Bulk scanning service for thousand of photos and slides

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Z1Z

I spent a few days going through my boxes full of photos spanning the period
1970-2006. I have about two thousand photos to be scanned. In many cases, I
have the negatives. I haven't counted my slides but I probably have around
400-500. Many of the photos and slides would benefit from basic automated
enhancement using Digital Ice, dust removal, color restoration. I would like
to digitize my entire collection, but it is too large a job for me to handle
on my own.

I would like to hire a service to convert my material to digital photo
files, preferably TIFF's. I would like the photos scanned at 600DPI and the
slides scanned at 4,000DPI.

Could anyone recommend a photo-processing firm to do the conversion work for
me? I have looked at the web sites for ScanCafe and DigMyPics, as well as
various others. It is important to me that the work be done on the US and
not sent overseas. Anytime anything is transported, the chance of loss or
damage is increased, and I'd rather pay more than increase the chance I will
lose thirty years of photos. I am very interested in a quality, automated
job, meaning that I don't expect a technician to individually inspect and
color-correct each photo, but some equipment can automatically correct
imperfections.

Can anyone recommend a company that can capably handle this assignment?
 
Z1Z said:
I spent a few days going through my boxes full of photos spanning the period
1970-2006. I have about two thousand photos to be scanned. In many cases, I
have the negatives. I haven't counted my slides but I probably have around
400-500. Many of the photos and slides would benefit from basic automated
enhancement using Digital Ice, dust removal, color restoration. I would like
to digitize my entire collection, but it is too large a job for me to handle
on my own.

I would like to hire a service to convert my material to digital photo
files, preferably TIFF's. I would like the photos scanned at 600DPI and the
slides scanned at 4,000DPI.

Could anyone recommend a photo-processing firm to do the conversion work for
me? I have looked at the web sites for ScanCafe and DigMyPics, as well as
various others. It is important to me that the work be done on the US and
not sent overseas. Anytime anything is transported, the chance of loss or
damage is increased, and I'd rather pay more than increase the chance I will
lose thirty years of photos. I am very interested in a quality, automated
job, meaning that I don't expect a technician to individually inspect and
color-correct each photo, but some equipment can automatically correct
imperfections.

Can anyone recommend a company that can capably handle this assignment?
Click to expand...


Really good folks here, been around a LONG time too: http://www.colorservices.com/
(California, in a town of 7 campuses of Brooks Intitute of Photography). Some important
stipulations need be designated for scanning is printing dimensions and pixels per inch,
downsampled after the scan to 300 PPI is all that is necassary. If 35mm, then both
positives and negatives can and should be scanned at the same initial resolution. The
general top dimension printing size for 35mm is 11-12x16-18 inches or so, not quite
poster size, and pretty much the same dimension as a 6 megpixel digital file from a
digital camera.

35mm is a 3:2 aspect ratio which is more rectangular than 4:3 (equal sized sections by
equal sized sections), for whatever point.

However as well, files can be software-interpolated to larger by up to 300% so that a print
can be bigger, and still look perfectly fine. You wouldn't keep a file that is literally totally
4,000 PPI! Much less 2,000 of them. That would take up some massive area on any kind
of disc! Just the 300 PPI and the dimension is all that's needed for the perfect print whether
Frontier machine (bathed photo paper from digital projection exposure) or Giclee (ink jet).

....hope this helps with your decisions, and good luck.
 
Really good folks here, been around a LONG time too: http://www.colorservices.com/
(California, in a town of 7 campuses of Brooks Intitute of Photography). Some important
stipulations need be designated for scanning is printing dimensions and pixels per inch,
downsampled after the scan to 300 PPI is all that is necassary. If 35mm, then both
positives and negatives can and should be scanned at the same initial resolution. The
general top dimension printing size for 35mm is 11-12x16-18 inches or so, not quite
poster size, and pretty much the same dimension as a 6 megpixel digital file from a
digital camera.

35mm is a 3:2 aspect ratio which is more rectangular than 4:3 (equal sized sections by
equal sized sections), for whatever point.

