Del's Genealogical Ramblings

---Analyzing a Photo Printing Problem

--Ancestral Quest is Share Certified with FamilySearch Family Tree

Analyzing a Photo Printing Problem

The end of June our grandson, Kurt, who lives in Colorado; was in Anaheim for a Future Business Leaders of America Conference. My daughter, who lives in Temecula, and her son and I drove up to meet Kurt for lunch.  My wife had a commitment she couldn't get out of.  After lunch we took a couple photos, including one of the two grandsons and I.  

Last week my wife asked me to run off a copy so she could put it on the refrigerator, which contains a collage of family photos (as does most everyone's).  When I printed out the photo I got the following:

Ryan, Del & Kurt

The photo looked like it had a film of some sort on it and obviously wasn't very good.  However, the digital image was very good.  I touched up the photo with Photoshop Elements and printed it again.  I also remembered to select "glossy photo" for the paper type, thinking perhaps I hadn't remembered to do that before.  The results were the same--a bad photo print.  I got busy with some other things and didn't get back to addressing the problem until this morning.  I decided to print out a copy of an image (Glacier Bay) that I knew was very good, because I used it in a recent photo book that I put together of all of our trips over the past ten years.  I printed it with the following results:

Glacier Bay

Once again the print looked very hazy.  The colors weren't sharp and vivid.  

I have a Canon MX850 Copier, printer, fax and it normally provides excellent quality photo prints.  The Yellow cartridge had been flashing on and off recently, even though I checked it and it was full.  However, I had refilled the cartridge several times and thought that might be the problem.  Therefore, yesterday I bought a new set of cartridges and put the yellow one in the machine.  I printed a copy of myself, Ryan and Kurt; and it was still bad.  

I thought to myself, I sure don't want to have to buy a new printer; but I have had this one about five years and that must be the problem.  I was about to try the same photos on my wife's machine when I had a thought--could it be the paper?  As I thought back, I had found a large stack of photo paper in my office supply closet a few weeks back and decided I better use it up, as it was opened and not in a container. 

I inserted a sheet of photo paper from a box that I knew hadn't been opened very long--perhaps a few months.  Following are the two photos that I printed on the different paper:

I think you will agree that they are much better prints that those shown above earlier.  It was the paper--not the printer!  It hurt me to throw away about fifty sheets of photo paper; but that was the problem.  I don't recall where I got that paper; but it was probably very old.  I am not an expert on photo paper; but I am assuming it can deteriorate with time and exposure to the elements.  

Not sure if any of you have ever had a similar problem; but I sure learned a lesson.  The paper does make a difference!

----------------------------------------------------------------

Ancestral Quest is Share Certified with FamilySearch Family Tree

The following article was carried by Dick Eastman in his yesterday's Newsletter:

Dick's article went on to provide the following information about Ancestral Quest: 

"In 2008, Ancestral Quest (AQ) became the first desktop family tree product to be certified by FamilySearch to sync with their databases. This current upgrade to Family Tree Share certification by FamilySearch was granted on June 21, 2013, and all copies of AQ downloaded or shipped since that date have directly shared data with FamilySearch’s new Family Tree database rather than with their older New.FamilySearch database. The upgrade was timed to precede FamilySearch's discontinuance of updates to New.FamilySearch in early July and their announced termination of support for Personal Ancestral File™ (PAF) on July 15, 2013."

I am embarrassed to say that I really don't know much about Ancestral Quest.  I had heard about it; but not much beyond that.  I checked on line and came up with a ranking of the Top 10 Genealogy Programs by Tech Media Network http://genealogy-software-review.toptenreviews.com/ppc-index.html?cmpid=74169&s_kwcid=TC|17114|ancestral%20quest%20review||S|p|21571724906.  

Somewhat to my surprise, Ancestral Quest was ranked #4.  I have long told people that in my estimation the top three are Family Tree Maker, Roots Magic and Legacy, in no particular order.  Tech Media ranked them in the following order: Family Tree Maker, Legacy and Roots Magic, so that gave them some credibility in my mind.  

It certainly speaks well for Ancestral Quest that they have establish this close relationship with Family Search ahead of the other Genealogy Software Companies. 

I welcome comments from any of you who use Ancestral Quest or are very familiar with it.