Postscript Artifact Photo Scale

CLM_0140
A nice reconstructed Dilmun pot. I should have used heavier card stock to print the scale.

I’ve been photographing a bunch of artifacts from the Hearst Museum for the Bahrain Bioarchaeology Project and I wasn’t deeply happy with many of the options available.  I found this site:

http://anthropolo.gy/

But the resolution wasn’t as crispy clean as I wanted.

So here is a postscript file that will convert into pdfs on most computers.  The postscript file is licensed under the GPL – the Gnu General Public License, which is a copyleft license.  Share early, share often!  Also: thanks to archaeology-friendly computer programmers!  It’s fully modifiable and there are directions inside the script.

Postscript Photo Scale File

It should open as a pdf for most people on macs, let me know if the link doesn’t work for whatever reason.  Also, be sure to measure each scale you generate, as some printers do not handle postscript well and the scales can be off.

I should say that again: MEASURE EACH SCALE BEFORE USING.

Author: colleenmorgan

Dr. Colleen Morgan (ORCID 0000-0001-6907-5535) is the Lecturer in Digital Archaeology and Heritage in the Department of Archaeology at the University of York. She conducts research on digital media and archaeology, with a special focus on embodiment, avatars, genetics and bioarchaeology. She is interested in building archaeological narratives with emerging technology, including photography, video, mobile and locative devices. Through archaeological making she explores past lifeways and our current understanding of heritage, especially regarding issues of authority, authenticity, and identity.

3 thoughts on “Postscript Artifact Photo Scale”

  1. That scale still looks pretty massive to me. I’ve made my own scales in Illustrator to print on photo paper that work pretty well. I can pass it along if you like.

    My philosophy is to minimize the scale’s presence, just enough to serve it’s purpose, but not to become a focal point in the image. So many object photos look like a series of scale photos with happen to have artifacts in the frame. Kinda drives me crazy.

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