Rick_D

Have you considered conversion to PDF? Acrobat can deskew automatically and it has cropping tools, plus can perform OCR if making it text-searchable is of interest. The pages are assembled into one file that can be bookmarked.

cudak888 

I really want to avoid locking users out of using a CSS-generated lightbox. All things considered though, integrating a PDF into a website has become much easier than it was 15 years ago. Then again, doing so eliminates the possibility of having thumbnails that encourage exploration, which I really don't want to lose.

-Kurt

cudak888 

I think I've found a workable solution for the OCR part of the puzzle.

First off, I've found a free(ish) tool that seems to do text recognition a lot better than most: https://www.cardscanner.co/image-to-text. It was successful with both black-on-white and white-on-black text which Adobe's OCR frazzed out with. It also read (correctly) the stylized typefaces used on the cover page. No idea what they're using to power their tool, but it works.



Secondly, even though it's a massive PITA, the least complicated way of integrating the picture appears to be copying the text from this tool into the image's metadata "Title" and "Captions" field in Lightroom:




Thoughts? Ideas for streamlining? I'm all ears.

-Kurt

cudak888 

Getting there. Some of the older scans to be replaced (US '73-76 and '79) are still here, but it's coming along.

Adding the metadata is slowing everything down, but it's worth it to make the image content reasonably searchable.

Not to mention that I have to re-do everything I originally scanned and then realized wasn't hi-res. (which consists of '38, 52 price list, '68 Hi-Rise, '81, and what's noted as US 1952 which might be '54, and a Raleigh/Rudge/Humber parts list - amongst a few others).



Also open to anyone willing to fill in the gaps with their collection...

-Kurt

spclark 

Amazing things computers are capable of with creative folks doing the software....

Going from pixels to searchable text is a PITA w/o having done the text as fonts first. That cardscanner service is intriguing; that it works better than what Adobe's capable of is a surprise as well in view of their respective company sizes.

Prowler 

^^^^^^ This is great stuff! Some of us HUGELY appreciate this and, maybe, understand how much time and effort it takes. THANK YOU 😊

And thanks to the growing backup crew that’s helping!!!!!

cudak888 

Adobe's continued existence is entirely reliant on its name, industry position, and corporate multi-user license agreements for its software (educational institutions particularly).

Much of the Creative Suite is bloatware that runs slower than molasses,* hasn't had meaningful bug fixes in ages, and fails to implement some of the best new tech out there. Further to that, since most of the programs were acquired from different companies, the commands and layouts are all over the place for the same functions between programs, making working between them a nightmare. And why on earth can't we zoom while cropping in Lightroom? Export to Photoshop required? That's BS.

The only thing preventing Adobe from sinking into the moor with the Hound of the Baskervilles is that there hasn't been a complete challenge to the suite yet. Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve has rendered Premiere Pro and After Effects irrelevant, but GIMP hasn't taken over Photoshop and neither has any other independent PDF reader zapped the pondering Acrobat/Reader out of existence.

About the only Adobe software I don't resent wholesale (but will find flaws in, don't you worry about that) are InDesign and Dreamweaver. Adobe Audition works nicely too, even though it's hilariously limited in capability. Plus, you lose all your custom filters when updating it + backing them up is akin to hacking the program files themselves.

Speaking of which, have you noticed Google Chrome, besides being bloatware, is now becoming nagware? I can't imagine Firefox (led by Mozilla's fix it if it ain't broke approach) becoming relevant again, but it seems as if it might.

-Kurt

*This box has dual Quadro P4000 GPUs mated to 128GB of RAM and two Xeon Platinum 8180s. Nobody can tell me my system specs are insufficient. If your corporate excuse is that "XYZ process is single threaded," go take your programmers back to 1995 where they belong.

cudak888 

clubman, Ged117, any chance either of you might be able to identify what year these catalogs are? There's none of the typical US CPSC identifiers to go by, and even the chainguards don't change except for the DL-1.

EDIT: Blue is 1981, found it on the back - "Technical Specifications - 1981." Black eludes ID, but given that the Raleigh Criterium was noted as a new model in '81, the black catalog has to be '78-80. The offices moved from Toronto to Mississauga between the two catalogs too.

nlerner, do you remember what these were sold to you as?

The blue catalog has the MX and kids bikes on the back, but the Chopper is absent, unlike the black catalog.





-Kurt

daka

I just rebuilt a gold Supercourse for the Bike Exchange that looked just like the one in the black catalog. Per the serial number it was from 1978.

