View-Master History of Flight

This is a restored, enhanced presentation of the View-Master packet "History of Flight". Its pictures cover the early glider flights in the late 19th century up to the 1930s. The text also explores the early history of flight starting with DaVinci. Two 3D converted pictures were added to illustrate the text and a 3D picture of the Fokker DR-1 triplane was added from the editor's personal collection. Two scenes were reissued in the later "Old-Time Airplanes" packet. 2023 update has full 4k, and one more 3D conversion.
This packet was originally created during the era when View-Master wrote informative booklets about the scenes. As such it is a nice, but brief introduction to the history of human flight.

[@thejasperwhisperer]

Fantastic. What's your recommendation for digitizing the images on reels to archive them?

[@clementj1]

I have written about how to create excellent VM 3D slides. Basically they should be scanned at 6400dpi 48bit color, then approximately aligned as side by side. I use Focus Magic in several passes to refocus the images. I use an Epson 550 flat bed scanner. Then spots are removed by hand. A 3d passive monitor is used to view the images. In 3D, inperfections of all kinds on one side just pop out visually. I use Paint Shop Pro for editing. Some adjustment in the intensity range may be necessary. Then using Stereo Photo Maker the 3D images is automatically aligned and cropped. The final product is reduced to 24bit color. The presentations are made using Magix Movie Studio with the images moved to the R, then the text is inserted on the L. Most of the KZbin were scanned at 24bit color but with the max lightness adjusted down. The high color resolution is really only needed for very dense slides to allow good adjustments. Stereo Photo Maker has a good auto adjustment for matching the R/L views, but it sometimes does horrible things because it only works in 24 bit color. All editing is done with a lossless codec such as TIF. Real archiving should be done with the TIF images. Mdiscs are completely archival, but some DVDs advertise long life, and BD is considered very stable. The disks should be stored in several locations unlikely to be distroyed by natural disasters such as floods, fires, landslides... The early reels before 1978 are on Kodachrome which is archival for at least probably a century. The reels from 1949 have perfectly preserved color.

[@thejasperwhisperer]

@@clementj1 Thank you for the incredible guidance! You clearly are an expert! You mention that you've written about this elsewhere... do you have a blog or website? I'd be an avid reader.