Creating Digital Albums

I would have posted a reply to an earlier thread on this topic, but it's been closed.

Stamp collecting has been a hobby of mine off and on since the early 60s when I was very young. I'm retired now and seem to gravitate to this hobby mostly in the winter time. But it has stayed with me one way or another for about 60 years.

My current collection is a disorganized mess, mostly from Scott International albums that I purchased and have never completely broken down. I once had a better collection that I sold off in college (much too cheaply) at a time when I needed money. I like the period (worldwide) from 1946-1970 (particularly mid-50s to late 60s). USA, France (and its colonies) and Czechoslovakia are focal points for me. I am learning to love Austria, too. I particularly like engraved stamps. As for topicals, I like stamps depicting nature in any form. I've never done any of this for money or investment, just for fun and quiet enjoyment. I enjoy working through and organizing my disorganized mess.

But anyway, on to the point - a few years ago, I began collecting digital images of mint stamps and that has now become my focus. I get nearly the same pleasure from digital collecting as I did from real collecting, and without the expense and the accumulation of boxes of stuff that I really don't want anymore as I get older. I know that some folks frown upon this as merely collecting pictures, and I obviously can't deny that - but it has gotten me heavily interested again. Hopefully I'm not hurting anyone.

I read the older thread on this topic today and started experimenting with making custom album pages to see whether it was something I might enjoy doing. Until now, I was just keeping the images in folders on my PC. That allowed me to see large detailed copies of each stamp, but the thought of using album pages again was always there.

There was so much great information in that thread about how to do it efficiently. I'm sure I'll do more experimenting with customizing Steiner pages using Powerpoint, but here's my first effort. It was fairly easy and painless, so I expect to do more, especially with presentations of my favorites for starters.

tennapel's image linked from post above...


Don

Since thousands of images can be found and DL'd in a few minutes, do you find enjoyment in page design, instead of "the hunt?"

Well, the hunt isn't quite that easy

I look for clean, sharp images without watermarks or stock book lines, mostly from the 1960's. I usually clean them up in Photoshop, too.

In many ways, it's not that different from buying packets from a department store back in the day and then sorting them out, or getting an envelope from my Grandma full of Czechoslovakian stamps.

I haven't really started creating pages in earnest yet...

Images are very easy to source, if you subscribe to Michel's online catalog (with the hi-res option). Tens of thousands of images, all right there...


Fixed it for you. Do you speak any Czech? It was my first language.

My family is Slovak, from the rural areas around Trnava. For myself, I only know some food-related words :)

As you may know, there was a huge Hungarian influence in Slovakia in the period before WWI and it revealed itself in many of my Grandmother's habits and tastes.

Your correction is duly noted, and I do agree with it. Thanks for the Michels tip - but at least with their demos, the images are heavily watermarked...

My paternal grandparents are buried in Nové Mesto nad Váhom, a little (by North American standards) north of Trnava. Small world.

Wow!! And you're the first person I've talked to on this site, too.

If it means anything, my grandparents were from Plavecky Peter and Prievaly. Both have under 1,000 residents

Prievaly is less than 40 miles away from Nové Mesto nad Váhom. Crazy.

TENNAPEL said ...."I look for clean ,sharp images " you come to the right place . Here you can find over 1,400 pages of clear sharp pictures . Many are full album pages for your records .

FT,
Copyright be damned? Note the notice on the bottom of every page here? "Use of any images or content on this website without prior written permission of Stamp Community or the original lender is strictly prohibited."
Harvesting images using online sources cab be quite time consuming IF you do it correctly and professionally. Doing things like at least asking the owner for permission shows you have some consideration. Adding attributions is also a good thing.
Don

Downloading pictures for your personal use is not a problem . I just did it on a bunch of modern Thailand pages , for me trying to use Scott catalog to search was a long frustraing time process . The catalog is a poor guide ,so there is a collection with all the modern stamps and much easier to scan and follow so I can get the right stamp in the correct box on my Steiner pages .

...

AlbumEasy (free software) is quite good at making PDF albums, with images, rectangles around the stamps, titles, etc.
I have used it to make a Czechoslovakia 1950-92 album in the Scott International style with minimal text and many stamps per page.
Most people prefer having more labels, like you do.
There are a large number of free albums on their website which can be downloaded,
so you can see what kinds of page designs people use.
I found stampworld.com to be a good source of images for this sort of thing,
but their image resolutions are not as high as you prefer.

In AlbumEasy, you create commands in a text file, with each image filename, text for labelling,
along with commands to start a new row on the page and to start a new page.
You get a lot of control on the fonts, page title, page border, page size, etc.

I have a large photo collection of half dimes which I use to study die varieties and rarity,
so I know the advantages of collecting photos instead of physical objects!
Fortunately in recent years, photo sharing on the internet has made this possible.
In past decades, a person had to take many years to accumulate a large collection of actual coins
to study their details.

Enjoy collecting images. You can create flip books. etc.

Don, I had some images taken off this forum and printed in two different philatelic publications without prior consent. One edited out my watermark on the images. One did make a reference to an online forum.

Thank you yosclimber.





angore, what kind of images were they?

Al,
Understood, I have experienced the same thing on both images here and on Stamp Smarter. In my opinion there exists a fairly common unprofessional (and unethical or illegal in many of the situations) behavior with using online images and content. Many people take images/content without bothering to ask even when the original author or website would grant permissions without any kind of conditions or reimbursement.

I find those that do this typically have never had their hard work taken without permission. But in a world where many consider themselves as victims and taking things which do not belong to them a 'right' due to the perceived wrongs they may have experienced, taking another's person images/content must seem like small peanuts.

And attribution is such an easy thing to do if a person does take images/content without asking yet some do not bother to do this either. I think this behavior can have a negative impact on image/content creators; knowing that their work will be taken and reused without any acknowledgement or credit whatsoever. <shrugs>
Don