From: jen187@mis.csiro.au (Graham Jenkins +61 6 276 6812)
Subject: Your horse as a gif.
Organization: CSIRO ITS
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 02:22:09 GMT



     

      [[[[[[[[[[   YOUR HORSE TURNED INTO A GIF   ]]]]]]]]]]


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NOTE::: Before you read any further you might like to save this
message to a file or print it out, it's fairly long and if you're
interested there are some bits in it WHICH YOU WILL NEED TO make
a note of.
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OK, folks, I've decided to start up a little service that will allow
you to get a picture of your horse (with or without you included) made
into a gif and then stored in my anonymous ftp area so that any
interested persons can collect it and see what you, (and your horse),
look like. A number of people have mentioned to me that it would be
nice if they could see the person who they talk to through rec.equ

This is, basically, how it would all work:
You would send me your favourite picture of your horse, perhaps with
you on it or with it, and I would scan it and turn it into a gif and
then put it in my anonymous ftp area on my Sun workstation. I would then
include it in the next GIF UPDATE that I post to rec.equestrian from
time to time.

I'm not sure how large a response I'll get to this but quite a few
people have told me, via e-mail, that it sounded like a great idea.
Obviously I'll have to insist on a few simple 'rules' so that it all
doesn't get out of hand.



First, a few tips;

I can handle virtually any photo, either colour or black and white.
In order to get the best quality gif, the photo should be nice and sharp
and as clear as possible. The scanning process degrades the image to 
a certain extent and then the quality can be further degraded to a
larger or smaller extent depending on the quality of the software and
equipment that the viewer is using. A dark, blurred and/or murky photo
is going to look pretty bad by the time it gets to someone who only
has a low quality monitor to look at it with. Shadows and really 
light bits tend to turn into black and white bits by the scanner so
try and get a picture that is reasonably even in it's lighting. 
Basically, if it's a really nice picture to look at it will probably
scan quite well, if it doesn't look so great then the scanning process
sure as hell isn't going to improve it any.

I *STRONGLY* suggest that you put the photo in some sort of small
plastic bag or something like that before putting it in the envelope.
I don't know what your postal service is like but ours is not always
as careful as it could be!

OK, now the heavy bit...;

Until I have some idea of the response to this service I'm afraid that
I'll have to limit each person to ONE (1) photo each. *PLEASE* do not
send me any more than one photo, I will ONLY scan one. If you have 2
or 3 photos and you are unsure which will scan better, you can send them 
all to me  BUT  I will only scan  ONE of them, whichever I think will
look the best.  If the response is not large and I have the time, disk
space, etc, I may relax this rule in the future and you can send me more
if you wish, but for now, ONE photo only.

I will  *NOT*  be returning the photo to you. It would probably cost
me in the region of a couple of dollars to send a photo overseas so
you can see that if I got a hundred pictures it might cost me $200 to
return them all. I can't really afford to do this. I don't believe a
reply paid system would work because our post office would not accept
foreign stamps. I know this rule might annoy a few people but I can't
really think of any way around it that won't cost me lots of money.
If it's a photo that you would like to keep, DON'T send it to me, or
get a copy of it from the negative, or whatever. Please let me make 
this clear, once you send me a photo, YOU WILL NEVER SEE IT AGAIN,
except as a gif.

When I've scanned the photo and put it in my ftp area I'll include
it in the gif update that I post to rec.equestrian from time to time.
When I include it in the update I'll put a short description with it,
just like the ones that are there now. In order to do this I'll need a
little info from you.

ON THE BACK OF THE PICTURE write the following information;

- Your name
- Your horse's name
- The breed of horse  (If you wish)
- Where you are from

Here is an example;

Graham Jenkins
Khalif
Arab x Quarter Horse
Canberra, Australia

From this I will create a short description and an entry in the gif
update which will look something like this;

mypic001.gif - Graham Jenkins and his Arab 'Khalif' from Canberra Australia.

If you would like to avail yourself of this service, send ONE photo
to:

Graham Jenkins
P.O. Box 604
Mawson
A.C.T.  2607
AUSTRALIA


If you have any questions or constructive suggestions, feel free to
e-mail me:

graham.jenkins@its.csiro.au

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-- 

|  Graham Jenkins          |  graham.jenkins@its.csiro.au           | 
|  CSIRO                   |  (Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial | 
|  Canberra,  AUSTRALIA    |  Research Organisation)                |
Newsgroups: rec.equestrian