Image enhancement for chalk and pencil marking

Donald V. Rainville <dvr [at] suscom-maine__net> writes

>My question is, does anyone know of a lighting technique or
>dissipating chemical spray (non harmful to the piece or its
>historical integrity) that will create better enhancement of these
>old writings.

In both cases, but especially for chalk markings I have had luck
with natural lighting (bright sunlight) at a raking angle with the
sun behind the viewer and the object in front of the viewer.  This
worked very well most recently on a large chest of drawers with a
very faint chalk inscription on the backboards, which were very
dirty.  The chest was on a dolly and I was able to maneuver it to
get the light just right.  I might also mention I was on my knees
(this is quite common) with my head down by the floor to be as low
as possible.  For pencil markings you can try taking infrared (IR)
photographs of them.  Refer to the Kodak web site or the
conservation literature for further information about IR
photography.

Jon Brandon


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                  Conservation DistList Instance 16:20
                Distributed: Monday, September 16, 2002
                       Message Id: cdl-16-20-004
                                  ***