Don,
I don't know you from Adam but I'm green with envy that you're done and also
very happy for you ;-)
A long row to hoe but worth it I believe.
Oh, definitely! Not only because of the end result, but in the process
I also organized my images. Many weren't dated so I had to create a
timeline first. The date-stamped slides were a great help here, but
for negatives and photos it took a lot of head scratching, going
through old passports to figure out when a particular trip took place
or just looking at the images and comparing them to dated slides, etc.
In the end, I organized them all purely chronologically. Each film has
its own directory in the format: YYYY.MM. That way they all sort
nicely. If I had more than one film in a given month I would either
add the day (.DD) or, failing that, add a suffix (either "-1", "-2" or
"-A", "-B", etc to sequence them). Of course, in some cases I was only
able to narrow it down to the year only. Within those directories, the
images are then numbered according to their number on the film.
Those are all "raw" scans intended purely for archiving. Once I
process them and convert to JPGs "for consumption" I'll use a
different strategy. Probably several depending on intended use.
I'm
scanning when I get time but my wife is already starting to notice my
absence.
Yes, scanning can be a lonely business! Especially if (like me)
one agonizes over all the details.
Wondering if you can take a minute to tell me (us) which scanners you used
along the way and what made you move onto the next (worse or better) model?
Any euphoric or horrific moments would be interesting and probably fun to
hear about.
Oh, boy... There are a lot of horrific moments, that's for sure!
I've been planning to do this for a long time so, in preparation,
about 7-8 years ago, I got the ScanMaker E6 flatbed (8-bit, 600 dpi)
and Nikon LS-30 film scanner (10-bit, 2700 dpi). But, life got in the
way, and the scanners sat unopened in their boxes for several years.
When I finally got around to it, both scanners were hopelessly
outdated and overtaken by technology. I did try the LS-30 briefly but
quickly ran into the "Kodachrome problem". Nikon's so-called "support"
was no help at all, refusing to even admit Nikons have a problem with
Kodachromes (the scans are dark, noisy and have a blue cast). That was
my very first post here!
To cut a long story short (too late!
) I then shelled out for the
Nikon LS-50 film scanner (14-bit, 4000 dpi) and Mustek BearPaw 4800TA
Pro flatbed (16-bit, 4800 dpi).
The reason I went with Nikon again, is because of the light source
(LED) which produces pure colors and doesn't drift over time like
conventional light sources. It also results in very sharp scans.
Besides, Nikons are built like a tank!
Still, the Kodachrome blue cast persisted in spite of special LS-50
Kodachrome setting (absent on the LS-30). In the end, I wrote my own
scanner program after getting the developer kit out of Nikon. Nothing
fancy, just for my own use, simply getting as raw a scan as possible.
The trouble is, as I hinted in the other message, the dynamic range of
the LS-50 (14-bit) just doesn't go far enough. I doubt that even
16-bit scanners can really do Kodachrome justice because - judging by
tests - one needs about 17 or 18 bits to really penetrate them.
So, I ended up scanning each slide twice with the idea of combining
the two. This works but I had to write another program to automate it
(without getting into too much detail it extract the film's
characteristic curve on a slide-by-slide basis). This can also be done
with various HDR (high dynamic range) programs out there.
You can also combine them manually (known as "contrast masking") but
if you don't adjust the colors first you can only combine images where
the border between highlights and shadows is well defined. In other
words, the border between the two will be visible if it falls in the
middle of a gradient (even if you use a fuzzy mask when merging them).
Another problem with scanning twice is the slight misalignment between
two consecutive scans. Even though Nikon's registration is very good,
there's still a slight (sub-pixel) misalignment and it varies across
the image as the scanner assembly travels down the length of a slide.
I'm very picky about this, but many people may not even see it as a
problem. Also, many HDR programs will automatically align such images.
