Global Public Articles

When you scan a photo, you are preserving a memory that can have many possibilities. Many people scan a photo into their computer to upload it to webpages, and many people also scan a photo to edit it and improve it so that they can print the photo out and frame it. There are many reasons that scanning a photo is a great idea, and there are times when a photo scan would do a photo a lot of good. Here are the top five benefits of a photo scan.

5. A photo scan provides a workable foundation for restorers to work on photos that need retouching without having to alter the original photo. A photo scan can result in a photo that is not sun damaged, time worn, or mis handled.

4. A photo scan can give an owner brand new copies of very old photos for family historys sake. There are so many things that people do that compromise the condition of photos, and some of those things are completely unnoticed. Fingers that touch pictures transfer a small amount of acid to the photograph, and with time, the photo can be eaten away to a point. Using things like pens, tape, and other adhesives on pictures also unintentionally damages the photographs. A photo scan can deliver corrected duplicates of original photos.

3. A photo scan can create duplicates for members of the family that all want the same picture. Many photo editing programs will have settings that when a photo is about to be printed, the computer operator can choose common picture sizes for the photo to be printed out as. Whether its a 11X14 or a 4X6, you can have pictures for everyone, no matter when the picture was taken.

2. You can take a large original picture and shrink it down to a wallet size photo when you scan the picture. A photo scan of a giant family portrait could easily turn something that has been put in the back of your closet into something that you put in the back of your wallet instead. You dont have to only have one copy of the picture that is an inconvenient size; you can choose the size of your picture during a photo scan.

1. You can improve pictures that have been degraded, damaged, or in overall grave condition back to perfect quality prints that you can once again hang on your wall. For posterity sake and also family historys sake, many people want to preserve their old photos for the family. With a photo scan, there can be many copies of a picture, and that picture can become a picture on a personal website, can be hung up in a hallway, and can also be shared and distributed. A photo scan opens up many possibilities for any picture, no matter how old it is or what condition it is in.

A scan of a photo can correct sunlight induced fading damage. Most people are commonly aware that sunlight will ruin photographs. Even pictures that were never intentionally put in the sun can still show damage, even if the sun hit the picture for a few minutes each day.

Photo scanning can provide a smooth replacement for a sticky, corroded picture. Never use rubber cement to adhere photographs to anything. The acids in rubber cement will ruin the picture quickly, cracking the emulsion and paper backing. Rubber cement contains sulfur, which reacts with the silver that sentences pictures to certain death!

Scrapbooking and photo album hobbies have become very popular ways for people to store and share their photos. It is best to use pictures that have undergone photo scanning for these projects, with the original pictures stored properly. You should not use originals in these albums, but the photo scanning copies work well. Do not use the photo albums that have the self adhesive pages covered by clear plastic film. The glue, again here too, is acidic. Never display your pictures in vinyl sleeves. The sleeves are made out of a certain type of plastic that will cause both color and black and white photos to fade. However, if you find pictures that are dear to you that have fallen victim to any of these damaging mishaps, photo scanning can make it all better, and can even make your pictures better than they originally were.

For more information about a photo scan, please visit our website.

Photo retouching is one of the most sought after photo services today. There are many companies and businesses that are specialists in photo retouching. These professionals can take almost any photograph, regardless of condition, and retouch them to make the pictures look brand new, and in many cases, photo retouching can make a picture look better than the original one.

People look to photo retouching for their precious photos for many reasons. Much of the time the photos that are sent to photo retouching professionals are those that have been damaged in some way, although a few of them have faded and withered simply from the hands of time. Photo retouching can restore pictures that have been torn, bent, scratched, faded, and mishandled back to like new condition. The professionals many times will even be able to add or take things out of the pictures, such as people or props.

The process for online photo retouching is remarkably simple, and more and more people are discovering the benefits of it every day. First of all, the photos that are to be retouched are sent to the professional photo retouching company by email, by uploading them to the company website, or by standard mail. The important thing for people to know about photo retouching is that the original photo is never tampered with, and is always returned to the customer when the order has been fulfilled. Once a company receives the originals, a scan is made of them, and it is the scan that is altered and retouched, not the original photographs.