52telecaster

I'm no help but thankyou from the bottom of my heart.

nlerner

Kurt, note that the automatic mention function still doesn't work (at least for me), i.e., you probably won't get a notification when I use cudak888 but you will if I go @cudak888 and bypass the popup.

And, to answer your question, no, that's not something I remember at all. I can look through ebay receipts, but that was a very long time ago, and i don't even remember how I came into possession of that catalog.

cudak888 

Canadian bike? Either way, the SC is one of the models that seems to mimic the US offering spot-on, so it's not necessarily the best guide. I've read that the black-and-gold Canadian Sprites seem to have been pretty popular and still remain a common sight.

I'm hoping someone knows a few Canadian model changes between '78

Happy to be a resource for this. I only wish the dream of having a "visual ID" database wouldn't be so utterly impossible with all the international variants. We've barely scraped the 1970's UK variants. Also seems as if the US lineup back in the 1950's - while truncated from the UK lineup at times - wasn't really that different. It's the TI era that brought forth regional variations.

Got it - it's the pop-up that isn't working. @clubman and @Ged117, let me know if you can ID the black catalog above.

No worries; figured it was worth asking just in case.

-Kurt

clubman 

Late 70's Raleighs weren't my wheelhouse although I did own the Black and gold Sprite. 1980 looks right as any.

cudak888 

Agreed on '80, though it could be just as possibly 1979. I don't want to take a guess at it unless absolutely necessary, as this will go into the file name and metadata; not so easy to change.

I'd really like to find at least one data point between '79 and '80 that changed. Or city documents that point to the year that Raleigh opened at 1610 Sismet Road in Mississauga or when they left the 95 Browns Line location.

EDIT: This site reports Raleigh Cycle Industries (Canada) Limited was dissolved in April 1978:
https://www.can1business.com/company...Canada-Limited

Meanwhile, this site gives the full rundown on the corporation changes:
https://canada-corp.com/co/raleigh-canada-limited

1947-03-24 to 1973-04-13 - LINES BROS. (CANADA) LTD.

1973-04-13 to 1978-03-13 - RALEIGH INDUSTRIES OF CANADA LIMITED

1973-04-13 to 1978-03-13 - LES INDUSTRIES RALEIGH DU CANADA LIMITEE

1978-03-13 to 1987-04-01 - T I RALEIGH INDUSTRIES OF CANADA LIMITED

1978-03-13 to 1987-04-01 - LES INDUSTRIES T I RALEIGH DU CANADA LIMITEE

1987-04-01 to 2001-12-19 - RALEIGH INDUSTRIES OF CANADA LIMITED

1987-04-01 to 2001-12-19 - LES INDUSTRIES RALEIGH DU CANADA LIMITEE

2001-12-19 to Present - RALEIGH CANADA LIMITED

But there's nothing definite about the address after '78 on the former site. The Sismet location's earliest reference online is '83:

https://publications.gc.ca/collectio...7-204-1983.pdf

EDIT #2: This site makes the naming of the company a bit clearer: https://opengovca.com/corporation/497401

Name 1978-03-13 1987-04-01 T I RALEIGH INDUSTRIES OF CANADA LIMITED
Name 1978-03-13 1987-04-01 LES INDUSTRIES T I RALEIGH DU CANADA LIMITEE
Name 1973-04-13 1978-03-13 RALEIGH INDUSTRIES OF CANADA LIMITED
Name 1973-04-13 1978-03-13 LES INDUSTRIES RALEIGH DU CANADA LIMITEE
Act 1947-03-24 1980-12-11 Canada Corporations Act Part I - Private (CCA - Part I) / Loi sur les corporations canadiennes partie I - corporations privées (LCC - Partie I)
Name 1947-03-24 1973-04-13 LINES BROS. (CANADA) LTD.
Activity 1947-03-24 current Incorporation / Constitution en société - .

According to this, the TI Raleigh Industries of Canada Limited name was registered in March 1978, so that black catalog - at the earliest - is 1979, at latest, 1980. The blue catalog, being 1981 with new models in thee range, guarantees that the black catalog is not 1982.

And so...back to the original question: 1979 or 1980?