The flatbed scanning was relatively painless, by comparison, but I did
run into Newton's rings. Those are the faint rainbow-colored irregular
circles and ellipses usually a problem when scanning slides in glass
mounts. But glossy photographs exhibit the same problem. The thing is
they stick to the glass causing the above rings as well as gray
"splotches". Usually, one needs to view the scan at 100% to see it.
I solved this by using a piece of Plexiglas (but any hard material
will do). Next, I would stick the photo to the Plexiglas to keep it
totally flat (use glue which is easily removable so as not to damage
the photo afterwards when peeling it off). I then cut out strips of
thin cardboard which I placed on the scanner glass around the photo.
The Plexiglas with the photo then goes on top of that, face down.
(Plexiglas is handy because you see the cardboard strips underneath.)
This sounds very complicated, but the idea is to use the cardboard
strips to lift the photo above the glass slightly (so it doesn't stick
and cause Newton's rings and "splotches") but not lift it too far from
the glass so it's out of focus and/or has low contrast. Conventional
scanners (i.e. virtually all scanners except the Canon Lide range
which use a different CIS technology) have some depth of field above
the glass so the image is still sharp.
I scanned the prints at 1200 dpi (48-bit) which is an overkill because
it's commonly accepted that regular prints don't really carry more
than 300 dpi of information, 600 at the most (e.g. contact prints). I
did this to be future-proof as I expect the displays will increase in
size so I don't have to extrapolate images later. (I don't print and
will be only using these images on a display of some sort.)
A couple of other flatbed tips. Compulsive cleaning of the glass is a
must! And this includes the underside (!) as the electronics tend to
evaporate and condensate on the underside showing up as a "fog".
Having tried a variety of "wet" cleaners - in my personal experience -
they all seem to leave some sort of residue. Sometime this shows up
several minutes after the cleaning! So, my advice is to get a good (!)
true (!) microfiber cloth and "dry clean" only!
BTW, not everything calling itself "microfiber" really is microfiber!
When used, a good microfiber cloth has a "rubbery" feel to it as it
"grips" the glass while removing all the junk. When you do find a good
one get two, so while one is the wash you can use the other.
The other tip is checking how clean the flatbed glass really is. To do
this, darken the room (or do this at night), lift the lid, and scan
nothing! This will result in a seemingly black image. But after
importing this into an image editor boost the brightness until the
image becomes gray. At this point every scratch, dust or smudge will
jump out at you! It's quite an eye opener! Do this immediately after
you cleaned the glass and, I bet, you'll shriek in horror! I did!! ;o)
Other than that, the horrific moments for me were when I would go
through, say, 15-20 rolls and (Kodachrome) scans keep getting darker
and bluer and the moment comes when I just throw my hands up in the
air and admit I just can't tolerate this. So I start again. Then I
notice that images are not in focus because old film (especially
cardboard mounted Kodachromes) tend to warp over time. Back to square
one, sampling multiple focus points and averaging. And so on... In the
end, I learned the images in those first few films by heart!
As I often wrote here, I've done many things in my life but nothing
has been so frustrating and full of "gotchas" like scanning. It's like
those Russian dolls. You open one (i.e. solve one problem) only to
reveal another. Argh...! But, all that is water under the bridge now
because - not to rub it in, but - I'm done! ;o)
Seriously, not everyone may be as "picky" as I am, but I would advise
looking at the image at least at 100% magnification (300% is even
better) to catch all those potentially bothersome things early on.
The euphoric part is right now! It's quite true what they say that the
more you work for something the more you appreciate it in the end when
it's accomplished. Sort of the opposite of "easy come, easy go".
Also, thanks for relaying the information on TIF, slide scanning etc. to
help the rest of us along.
The pleasure is all mine! I learned so much here so it's only fair to
give some of it back.
Once again, congratulations!
Thanks! As I said, keep at it because there is light at the end of
tunnel! And - one day - it will not be an oncoming engine! ;o)
Seriously though, the best of luck!
Don.
