some documents where it is impossible to decipher what is written due to a badly exposed or focussed picture. These should be returned, in the hope that they can either be subjected to more sophisticated equipment than we have available on our PCs or tablets, or at some point, re-photographed.

    Kind regards,

    Barry

    0
  • John Empoliti
    John Empoliti ✭✭✭✭✭
    April 21, 2022

    @PATRICIABAUMANN4 If you have a problem batch again, please post the Batch Code (MXXX-XXX) at the end of the batch name.

    0
  • Jessica Van Waes
    Jessica Van Waes ✭
    April 24, 2022 edited April 24, 2022

    @PATRICIABAUMANN4

    I am also working these batches and I’m finding it helpful to look at this for NY Cities & towns (link below to .gov pdf)

    https://www.tax.ny.gov/pdf/publications/orpts/swis_alphaorder.pdf

    Also if you flip between images of the record before, you can better see the bottom of pages. This help see where the other page left off and since it’s in alphabetical order, its a start when the top of the pages are the worst.

    0
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