Hi all at SCF. I have been lurking around the Introduce Yourself topics, enjoying the life stories from other members, but I didn't feel that I had enough SCF-time under my belt to offer much of a welcome. It's great to see all the long-standing SCF people stop by here and welcome us noobs.
I have been reading and posting for a couple of weeks now, and have learned so much in that short time. The forums are full of friendly voices, fascinating stories and beautiful stamps. I am very happy to be here. Thank you Akeela for telling me to get over here
I am a refugee from MyPhilately, which is now closed and up for sale. It was my home on the web for a long time and when it closed it was a shock, the members were sent scrabbling for the lifeboats; a lot of members moved to FaceBook but I don't use that. I washed up here, thankfully, and now I don't want to leave
My stamp pedigree is minimal. A childhood collector with a red Stanley-Gibbons one-page-one-country album and packets of stamps. The album went to a jumble sale (along with a stash of PG Tips cards and albums - similar to cigarette cards, but from packets of tea). I am kicking myself for that now. I only saved a few FDCs from 1979, which still feels like a brilliant year, I don't really know why. Since childhood, I think I've always been a collector of sorts. Whatever it was, if it was small enough to collect (pens, action figures, sweet tins), I wanted each one, and in each colour. I think that is why I like Machins and other definitives now. One day a couple of years ago, a rare thing arrived at our house: an actual letter with an actual stamp on it. I looked at the stamp and my collector gene took over.
I am from the UK, but I live in Thailand. I am interested in the history of my adopted country so my collection is Thailand. I collect every new issue in person at the post office. There is a subscription service here, but I like the social aspect of trekking up to the P.O. on issue day and hearing the postal gossip. I am slowly working my way back through the catalogue, but I love the anticipation of a new issue. I keep my collection in stock sheets, in binders and slip cases, but I worry about the humidity here. If I were to start a topical collection, it would be Mount Fuji, which my wife and I visited last year, or the Space Shuttle, the space program I feel I have grown up with. Alongside my country collection, I am building a collection of ordinary covers, exchanged with stamp friends around the world. Can't beat seeing the red and blue corner of an airmail cover sticking out the mailbox, with new commemorative stamps from any corner of the globe waiting.
Hi Fifia! I wanted to reply to your question in the Cats thread properly, and I thought it was about time I said hello. I live in Thailand because my wife is Thai, and we decided to live here, rather than the UK. The weather is better here, and I don't think my wife would last very long on British food, although it is my favourite. I am a freelance technical writer, and my clients are in Europe, hence my upcoming trip to NRW
I lived in Germany for a couple of years and loved it, German people are great, I always enjoy my trips there. (At this point I need that smiley holding a beer glass... full of Warsteiner or König.)
I scan my stamps and covers with a Canon LiDE 200, at 300 dpi. I think resolution on computer screens is often misunderstood (boring/contentious bit follows here, skip to the end if you prefer). Computer screens only display images at one resolution: 96 dpi for Windows and 72 dpi for Macs. Different dpi values really only matter when you print an image. For viewing images on a computer screen, what matters is the dimensions of an image in pixels. However, scanners are usually configured to work with dpi (as opposed to digital cameras, which work with megapixels, as we all know), and dpi settings are a handy shortcut for saying whether your image is going to be small, medium or big. I understand why people refer to dpi with scans, and I do too; I scan at 300 dpi because I only want reasonably sized images that I can easily upload (once the scan is in my image editor, I only work with pixel dimensions). This works for me as most of my collection is modern. If I were handling antique stamps, as many people do here, then I would want much bigger images of my stamps for closer inspection (and so would set the scanner for higher resolution). For stamps, I use a sheet of black card behind. I post-process in Photoshop Elements, which I think is great value although I sometimes use Gimp (which is free), and my workflow is: straighten > tweak contrast > crop > resize.
I really appreciate all the hard work put in by the admins here, and the hard work put in by members to scan stamps and create interesting and lively topics. As I said at the top, I have found only friendly, supportive voices here, which is great. I intend to support the site just as soon as I can.
Posted 01/03/2012 09:30 am