However as well, files can be software-interpolated to larger by up to 300% so that a print
can be bigger, and still look perfectly fine. You wouldn't keep a file that is literally totally
4,000 PPI! Much less 2,000 of them. That would take up some massive area on any kind
of disc! Just the 300 PPI and the dimension is all that's needed for the perfect print whether
Frontier machine (bathed photo paper from digital projection exposure) or Giclee (ink jet).

...hope this helps with your decisions, and good luck.
Click to expand...

Well, the trouble with just scanning 2000 frames and applying a
general "correction" to all of them is that they are not all the same.
Some are truly worthy of a 4000 ppi scan, and many are surely not. If
the OP isn't willing to cull them beforehand, and is willing to pay
for the service, then I'd say go ahead. there may well be many gems in
that batch that he would lose forever if he went with your criteria.
For example, what about the quality slide that captures an
irreplacable moment, but requires cropping out 75% of the image? How
does that fit with your criteria for deciding beforehand what to scan
at?

My 35mm scans, scanned with a Nikon LS-IV at 2700 ppi, result in 25-30
MB tiff files. I've scanned perhaps 500 35 mm frames, both slides and
negatives, and probably don't have *any* worth scanning at 4000 ppi.
But then, I'm an amateur photographer and shot everything hand-held.
Still, I'm sure good photographers shooting with tripods have lots of
images that give great 4000 ppi scans.

I'm guessing 4000 ppi scans woulb be about 66MB. 66 MB x 2000 frames
of 35 mm film uses about 132,000 MB or 132 GB. I have 4 hard drives in
my computer and the smallest is 200 GB, so unless I've really screwed
up the math, that isn't an unreasonable amount of disk space to
dedicate to irreplacable images. And besides, the OP can always "cull"
the poor images by downsizing "after" the scanning process is
complete, if he feels it's necessary to reclaim a few GB of disk
space.
 
[email protected] said:
FWLIW, my FS4000 poops out 138,001Kb files. (5888x4000x48-bit)
125mb after cropping the frame edges.

-G
Click to expand...

My opinion of 48 bit files is pretty much that: FWLIW.
Just not enough quality diff in editing to justify the double file size.
Histograms prove that some images really benefit from some editing
functions with 48 bit. Human eyes prove there's no discernable
difference.

MM
 
Probably www.scancafe.com, but like many of the lower cost services,
they send your originals outside the US to have the work done, and there
are some horror stories of material that was submitted and then lost.
There are some domestic services, but they tend to cost more ... a LOT more.

Sam's Club does slide and negative scans for 18 cents each. The quality
and resolution are not great, but [typically] it's done locally on-site.
I have used them as "insurance" against total loss of material that
you are sending out for a higher quality scan from another source.
 
Barry Watzman said:
Probably www.scancafe.com, but like many of the lower cost services, they
send your originals outside the US to have the work done, and there are
some horror stories of material that was submitted and then lost. There
are some domestic services, but they tend to cost more ... a LOT more.

Sam's Club does slide and negative scans for 18 cents each. The quality
and resolution are not great, but [typically] it's done locally on-site. I
have used them as "insurance" against total loss of material that you are
sending out for a higher quality scan from another source.
Click to expand...

That turned out to be a fabulous idea, wish I had thought of it. I visited
my local (Elmsford, NY) Sam's Club today and dropped off a mixed bunch of
negatives with instructions to print each and make me a CD of the digital
files. The cost for that service is twenty cents per image. Better yet, they
will do just the scanning-to-CD part for just ten cents per image. They did
my scans, but just the 35mm. The operator told me that the other sizes
jammed the machine. All work is done on the premises. They don't do slides.
My order was done in about one hour, but was only 16 negatives.

When I got home I popped in the CD and inspected the images. The scans are
300dpi horizontal, same vertical, 24 bits. They are all 1818 pixels wide and
1228 pixels high. Average size is about 800KB.

For a dime per image, this is a very good deal. Many of the photos will
never be printed, so just the basic scan will be adequate. I can send out
any really good negs and have them scanned at 2000dpi or 4000dpri. I did
observe noticeable amounts of 'dust' (white specs) in the scans. What
software is recommended for this problem?

I will still have to deal with my slides, and photos for which I don't have
negatives, but this is a big step in the right direction. I just hope that
when I go through my shoe box of negatives, I turn up a lot of 35mm's.

