Games ceremonies' costs rise by 49%

8 April 2014 Last updated at 13:03 The opening ceremony for the 2014 Commonwealth Games will be held at Celtic Park The cost of the opening and closing ceremonies at this year's Commonwealth Games has risen by almost half.

Organisers Glasgow 2014 confirmed that the combined cost of both events was now £20,850,000 - up £6,850,000 or 49% on the 2012 estimate of £14m.

A spokesman said the extra costs covered developments at both ceremonies to maximise the spectacle.

The costs will be met from the general budget. Meanwhile, ScotRail outlined plans for extra and later Games trains.

'Unique opportunity'

The Glasgow 2014 spokesman said: "The opening and closing ceremonies are key moments of the games, when the eyes of the world will be on Glasgow and Scotland.

"They offer a unique opportunity to showcase the host nation, the host city and the talent of the Scottish people.

"As we have developed the ceremonies, opportunities have arisen to add to the spectacle to deliver truly memorable events.

"To make the most of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we have chosen to make some additional investments in the ceremonies."

The spokesman would not be drawn on details of the "additional investments" ahead of the events.

On Games transport, ScotRail has said it is "planning the biggest train timetable that Scotland has ever seen" to help transport Games spectators.

Extra carriages and more frequent services will be provided until late at night, with services running until 01:00 on some routes.

ScotRail said this was aimed at coping with an expected extra one million train journeys on its network during the Games period.

'Busy time'

The train operator said it would unveil the timetable later this month.

It will be introduced on 21 July, two days ahead of the opening ceremony. It will remain in place for two weeks until the closing ceremony on 3 August.

Steve Montgomery, ScotRail's managing director, said: "We have been planning this timetable for almost two years - working with games organisers, local authorities and industry partners to balance the needs of spectators and customers across Scotland.

"I'm confident that we'll make best use of every train, station and stretch of track available during what will be an extremely busy time for Scotland's transport networks."

ScotRail said it was due to hold talks with rail unions over staffing issues surrounding the Games timetable.

Last November, the RMT union called for "recognition and reward" payments to cover extra workloads before and during the event.

A ScotRail spokesman said: "We are making progress and are due to meet again soon with each of the trade unions to take matters further forward."

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Picture restoration the costs

Posted by Photo Restoration Man on January 17, 2011

Justify the cost of a picture restoration.

With picture restoration there is no,” fix my picture” button. You cannot purchase a £700 software application to restore your picture with a button marked picture restoration. Its not as simple as just flicking a switch. Restoring the pictures requires time right from the start.

To appreciate the picture restoration procedure lets take a look at all the jobs involved.

To start any picture restoration the photo first has be made digital, whether the starting photo is negative or a positive print. To get the best from the source photo it should be scanned into a computer either with a negative scanner or a print scanner. Either way the picture must be scanned for optimum tonal range to ensure as much information is captured to enable a good picture restoration. There are actually one touch scanning methods that do this for your but these are far from the best method to get the required data for a good picture restoration. The scan needs to be performed by manually adjusting settings and customizing tone curves. This brings out the details, in the digital file to give it the best chance to be restored.

Once scanned the picture need to be cropped or trimmed to the correct aspect ratio for the desired print size, perhaps even adding a section to fill the proportions required. The next step in the picture restoration is to asses the resulting photo and find the best approach. Normally it would be to first balance the tones and correct any fading within the photo. For colour photos, correct the colour to as near normal as possible, this may need hand colouring to do this (this is normally performed after the restoration stage is complete). Hand colouring is a lengthy process of laying colours onto the photo and masking out sections so each individual component in the scene can have its own colour.

The actual picture restoration is the next stage. The photo needs to be cleaned of dust and scratches and blotches and blemishes. Cracks should be patched out and fold or tears mended. In some case this would mean filling large spaces with other parts of the photo to get the correct tone and texture matches. Where a facial rebuild is needed, great care must be taken to reconstruct a damaged face so that it looks untouched and normal or the human eye will detect something is wrong. We are so good at spotting defects on the human face even if we do not know the exact defect. Other references of the face may be needed in order to make a full picture restoration.

Once much of the picture restoration process has been completed the photo needs to be prepared for print. Once the print size has been agreed then the digital file needs to be optimised for that print size. Selection of paper is also important for the prints, choosing the correct finish to stay in keeping as much as possible to the original.

Once the funds for any work is complete the photos are emailed to a professional printing bureau to be printed. Once received they are then opened, checked over and posted out.

Next time you ask yourself this seems expensive spare a thought for how much time is invested in your picture restoration.

This entry was posted on January 17, 2011 at 10:10 am and is filed under Photo Restoration, photo repair, photo retouching, picture restoration. Tagged: picture restoration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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