tips for newbies?

I have found some cool photos of my mom's visit to the UK (all over the place) circa 1984 - some are pretty neat, although I am having considerable difficulty in identifying the locations of many. Also it was a poor quality camera and the prints were stored in a cheap photo book (ie not acid-free) so they are discolored quite badly. I apologize in advance if I chose the wrong forum for these questions, I tried to search for similar questions and none came up, and I debated if I should post in "picture chat" or here.

I am scanning them and trying to identify - was wondering first of all if any of you might suggest resolutions or file size that you prefer on this site; large enough to see or keep as a background for your desktop, say, but not so large that they are slow to load for viewers or take up more than their fair share of space.  Thoughts?

Is there any way or a location in the forums to ask people if they recognize a landmark? Naturally the mystery photos are the ones I find most intriguing and I really want to know where they are...

I have had fair luck fixing a lot of the flares and reddish cast after scanning the photos, but some are stubborn.  I have been using a program called "Photoscape", it's a free download that seemed to have good reviews.  What's your recommendation for fixing old photos?  Any better programs that are easy to use and available free?

That's probably enough for now - thanks for any help or ideas!

HI Cerridwenn

try the free download Fastone Image Viewer,you can fix a lot things

including resizing

Kind Regards

Mike

Hi Cerridwenn

I gotta agree with Mike. Fastone is very capable piece of free software and is very easy to use. Well worth a try. Good luck 

Thanks for the suggestions - I'll look up Fastone today and try it out.  Sue, good idea on the link - that is exactly the sort of thing that I wasn't sure if an external link would work or not. although the LAST thing I need is another website to belong to... I am a total internet addict, it is starting to annoy my husband as he is usually the technology junkie, but I never used to enjoy it when it was all text-based. He liked things better when no one else knew how to use it.

Any thoughts on what is a good file size or resolution for this site?

Jason, the very first photos in the album were a beautiful little church or chapel, inside and outside, and this is what my mom wrote on the back: "Chere, England. Church built before 900 A.D."  Chere has an accent on the ending e, but I don't know how to add that here. Anyway I tried to Google it and could not find a town in England or Scotland by that name - I suspect it is close to the border as the pictures that follow are of Scotland.  She could have gotten it wrong but Mom is pretty meticulous. I would guess it is a very small town and not listed on most maps maybe, since it didn't show up even on Google earth.

I have had a chance to work on some of my mystery photos - the first two are up on Flickr - I believe that site is accessible by the rest of the world as well. Anyway they are the outside and inside views of the little church I have mentioned in messages above. 

The notes written on the back of the shot inside the church specifies that it is now affiliated with the Church of England, but she did not have (or perhaps none was provided at the time of visit) any other historical information.  As a good, nosy archaeologist I naturally want to know more and especially the details from before it was Church of England.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cerridwenns_cat/

If I can come up with the necessary details, I will happily post the photos on POE of course! They needed quite a lot of work to fix up the discoloration and washout, and i'm sure it could still be better.

Well I put my Sherlock Holmes hat on and got my pipe and had a think about this and I wondered if just maybe this was Shere in Surrey ......... and bingo it is the St James Church in Shere Surrey!!

Picture by adam swaine