Our entire online image catalog is from founder Valerie Vavrik's personal collection of antique books. Valerie's love of old books, especially ones from the Victorian era, began over 25 years ago and now numbers over 1,000. She began scanning, cleaning up and restoring them to share with others after one of her graphic design customers (Liz from Quiltworks Northwest) asked her to put some on an image CD so her customers could use them in quiltmaking.
Valerie spends hours carefully scanning (so as not to damage the books), cleaning and restoring the images on her computer (removing stains, yellow cast, rips, tears, pen and pencil marks, etc.). Although extensive clean up is sometimes needed, Valerie strives to maintain the integrity of the artwork, leaving things reflecting the style and charm of the era (ie: colors extending over the line, texturing, etc.).
Much of the art from the 1800s is black & white. Sometimes Valerie adds a little touch of color for fun (always including the original black & white on the CD as well). Images are saved as TIFs (useable by graphics programs for both PCs and Macs). While the images are protected by copyright, as long as you purchase the CD, you should find you are able to do everything you want with the images.
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