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Roche-a-Cri – Digital Image Enhancement

Roche a Cri rock art A Wisconsin Archaeological Society program at Roche-a-Cri State Park on August 2, 2025 provided the opportunity to explore a cell phone app, DStretch, that can enhance faint rock art. These images of several red figures on the rock art panel were captured using just a cell phone in the field. The images are barely visible in the original image, but show more clearly in the enhanced view. As these fragile images are threatened by erosion, sun fading, and other natural and man-made threats, new technology to identify and preserve the images is invaluable.

Besides a phone app, there is the DStretch computer program for "Rock Art Digital Enhancement...a plugin to ImageJ written by Jon Harman" [DStretch.com home page]. It can do much more than the phone app, and Wisconsin archaeologists have been using it to explore, document, and preserve images at many known pictograph sites and identify potential new imagery.