Strange Fossils from the beach

[BeachComber7]

I found this on the beach today. Thought they were unusual. The one that has the indentations, not sure if it is even a fossil. looks like one, but it might be just a rock! All the pics were enhanced so the detail of the piece can be seen. The long one is all black.

 

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[Harry Pristis]

I found this on the beach today. Thought they were unusual. The one that has the indentations, not sure if it is even a fossil. looks like one, but it might be just a rock! All the pics were enhanced so the detail of the piece can be seen. The long one is all black.

Thanks for using your imaging software to brighten your images, Joan. If everyone did that, it would be much easier to identify mystery fossils.

The rod-shape fossil is the attachment end of a deer antler. I don't recognize the other object.

 

[BeachComber7]

Only by brightening and lowering the contrast (in the Paint program) can you really see the markings and all. I also re-size them-some photos are so huge you cannot even get the whole item in the screen shot!

Thanks for the ID Harry, a piece of a deer antler is good, I'm making headway-from sea creature (99% of the time its turtle) to mammal!! The other thing, on closer inspection, appears to be a weird rock. I don't see any porous material in it.

 

[Harry Pristis]

Only by brightening and lowering the contrast (in the Paint program) can you really see the markings and all. I also re-size them-some photos are so huge you cannot even get the whole item in the screen shot!

Thanks for the ID Harry, a piece of a deer antler is good, I'm making headway-from sea creature (99% of the time its turtle) to mammal!! The other thing, on closer inspection, appears to be a weird rock. I don't see any porous material in it.

I am not familiar with Paint, but brightness and contrast are common controls to every image editing program I have tried. I use Adobe PhotoDeluxe, an oldie but a goodie.

Here are some tips for general use by anyone who wants to improve his images:
You can be as creative as you want to be with the software, but the following basic things will improve anyone's images:

GROUP IMAGES of more than a few fossils are not effective. The more individual fossils in an image, the greater the amount of table-top is in the image. Viewers cannot see the details of a fossil that might take up less than five percent of the total image. Photograph a single fossil (or two or three, if they're tiny), and post that image.

LIGHT IT UP. Use as much ambient light as possible to reduce shadows. (Two light sources can make a big difference!) Halogen bulbs are better for photography than tungsten filament bulbs. The new compact flourescent bulbs come in a "daylight" (6500K) version that you can use in any (non-dimming) fixture and produce very little heat.

BRIGHTEN AND CONTRAST. BRIGHTEN the image until the fossil appears slightly washed, then adjust the CONTRAST until the fossil is bright and sharp and is a good color-match. Practice this until you get a feel for it.

CROP, CROP, CROP. Again, use the image-editing software to crop the image to only what is pertinent. Leave only a narrow margin around the fossil. The more of your kitchen counter-top in the image, the smaller the fossil image will be.

REDUCE THE FILE SIZE. The images directly from a camera usually are too large for posting directly to a forum. You can constrain the proportions of your image to produce exactly the size that works best (I routinely use 700 Kb - 1.5 Mb for my images now). Save in JPEG format.