Polish Aviation Museum in Kraków - digital archives

[Silencer1]

Hi!


There has been quite informative site of Polish Aviation Museum in Kraków http://www.muzeumlotnictwa.pl/


Also there was the page, describing their huge collection of archives, that have been digitalized and presented as low-resolution, watermarked preview.
The full list of available items is here http://www.muzeumlotnictwa.pl/digitalizacja_archiwaliow/digitalizacja.php


There were a lot of various items, including papers, photos, manuals, descriptions, drawings - not only Polish, but German, English, French, Russian as well.


Major problem is that items' descriptions in many cases have been clear enough and don't mention the whole content.
Another problem is a hard way of saving the images, for me the good old "print screen" works only.

I'm attached two pictures from MD-12F four-engined prototype description.
(Note, that some other pictures couldn't bee opened in such large size.)


Anyway, museum's personal accomplish great job, and I highly recommend it to all, who interested in Polish aviation.


P.S. This collection also include a large batch of captured (I presume) German WW2 materials about combat aircraft and engines as well as the stuff, related to Polish aviators outside the Poland - in 1939-45.

 

[hesham]

Great find my dear Silencer1,


specially the Flugsport,how to download it ?.

 

[Silencer1]

Great find my dear Silencer1,

specially the Flugsport,how to download it ?.

You are welcome!


As I mentioned, I found only one solution - to capture a part of the screen with a previewed picture. There were a number of free software for that.
Of course, not very easy way 8-(

 

[hesham]

Thank you my dear Silencer1.

 

[Stargazer]

A truly impressive online archive, thanks for the link.

It's not the inability to save the pictures that annoys me, but the amount of watermarks on each picture that renders all further use impossible!

 

[cluttonfred]

Great stuff, thanks, some real gems in there including some remarkably detailed factory catalogs from the 1930s.

PZL 1932 Katalog
Pzl 23-B Katalog płatowca 1939
Pzl Katalog
Pzl Katalog 1934-1935
Pzl Katalog P.24 I P.23

 

[c460]

Thank you for this great information.
There are better ways to download the images, for example with Flashgot, a Firefox extension that can save all the links coming from a page.

Adrien

 

[Richard N]

Has anyone tried this to shut off the watermarking?


When you go to the part of a webpage you want to save, do a right mouse click and go to the last line of the pop up menu and click on "Inspect Element". I believe this is the code used to construct the page. In the past I have done this and started experimenting with right clicking on lines in this code and deleting them to see what happened to the page. Someone familiar with this code might be able to tell us which line turns off the watermark. I've included a part of the screen that I captured with the "Snipping Tool" that is part of Windows 7 and allows you to save anything that is on the screen.

 

[perttime]

It seems to me that the watermarks are in the images themselves, and not in page code.

 

[Silencer1]

It seems to me that the watermarks are in the images themselves, and not in page code.

I think, as perttime - the images on this site have been already watermarked.
After downloading entire web page with a opened image I found the watermarked "jpeg" file in folder with in contents.
Not being a web-geek, I presume, thats impossible to found "clean" picture in this digitalized collection, unless directly asks the Museum' for cooperation.


Cheers!

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Regarding line art, its really rather easy to lose the watermarks. Photos, not so easy.

 

[Silencer1]

Regarding line art, its really rather easy to lose the watermarks. Photos, not so easy.

Nice work, PaulMM!

The retouching of images and deletion of the unwanted elements has been a typical function of any raster-editing software, of course, the mastery in this comes with a number of accomplished projects.
Perhaps, it would be a good idea to find a watermark image from placed on the white surface, then place it as layer above the unwanted watermark on the retouched image and adjust the layer' blending mode and opacity, that allows to minimize overall watermark appearance on the image. If it works - a pattern of watermarks could be used to speed up the process.


IMHO, the Krakow museum already did a great job, digitalizing their archive and willingly share them to all - unlike many other museums around the world.
So, deletion of watermarks could be a quite interesting task, if you don't have ability to purchase the same images inside the printed publications, where these images would be correctly commented and attributed.

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

If the watermark is a consistent single tone, e.g. a darkening of the original image, it is possible to remove the watermark by creating the same pattern and using it to brighten the image. I've done this once or twice when a very rare photo was not available except with a watermark, and I could identify the typeface used in the watermark, but it's a lot of effort.


With a line drawing, the line is black, the page should be white, so if you remove the shades of grey in the middle using the curves tool, you will only be left with the line drawing.