After a scan has been made of the photos, professionals can do everything short of performing miracles on the scans, with amazing results. With an online photo retouching company, any time that a professional has finished restoring a photo, a proof will be sent to the customer for any suggestions, ideas, or other requests. If the customer is not satisfied with the retouched version, the expert will get back to work on the scan to fulfill the customers requests. The photos may be sent back again for the customers seal of approval. Once the customer does say that the photo is ok, the order is fulfilled, and the originals (if sent via US Mail) are then returned to the happy customer.

Photo retouching can perform many different tricks and procedures to make improvements of photos of all kinds, all sizes, and all ages. Photos can be repaired, duplicated, or changed according to a customers request, and the photo retouching professionals use many tricks to get the photos retouched perfectly right for their customers.

To learn more about photo retouching, please visit our website.

The U.S. Mint has been authorized by the U.S. Congress to produce a variety of United States Commemorative Coins over the years. These coins are produced to commemorate (celebrate and/or honor) people, places, events or institutions and are usually divided into Old (1892-1981) and Modern (1982-present) coins.

There have been many people that have been memorialized on U.S. Commemorative Coins. In recent years, famous people like Benjamin Franklin, Chief Justice John Marshall, Thomas Edison and Leif Erickson have been honored. In 1992, Christopher Columbus was commemorated on a Commemorative Gold Coin ($5) as well as a Silver Dollar and half dollar. Older examples of people commemorated include Queen Isabella of Spain, Daniel Boone and Ulysses S. Grant.

Examples of places that were honored include the White House with the 200th Anniversary Dollar issued in 1992, the West Point Bicentennial Coin (2002) and the Smithsonian 150th Anniversary in 1996 with a Commemorative $5 Gold coin.

The Korean War Memorial Silver Dollar was produced as a Mint Commemorative Coin in 1991 and the Vietnam War Memorial Silver Dollar was produced in 1994 for the 10th Anniversary of the Memorial, but it could be argued that both Memorials honor the men that fought and died in these wars as much if not more than the memorials themselves.

Same is true for the Statue of Liberty that was honored with three Coins in 1986, a $5 Gold Coin, a Silver Dollar coin and half dollar. The Statue of Liberty is a place to be honored, but also it represents the gift that was given to the U.S. by France and has become a symbol of freedom and democracy.

There are many examples of events that have been memorialized on U.S. Commemorative Coins. In 2007, a Silver Commemorative Dollar was issued to remember the Little Rock Central High School, where the desegregation movement began. The Wright brother’s First Flight and the Bicentennial of the Lewis & Clark Expedition were also honored.

The Olympic Games have been honored many times including the most recent Olympics held in the U.S., the 2002 Olympic Winter Games (Salt Lake City, Utah). The Centennial Olympics were honored in 1995 and 1996 with at least 16 different Commemorative Coins. The Olympic Games were produced on U.S. Commemorative Coins in 1992 (France and Spain), 1988 (Seoul, Korea), and 1983 and 1984 to honor the Olympic Games held in Los Angeles.

All four of the following; the Bill of Rights, Civil War Battlefield, World War II and the Constitution Bicentennial were memorialized with commemorative five dollar gold coins and Silver Dollars (all but the Constitution Bicentennial were also issued in half dollar Commemorative coins as well).

And finally, institutions have been memorialized on U.S. Commemorative Coins including the U.S. Marine Corps (230th Anniversary) with a Commemorative Silver Dollar and in 2000, the Library of Congress.

Please visit Commemorative Coins for more information about the history and types of US Coins, such as the Bald Eagle Commemorative Coin.

For the most part when it comes to commemorative coins the United States Congress authorizes commemorative coins that lionize and honor American individuals, places, events, and institutions. Although these coins are legitimate tender, they are not coined for common circulation. Each commemorative coin is produced by the United States Mint in closed quantity and is only accessible for a specific amount of time. As far as I can tell the World Trade Center coins found underneath the Twin Towers have yet to become a part of the Mint coin program, frankly I don’t really understand why! However, these coins are a part of another program; the PCGS also known as the Professional Coin Grading Service. These coins in particular can be worth a lot of money (from a few hundred on up to a few thousand), so under advanced security measures the coins were loaded into Brinks Armored vehicles and sent to Collectors Universe a parent company of the well-known PCGS.

