PrettyTiny Film Company Pic A Week *2020*! (The END!!)

[Lejays17]

Ohh no! That sounds terrible that the hair has faded! Something else to worry about now with my older dolls,

She looks very content there wrapped up for spa day. Hope she’s restored to her former glory by it.

[Elfy]

She looks like she’s attending a special doll salon for treatment.

[neon_jellyfish]

Never heard of fading color in dolly hair, safe for hand-dyed...

Can't wait to see the results of the treatment!

[werepuppy]

Oh, wow! The only time I've heard of doll hair colour fading is if it had been directly in the sun for an extended period of time but this is clearly not the case here.

She looks quite at ease with the spa situation, however.

[Aichan]

I had never heard of fading hair either but it actually looks pretty if my monitor is showing correctly! Nice spa day shot!

[Alliecat]

Thanks, everyone.  As shown elsewhere, Lila's spa treatment was a great success.  Marilyn is next, but her spa day has been postponed due to disaster striking PTFCo HQ, with the death of my laptop hard drive, along with too many very precious not-recently-enough-backed-up files.  I've been sick... just can't even think about all that creative work being lost.  There may be a glimmer of hope; spent the week so far in crisis mode chasing data recovery services, & talked to a guy today who sounded pretty confident he could salvage it.  However, it will likely cost hundred$ of dollar$ and maybe an overnight trip as well (of course nothing local, and I don't really want to mail it).  
So for now I am down to an outdated desktop I have to turn on half an hour before I want to use it, or my phone, or, an unused-for-5-years little drive out of the previously dead laptop, which is working in the machine so far.  But I'll have to limit my time on it.  Of course now I have to look for a new 'puter too.
So photo-taking is somewhat curtailed because the old drive's not really big enough to deal with a ton of photos.  And Sunsette had a whole slew of BC-adventure pix she was going to narrate... 
I HATE HATE HATE digital stuff!!!!!  My works in progress on paper, and my boxes & boxes of slides & negatives, will last for ages.  Digital files effing vanish if you look at them the wrong way.
So yeah.... bad week.
Double-dipping on a photo for the Dal House, because I only took 2 pictures today.  I think Samantha has a good idea -- go cuddle a plushie

[davidd]

I HATE HATE HATE digital stuff!!!!!  

Whaaat? You mean you don't live your entire life through your phone? Isn't that what everyone does these days?
Except for dinosaurs like me.  
I actually think the dependence on phones for everything is contributing to the deterioration of society.
I hope you can retrieve your data. Cost-effectively.
And that you don't have to quarantine for weeks if you have to venture off-island.
And then maybe consider investing in a good quality desktop computer for your main computer. In my direct ex-perience, most desktop machines have the courtesy to exhibit symptoms before failing catastrophically. Laptop machines tend to fail without warning. Yes, laptops are convenient for their portability, but... sometimes they stop working. Suddenly. And completely.

Adorable little Dal pic, particularly impressive considering your technical woes.

[Elfy]

When all else fails, cuddle a plushie.

[Lejays17]

Sounds like a terrible week with all the computer issues. Fingers crossed that the data can be recovered successfully.

And cuddle a plushie is great advice, along with eating chocolate.

[neon_jellyfish]

Sorry to hear about your troubles, I hope you'll be able to recover your data. My trusty abacus (in service for 11 years) is dying, too, but it's brave and it started giving the warning signals in enough of an advance, so I have time to tranfer to new laptop without panic.

Plushies, chocolate and hot beverages can fix a lot!

[werepuppy]

I'm so sorry to hear about your troubles. I can only hope you manage to find a sort for them soon.

The picture is adorable!

[Loona]

When all else fails, cuddle a plushie.

This. It is also OK to cry and feel down *hugs*

I'm so sorry to hear what happened... The possibility of losing digital data any time, in the blink of an eye, is among my greatest fears, yet I'm also a bit lazy in backing my stuff up. And even if I'm not, I could always get burglers come and steal my stuff (which is my other greatest fear that surfaces whenever we go for vacation, and to think of that they'd only care about the tech stuff, and whatever is stored digitally on them would immediately get deleted, only makes the fear worse). I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for a successful recovery. I agree, what they ask for such recoveries is insanely ex.pensive, but I would also be willing to pay the price if I was in that place...

[Alliecat]

Thanks everyone.
The data recovery guy's communication is crap, & he has disappeared.  I can't go away for another week yet, but it looks like a couple days' trip in the offing.  It'll be worth it if he saves my precious files, but, if you run a business and want customers to feel valued, you have to communicate with them.
On a previous major long-term project, I backed up religiously.  I might have changed only 1 paragraph, but I immediately made 3 copies of it.  I need to start doing that again I guess.
The old drive is working so far, but it only has 10 GB to play with, and settings are different.  I need to defrag it.  Maybe that'll help with the storage space.

And then maybe consider investing in a good quality desktop computer for your main computer. In my direct ex-perience, most desktop machines have the courtesy to exhibit symptoms before failing catastrophically. Laptop machines tend to fail without warning. Yes, laptops are convenient for their portability, but... sometimes they stop working. Suddenly. And completely.

Except that the desktop lives in a windowless basement office, whereas I can work on the laptop on the porch, or the couch under a nice big window, or most importantly, on my bike desk near same big window, so I'm moving & not just sitting for hours on my bum (21 miles today).
Sigh.

So this week's pic is another double-dip because I just managed to squeak in before deadline with an entry for the PUDDLE annual contest.  This one took 4 hours of messing with lighting & FX, in such a cramped corner that I literally had to crawl back & forth under the drafting table twice for each take.  Then another hour of swearing at the slow old desktop.
SIGH.

Anyway, the theme of this year's PUDDLE is "the haunted library".

[davidd]

I'm trying to figure out how you did this. After your Time Traveler photo ex-planation, I have come to appreciate your skill at "in camera" effects even more than previously. Considering your computer issues, I'm thinking this must be another clever in-camera effect rather than a digital edit.

That's a nice vintage Zane Grey collection on the shelf. I've only read one Zane Grey story, the classic Riders of the Purple Sage, which was certainly an interesting story and nothing like what I was ex-pecting.

[Lejays17]

That’s a great interpretation for the theme. So clever with Cherie floating above the rest.