Retroreveal Website Status?

This morning I reached out to the 4 parties listed on the About page of the Retro Reveal website from my university email account and received a response from the Head of Preservation at the University of Utah library.

Apparently the parties in question have left the university and the site is not being maintained. So while a hosting account may exist somewhere (the domain is registered through 2027), who knows where it actually is located or what support/hosting arrangements are or are not in place. Even though the domain name is registered, the hosting account may have lapsed and been deleted.

It's too bad. A transfer of the technology to Stamp Smarter or some sort of crowdfunded support could have been arranged had we known sooner.

My hope is that one of the other parties that has access to the raw files will reply to my email and we still can facilitate some preservation of the tech.

I just received a follow-up email with some information with respect to the tech utilized at retroreveal. This may be common/old information, I don't know.

I've sent a follow-up to see who owns the rights to or has physical (digital) copies of the actual source code. If I make any headway I'll post here and also get in touch with Don privately.

Update: it may not be entirely dead yet. I've received another reply that my contact may have initiated some movement at the university end, so they're looking deeper into the details of the site.

Ive downloaded and looked at ImageJ software, it is a standalone open source imaging app which does everything that RetroReveal did. The basic function was to split an image out into color channels but retro reveal then also performed other filters (like 'negative image) and presented them to the user.

Image J does everything but also supports all kinds of customization (it is in JAVA) like scripts and batch files. This is what the RetroReveal site did, it added a webpage interface and used the functionality of the Image J app.

After about 10 minutes of playing with the Windows version of Image J, I got it to split out the color channels and produce a lot of the same images that RetroReveal did (I collect and plat with app like others do with stamps, others might find the learning curve larger).

So the good news is that Image J is open source and is available for anyone to use to replicate a RetroReveal type website. It would take a lot of work and might include some JAVA coding (yuck, I hate JAVA and avoid it whenever I can).
More good news is that anyone can download Image J, spend some time playing with, and have no need for the RetroReveal website.

We should wait and see if Dan hears back from them for now.
Don

Excellent work on this project. I used Retroreveal quite often, so a good, easy to use replacement would be great for me. Please keep us informed on any other news.

I am not so technical, so thanks to all for not letting this die.
Pat

I've almost got a replacement website up and running. Are there 3-4 folks here who want to be guinea pigs? The site's still got a long way to go -- need to add a lot more image manipulations, speed it up, make it prettier, etc -- but I'd like to get some feedback on a couple design decisions before I get too far down the road.

If interested, shoot me an e-mail. -- postmaster -at- the name of my website.

Bravo! Postmaster,
I am not skilled enough to assist.
But look forward to the finished product
For years I have desired a Postmark isolation tool.

In light of the untimely demise of Retro-Reveal, I put together a new site that offers many of the same features.

Postmark-Reveal.com

Dedicated thread for discussion is here.

Just popped by to see if there have been any updates. I see that some folks have at least had emails returned. A shame it is gone... Someone worked on the tool, so why let it die? Do something to let it live on, sell it, move it, make it pay-to-use, SOMETHING. If the school ends up with it, maybe they can work out something with Linn's or Scott, anyone in the stamp biz, even a museum.

There is a version of RetroReveal running at ***Link Removed by Mod***
Might be an earlier version of the software as it appears to be less capable, and lower capacity...

All,
The link listed directly above is NOT the original Retroreveal nor is a earlier version of it. It is a new site (hosted on GoDaddy! LOL) with no indication of who owns it, what they are doing with the personal info you give them to get an 'account'.
Out of safety, I have removed the link and recommend that folks give this some time until we all better understand what is going on with this site. I am dubious that whoever set this up has chosen to make it appear similar to the original site, has no Terms and Conditions or Privacy Policy, and has chosen to not have ANY indication of what they are doing with user information. Remember, if a website is free then chances are good that YOU are the product.
Don