This particular organization is the archetypal company for collectors of coins. Once this organization collected all of the coins they then continued on to catalogue, grade and encapsulate in the PCGS high security tamper resistant capsules along with a specially designed commemorative United States Flag insert that identifies the coins as a genuine artifact. There are numerous different coins being commemorated for this particular event including the 2000 WTC ground zero recovery gold eagle, silver eagle, and also a few uncirculated 1993 silver eagle gem. To buy these coins you can spend anywhere from $60 on up to $1000+. These coins truly are a piece of our history and its definitely a piece, if you could choose any piece, that you should have in your accumulations!

It doesn’t matter if your a master at collecting these types of coins or materials or if you are just starting out, or if you are going to hold on to these for personal reasons or sell these for some cold hard cash, this is a noteworthy part of history that you can take possession over starting right this very moment. I have known of quite a few people that have inducted these coins in to their own little collection because they had a loved one or knew someone in the World Trade Center, so something like this means a lot to them. If you think you would be interested in something like this, check it out the next time your online. I think you will be really surprised by the craftsmanship of these coins!

This author is a HUGE fan of wtc gold

Working in my dad’s gift shop twelve years ago, I was amazed at the craze formed by TY with the creation of their beanie baby range. At the height of their popularity, I’d be lucky to count ten minutes between taking the soft toys out of their delivery box and popping them into a carrier bag at the registrar, ready to be taken home by yet another excitable customer. With a fan base ranging from toddler to grandparents, a sense of hysteria occasionally swamped the store and often left me feeling more like I was at a pop concert than in a small gift shop in the heart of Suffolk. So what was it that led to the cult of TY beanie babies and that still exists today, fifteen years later?

I often wonder what it is about being a collector that attracts so many of us. From stickers as a youngster to model airplanes later in life, purchasing every single item in a range of consumerables has been a favourite pastime for decades.

Perhaps it’s the sense of achievement it creates, or the sheer anticipation of collecting the next addition. When TY launched their soft toy range in the form of beanie babies in 1993, audiences all over the world were instantly hooked. Effectively toy-like bean bags, their initial launch included just nine soft toys including Legs the Frog, Squealer the Pig, Spot the Dog, Flash the Dolphin, Splash the Whale, Chocolate the Moose, Patti the Platypus and Brownie the Bear and Punchers the Lobster. It didn’t take them long for them to become a huge phenomenon, continuing all the way through the 1990’s as the collection continued to grow.

Customers range from those spending literally hundreds of British pounds on a ‘retired’ collector such as peanut the elephant or early versions of zip the cat, to young children who had saved their pocket money for weeks to buy one of the standard toys. The collection includes soft toys for all occasions (such as Easter, Christmas and Halloween) to characters (think Garfield and more recently, SpongeBob Squarepants) to every imaginable animal, mammal or creature, each christened with its own individual name. The full collection must run into hundreds.

Everybody loves soft toys and Beanie Babies are certainly no exception. Soft to touch and cute to look at, most people can find a creature that represents a favourite animal, a fond memory, a celebratory occasion (such as a new baby) or even just a friendly token gesture. Priced competitively and small in size, they have been a perfect gift for the past ten years.

One of their greatest marketing creations was the holiday bear. A soft toy unique to various occasions such as April Fool’s Day or specific locations, including Canada, USA, Ireland and Australia, these bears were always harder to get hold of than the usual range and were usually more expensive. The beanie babies unique to specific locations were generally only available in those countries, making them much more of a collector’s item. Similarly, many of the popular bears would quite often become ‘retired’ shortly after their launch, further fuelling the collectors’ bug.

While TY decided to pull the plug and stop making the soft toys in 1999, continued popular demand caused Ty Warner to change his mind and now continues to run TY Inc, and is still designing new beanie babies today. It’s a phenomenon that hit the world and the ripples are still being felt, as sales still continue to soar. What started as nine cute companions is now a worldwide phenomenon.

Dominic Donaldson is an expert in the retail industry.
Find out more about Soft Toys and why they make such popular gifts for all ages.