Frustrating Start
Saturday, April 10, 2021
So I kept my promise and started on cleaning and rescanning the photos, chapter by chapter. I got off to a pretty rough start. I almost ended up with the same issue of dust. I cleaned a slide but then realized that the glass inside the scanner had dust. I found the proper tool and gently cleaned it before proceeding. I started with just five slides that are contenders for the cover page. I thought I had scanned them but when I hooked up the device to my laptop, it did not recognize any new images.
Sigh.
I rescanned the five images and made sure that the numbers increased from 1707 to 1712. They did. I then tried to import but the laptop did not separate the 5 images as new images scanned. It simply listed 1712 images scanned. The “new” (rescanned) images were mixed up among the other 1707! I guess they were seen as “copies” by the computer. But I used to have an option to at least see the recently scanned items.
Double sigh. Is 11:04AM too early for a small glass of wine?
So I dragged myself down two flights of stairs in search of an new/unused SD card. I knew it didn’t have as much space on it but my plan was just to use it to store the pertinent cleaned, rescanned images, about 100 or so in all.
Third time’s a charm? Sort of.
Turns out the SD card I have is 16…M. Not 32GB. I succeeded in only scanning a whopping 2 slides. So I ended up doing what I had not really wanted to do: deleting all of the images on the original SD card. In a way, it’s fine. All of those scans have dust and imperfections on them. This way, all that is on the SD card moving forward will be the (hopefully) cleaner images. I will have to catalog them in the pertinent folders and label them accordingly. But since I am reconsidering the sequence of some of the images, as long as they are in the right chapter, I should be good.
My issue is to make sure that I do save all of the images (dust and all) on a disc or another SD card, in case my modest ASUS laptop implodes or something — which seems to be a real possibility considering the number of times that the machine has frozen, requiring hard shutdowns. But you know what? I have two laptops, which is more than a lot of other people can say. One for work and one for (personal/creative) work. Life is pretty good.
Okay, so I scanned three chapters worth of slides. They look like they are a bit crisper/less blemished but I have to admit that my laptop screen is still not super clean, even after using the computer wipees. I guess I need to do that again. Again, ain’t no Apples in here…well, there are a couple of ipods and Og did inherit my dad’s old ipad. But no laptop with super shiny/glossy/sparkly screens. It is what it is.
Lenny’s slides will have imperfections that will show in the printed text. Unless I can get a publisher on board, there will be imperfections. And that might have to be okay. The people who love and care about Lenny will treasure the final product regardless and that should be enough for me..but I have my genetically passed down high standards.
But all of this just reminds me that I need to put Lenny and Jan Stacy’s work out there to see if someone at a publishing company takes a bite. They both deserve at least that much. So tomorrow, I will put a bookmark in my rescanning and typing and layout design endeavors and return to my presentation slides. I would like to see if I can get them respectable enough to convert to a PDF and send out to a couple of publishers. Just have to keep moving forward on both fronts: self-publishing & professional publishing. I can walk and chew (sugarless) gum at the same time.