(Since I was going to Sam's anyhow, I uploaded a couple of digital images to
be printed. I sent them TIFF files that were just under their limit of 6MB
per file. Results were mediocre. On a portrait, they chopped of the model's
head and started at the middle of her face. The operator spotted the problem
and immediately reprinted the photo. I found this issue surprising, since I
would have thought that they would print whatever was in the digital file,
and I had test-printed it on my color laser printer before uploading it.
Based upon that experience, I don't think I would use Sam's for anything
critical.)
 
I just noticed this thread today, and have a number of different
comments - hopefully some of them will be useful!

First of all when it comes to scanning a large number of old
negatives, I like that solution of having Sam's do it. It sounds like
a quick and inexpensive way to get low resolution scans of a
collection. I have never had that done myself (I have my own
scanner), but if the quality of the digitized images is good enough
for web presentation, you've got most of the job done right there, and
this can allow you to see what you've got so you can separate out
those real gems for more specialized (i.e., higher resolution)
scanning. If you're like most of us, there aren't going to be a large
number of these.

Secondly, I wouldn't completely throw in the towel on getting quality
prints from Sam's. You mentioned that the operator noticed the
cropping error. That is a good thing right there! It shows that he/
she was observant of the results and did what was necessary to get it
right. What size (aspect ratio, really) were you having this image
printed to? Was this simply a case of the more squarish aspect ratio
of your print size (e.g., 5x7 or 8x10) requiring some of the top/
bottom of the 3:2 aspect ratio image to be cropped off? If so, then
it was good that the operator was standing by and willing to override
whatever default cropping the machine chose, and then reprint it. (My
apologies if you are familiar with cropping and aspect ratios and all
that - I don't mean to be insulting, but I don't know what your level
of experience with image processing is). In any event, my experience
with Sam's is that I can get very nice prints as long as I properly
prepare the image ahead of time. For me, this means editing it it to
the exact aspect ratio and print dimensions at 300ppi and converting
to sRGB color space (if it isn't already), and making sure to select
"no enhancements" when making the print order. I also downsize a TIFF
file to a level 10 JPEG in Photoshop, just to reduce the file size and
make handling of the data easier.

When it comes to higher resolution scanning of some of your better
negatives and then your slides, I am afraid I don't have a good answer
for you. There are services which will do a good job, but they are
not inexpensive (not in the quantities you are asking about anyway).
The "standard" recommendation on this forum is to acquire (beg, buy,
borrow, or steal!) a good dedicated film scanner - probably one of the
Nikon Coolscan models - and do the job yourself. On the plus side,
you can buy the scanner used, then recoup most (if not all) the cost
of the purchase by selling it when you are done. And, if you are
dedicated to learning the scanning process in detail, you will likely
be able to obtain better results than just about any commercial
service. However, if you go this route, do be aware that it can take
a very long time to get a large collection scanned, and may also
involve quite a learning curve to perfect your scanning techniques.
It all just depends on how particular you are about image quality, and
how much effort you are willing to invest in what ends up becoming
sort of a "sub-hobby" to whatever photography is to you.

I am also a proponent of performing full-resolution scans when using a
dedicated film scanner. Not necessarily with all your images of
course, but those which can make use of it. I can say with some
confidence that many of my images benefit from the full 4000dpi that
my scanner can do. Again, many images will not warrant the full
resolution. If you are farming out the job and have to make a one-
size-fits-all choice... well then I sympathize with your dilemma!
(sorry, I know that's not very helpful)

As for file size, I can vouch for the claims made previously. My
4000dpi Canoscan FS4000 scanner produces TIFF files which are up to
about 67 Megabytes for 24 bit scans (8 bits/color), and 134 Megabytes
for 48 bit scans (16 bits/color). In my experience, there have been
very few instances when the difference in bit depth has proven to have
any effect on the final image at all. Sometimes when I have a very
dark slide, I will go with the higher bit depth thinking that I will
get a less noisey result when I have to "rescue" the shadows in
photoshop, but even then I am not sure if I have been able to really
see the difference. This all relates to slides - I am not so sure
about negatives.
 
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