Peace river trip

[Williamrockstead]

The water is way high but did find a few neat things! 

[Williamrockstead]

[ynot]

When You hold a piece and try to take a picture You increase the blur of the object.

Please set them down to take Your pictures.

Also multiple angles would help others to determine what they are.

[Williamrockstead]

I'll take better pictures when we get back home 

 

[Harry Pristis]

The first image is of the posterior half of an equus lower third molar (m3).

The second is of a nurse shark (Ginglymostoma sp.) tooth.

The third is of a posterior 'gator tooth.

The forth is unidentifiable in that view.

 

Here is my advice for producing better images:

Do you have editing software that came with your camera or with your scanner? Use the image-editing software (or download shareware from the Internet).

You can be as creative as you want to be with the editing software, but the following basic things will improve anyone's images:
 
GROUP IMAGES of more than a few fossils are not effective. The more individual fossils in an image, the greater the amount of table-top is in the image. Viewers cannot see the details of a fossil that might take up less than five percent of the total image. Photograph a single fossil (or two or three, if they're tiny), and post that image.

LIGHT IT UP. Use as much ambient light as possible to reduce shadows...two light sources are a minimum. Eliminate yellowed images caused by tungsten filament bulbs by switching to the new compact flourescent bulbs. CFLs come in a "daylight" (6500K) version that you can use in any (non-dimming) fixture and produce very little heat.

 

ELIMINATE SHADOWS by elevating the fossil on a glass or colorless plastic stage a couple of inches above the background. Illuminate the fossil AND THE BACKGROUND in this configuration. There are numerous things around the house to use for this purpose, from scrap window-glass to disposable plastic food/drink containers.

BRIGHTEN AND CONTRAST. BRIGHTEN the image until the fossil appears slightly washed, then adjust the CONTRAST until the fossil is bright and sharp and is a good color-match. Practice this until you get a feel for it.

CROP, CROP, CROP. Again, use the image-editing software to crop the image to only what is pertinent. Leave only a narrow margin around the fossil. The more of your kitchen counter-top in the image, the smaller the fossil image will be.

REDUCE THE FILE SIZE. The images directly from a camera usually are too large for posting directly to a forum. You can constrain the proportions of your image to produce exactly the size that works best (I routinely use 700 Kb - 2.0 Mb for my images now). Save in JPEG format0ï