From the Smithsonian With Love

Some of us bloggerinos and bloggerettes are always looking for public domain pictures to illustrate our words of wisdom.  And boy, we just scored big time.

In February the Smithsonian Institution announced they are releasing almost three million images to the public domain.  Contents from 19 museums plus libraries, research centers, and the National Zoo.  All free for the download.

And, unlike the British Library illustrations that are free on Flickr, searches seem to work pretty well.  (Except that whatever I search for I always get some plant diagrams.  What's that about?)

Here are a few examples related to our favorite subject.  Enjoy.

Five Red Herrings, Tenth School

by Robert Lopresti

1.  Derringer Days.  Yesterday the Short Mystery Fiction Society announced the winners of the Derringer Awards and I couldn't help but notice that I was one of them, specifically for Best Short.  "The Cop Who Liked Gilbert and Sullivan" appeared in Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #23.  You can read what I had to say about it here and here.  Congratulations to my fellow winners, Brendan Dubois, David H. Hendricksen, and Earl Staggs.  But let's have a big round of applause for the winner of this year's Edward D. Hoch Memorial Gold Derringer for Lifetime Achievement.  That went to our own John M. Floyd!  Well deserved, too.

2. Free pictures!  It's always nice to find a new source for public domain illustrations.  (We bloggers love them, anyway.)  The Library of Congress very kindly sorted out the pictures on their website that are free for the taking.  (See the one below.)  Enjoy.

3. Underpaid through the ages. The University of Missouri Libraries has done a great service for anyone writing historical fiction.  Prices and Wages by Decades links you to actual government publications from the 1700s forward reporting on how much things cost and how much people were paid.  

4. Man With The Axe.  Last time I did one of these gather-alls I mentioned Lowering the Bar, which talks about the odd side of the legal biz.   I have to point out the story above which informs us that in a single incident a man in New York was charged with:
driving while ability impaired by drugs, driving while ability impaired by the combined influence of drugs, no license plates, unregistered motor vehicle, uninspected motor vehicle, operating without insurance, no front windshield, and no safety glass.

But on the bright side for him,  it turned out there is no law in the Empire State against driving around with an axe embedded in the roof of your car.

5. Shanks does Japan. According to an automatic translation app, the title of the book at the right is Sunday Afternoon Tea With Mystery Writer.  Could be, but in English it's Shanks on Crime. First time I have ever appeared in Japanese.  I wish Shanks a long and happy visit there.

Tech Tip– Transparency

Improve your Image

It amazes me how creativity bursts out of many of us in multiple ways, music, painting, sculpture, cooking, even quilting. Many of us like to include art in our blogs and find ourselves frustrated by cantankerous software. When it comes to clip art, you may have noticed some SleuthSayers pictures seem cursed with a white frame or background while others blend into the blog. For anyone with a non-white blog background, this is for you.


Once upon a time, little programs could make unwanted image parts invisible. Unfortunately, they've all but disappeared. I use Photoshop to set backgrounds to transparent, but that's using a steam shovel to shift a dustpan of dirt.

If you're interested (and this is by no means required) in how to do this, here are a few free tools you can use. Although I strive to be cross-platform, I've somewhat emphasized Windows here since Microsoft Paint doesn't support transparency and Mac tends to be more graphically inclined.

	The Gimp			instructions
	GimpShop			instructions
	Paint-dot-net			instructions
	LView Pro			instructions

GIF and PNG

GIF and JPEG formats have very different purposes and you'll often see the wrong format used, especially JPEG. JPEG is intended for blends, subtle tones, and a large color palette such as photographs. GIF is designed for flat-tone images like line drawings, cartoons, and simple 'flat' pictures. There is a third format, PNG, which encompasses both images. To use transparency, you must use GIF or PNG, not JPEG although you can convert a JPEG to the other formats if it's tonally flat.

PowerPoint

Although I avoid PowerPoint, I understand it can be used to make parts of images transparent. Follow this video or these instructions:

1. select menu: Insert Photo > Picture from File
2. click Recolor button
3. click Set Transparent Color
4. click on the background color to disappear
5. right click image
6. click Save as Picture
7. set Format to .PNG
8. specify name and save

Here's to transparency!