IMAGING of PRINTED VARIATIONS

Paul R. Sternberg  (peares@gmail.com) and John M. Brayer  (brayer@cs.unm.edu)

We have recently examined the available off-the-shelf software and have determined that none of them preform exactly the functions that are necessary to make composite images of the quality and accuracy that are required for research purposes. We have therefore decided to write such an application ourselves. This is going to take some time, maybe a lot of time. Eventually we expect to have an application (either stand-alone or one to be used in conjunction with other freeware applications) that will give resuts similar to those seen below. (The following images were all constructed with currently available off-the-shelf freeware, but since one of us [JMB] is unhappy with the apparent mathematics we cannot recommend them.)

Press variants in the 1st and 6th impressions of
Joseph Conrad's The Secret Agent (p. 86 [detail]).

Original Image A (6th imp.)
Original Image B (1st imp.)

Composite Image
3D Image (glasses required)

Alternating Images (animated GIF)
Source: Created from materials supplied by S. W. Reid in 1982; see his 'The First Editions of The Secret Agent', The Library, Ser. 6, 5 (1983), 237-253 for an explaination of the variants imaged above.
Note: All images greatly reduced resulting in some blurring.

Variation between the 1st and 2nd states of
Rembrandt's etching Self Portrait With Broad Nose (B 4 [detail]).

Original Image A (1st State)
Original Image B (2nd State)

Composite Image
Source: Created from photographs obtained from the Rijksprentenkabinet, Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam [1st state]) and the Städelsches Kunstinstitut (Frankfurt [2nd state]) in 1977.
Note: All images show enlarged details.

The above material is an extention to our previously published
'Composite Imaging: A New Technique in Bibliographic Research,'
Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 77 (1983), 431-445.