This is an excellent post David and highlights a positive use of AI. The attention to detail is incredible and certainly makes me want to relook at the postcards in my own collection again
Thank you, Paul. To boil it down to three critical things. 1) scan it with a good quality bed scanner so you can enlarge it to crazy levels. 2) Use A.I. in an interrogative fashion as Denyse Allen recommends 3) Have working knowledge of the area from reading old newspapers. There is no magic button for A.I. (yet).
It’s definitely a process to go through and something to think about - I did some small analysis of an image for one of my blogs a while ago - not using AI but looking at the extra information hidden in the picture
My greatest triumph on dating photos is in this article. Was able to pin it to the very day with a small degree of uncertainty. Used clues from vegetation, clothing, estimated ages and an American flag. A seriation graph often used by archaeologists is useful in this endeavor.
Excellent case study on using AI. Makes me want to grab every postcard image I can find from my family's past home towns and see what new things I can learn. So glad you wrote all this up!
This is an excellent post David and highlights a positive use of AI. The attention to detail is incredible and certainly makes me want to relook at the postcards in my own collection again
Thank you, Paul. To boil it down to three critical things. 1) scan it with a good quality bed scanner so you can enlarge it to crazy levels. 2) Use A.I. in an interrogative fashion as Denyse Allen recommends 3) Have working knowledge of the area from reading old newspapers. There is no magic button for A.I. (yet).
It’s definitely a process to go through and something to think about - I did some small analysis of an image for one of my blogs a while ago - not using AI but looking at the extra information hidden in the picture
Excellent work!
really fascinating use of AI for research help. I learned a lot!!
A very interesting read Dave, makes me want to look at some of the old postcards I have and try to date them.
My greatest triumph on dating photos is in this article. Was able to pin it to the very day with a small degree of uncertainty. Used clues from vegetation, clothing, estimated ages and an American flag. A seriation graph often used by archaeologists is useful in this endeavor.
https://serengenity.substack.com/p/grandma-uncle-frank-and-the-red-baron
Excellent case study on using AI. Makes me want to grab every postcard image I can find from my family's past home towns and see what new things I can learn. So glad you wrote all this up!
This was my 2nd foray into photo identification. For a more successful one see: https://serengenity.substack.com/p/grandma-uncle-frank-and-the-red-baron