Class 24-66 Artillery OCS Photo Pages

We Appreciate Larry Swank's Expertise In Creating And Hosting Our Photo Pages.

You Are Encouraged To Share Your O.C.S. Experience On This Site

Before Submitting Your Contributions, Please Read "How To Submit Photos" Below

For Questions Or Additional Information, Please Contact:
Photomaster: Larry Swank

Scan the photos:

If you or a friend owns an image/photo scanner, scan the image to create a file. Alternatively, take the original(s) to a department store, grocery store, or drug store that has a modern photographic counter. For under $10 they can scan the images and give you one or more CDs with digital copies of the images. Get a price first! Also, many of those stores have walk-up kiosks where you can do the scanning yourself or ask for help. The person at the store may be able to email the photo(s) directly to us (lswank@aol.com - each e-mail must be under 20MB). You may wish to print this page to take with you.

Please scan pictures with the scanner set to 300 dots per inch or higher. Save the image as Photoshop (.psd)

TIFF (.tif) or JPEG (.jpg) file. Use a color-photo setting even for black and white photos. Please do not embed the images in MS Word or Adobe PDF documents, as the extraction process may cause a loss of image quality. If the image is a little too dark or the color isn't quite right, we can fix that. Our photo restoration process works best with a clean scan. Don’t bother with trying to improve the image or crop the image.

In the last 3 years we have never lost a photo or slide, but this is the safest way to ensure that priceless original photos don't get lost in the mail. Send the image file as an e-mail "attachment" (usually a paper clip icon). Do not use drop-and-drag because all e-mail programs don't yet use the same protocol. Please send only one image file per e-mail note and please don't send more than four e-mails until you've received a reply from us. Ensure that your e-mail note tells us the name of the person(s) in the photo, location, time of year, funny comment, or whatever you can remember. Do not spend too much time on this. It is easy to update comments on our photo site later and other x-candidates can help. The e-mail address is: lswank@aol.com. Note: AOL will not process any individual file over 20MB.

If you don't want to use email you may send the CD or memory card through the U.S. Postal Service (addresses below). Make sure you copy the image files to another media or to your hard disk first, as media sometimes get damaged during mailing. If you want the media back just ask and we will do that. We can also send you a memory card – a little 2 GB memory stick that you plug in a USB port on your computer. Then you just save all the files to that drive and mail it back. Remember to include a note with names, places, dates, etc.

If you plan to mail the files with CDs or a memory stick you can save some time with the scanner. You can put up to 4 images on the scanner at a time. This will make very large files (sometimes over 100MB), but they are easy to work with at our end. Just leave a little space around each photo - don’t let them touch the edge of the scanner or each other.

Sending the original photo through the U.S. Postal Service:

We discourage sending the original photo to us unless you just can not get scanning help. Send the photo the address below. We'll scan the photo(s) and send them right back to you.

The exception to this is 35mm slides. We do not recommend taking your slides to the local fast-photo shop. Scanning slides takes a special scanner that will scan the slides at 3200 DPI or higher. We understand your concerns about mailing your original photos or slides, but we have never had a problem with any delivery. To make this safer just send the items overnight and/or by a service that offers on-line tracking, such as FedEx or UPS. We recommend a larger package over a small envelope. We will send you back your slides with a CD of high quality digital images you can really use and share.

Your one concern is to get the photos to us. Once we have them, they will be digitized and, therefore, preserved forever from any further deterioration, damage or loss.

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