-Kurt

cudak888 

FYI, I still have to photograph:

1938 UK
1950 UK
1951 USA Price List
1962 UK Speed Range - (re-do of an existing available catalog)
1962 USA - (re-do of an existing available catalog)
1968 USA High-Rise Bikes
1975 Canadian Price List (single page)
1976 Canadian Price List (single page)
1981 USA - (re-do of an existing available catalog)
+ A catalog noted as USA, 1952, but looks like the 1954 Canada catalog - will have to use Peter Kohler's guides to help me verify the date on it.
+ Undated UK Raleigh/Rudge/Humber parts list (near 1954 - handwriting on it notes "New SW Hub")

I've been offered the Raleigh USA 1984 Touring catalog as well, so that should be part of the list, and I'm hoping to reconnect with someone who shared a UK-era 1960's catalog with the Raleigh Riviera Sports Like Tourist, along with Triumph and BSA bikes of the era.

-Kurt

cudak888 

The new copies of the 1979 US catalog are done w/metadata taken care of. I also put in a couple of public records requests with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada for four documents from December 12th, 1980 which refer to a "change in address" at TI Raleigh Industries of Canada.

Granted, this won't help a bloody bit - even if it is the address change, it means the catalog could STILL be from '79 or '80. It's not as if the Canadian models are well documented online either and can be used as a guide. Just to be on the safe side, I went ahead and exported two copies - one with 1979 file names and metadata, and one with 1980 filenames and metadata.

Meanwhile, there's a 1930's catalog (that I didn't mention above) in the pipeline. I probably didn't mention it as it's another "what year is it" deal.

I also spent the evening re-photographing the catalogs I first scanned - basically everything in the list in my prior post, minus the big '54-ish parts list.

Additionally, @abdon was kind enough to forward the 1984 Raleigh USA Touring catalog as well, which may require a bit of Photoshop tinkering to restore a few corners (my Photoshop volunteers will love this one ), but is otherwise complete.

Side note - does anyone have a spare 1970 and 1978 catalog? I know Neal provided the '70 long ago, but it's one of the ones I don't have the high-resolution copies of anymore, and it's the only catalog missing from the scan collection. It's the Interesting Places in Massachusetts edition:



-Kurt

nlerner

@cudak888, I still have that '70 catalog; didn't include it in the batch I sent as I figured you had already scanned it! But I'll pop it in the mail to you now.

cudak888 

Greatly appreciated, Neal. I'm scanning (photographing) everything over again, even the existing catalogs, just to squeeze whatever additional resolution there is through this process.

Meanwhile, this finally came in - not really a surprise at this point, but it seals the 1610 Sismet Road address as taking effect in November 17, 1980. Leaves the door wide open for that catalog to be '79 or '80.




-Kurt

JackJohn

Kurt, do you have Raleigh French market catalogs? there are at least three that I know on the net, of which one I physically own (1976) that I can share...

Ged117 

Indeed, I wish I could help, I don't know this era well enough.

cudak888 

I do not have any of the French catalogs, but have been watching a few on eBay. I'd love to host your '76 catalog.

While I realize these catalogs are all technically under US fair use, I'm not one willing to boot them off another site (as one site did with the current Headbadge catalogs). The scanning process is too arduous for me to disrespect the person who did it in the first place like that.

No worries. I'm tempted to list it as a '79 catalog until proof pops up of a different '79 catalog or a catalog that fits between for '80.

-Kurt

JackJohn

Ok, I purchased the catalog a few months ago, will scan and send it over soon…

PS: to better undestand one of the top-range French models, last year I did a comparison study between the MKV Team Pro and the French Record, post is here https://www.bikeforums.net/classic-v...-gauges-2.html

cudak888 

Sounds good - I just put the black foldout catalog into the new site this evening along with some others. I decided on '80 finally and footnoted the possible discrepancy.

I think I'm going to try re-photographing the '81 Canada foldout - not 100% pleased with the results. Got the right step-down adapter for my polarizer too. Also just bought two additional catalogs for the mix.

I'll have to read through that thread when I have time to really dissect it - there's a lot of info there to digest.

-Kurt

cudak888 

The last of Neal's catalogs were photographed today - though I bungled the focus on two of the fold-outs, so I've still got a bit of work to do. Plus, I've received back a lot from the volunteers which I need to color-correct and add image-to-text metadata. Takes about an hour per catalog to ensure it's done right.

A quick question to those helping with Lightroom: Would any of you also be interested in generating the metadata (via https://www.cardscanner.co/image-to-text) and adding it?

Also, two new catalogs for the record - the '61 dealer catalog and a 1949 catch-all Export catalog, though this particular example was stamped for a Canadian dealer:

Sorry, I'm tired - no 90-degree on this tonight!



Blurry, have to re-do, but the '49 Export catalog is here:



-Kurt

cudak888 

Side note, any Klein experts in the house? Trying to nail down the date on this catalog. Washington state address on it, so '82? '83?




-Kurt