Off-Topic - Scanners

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john.quelinor

Sorry! This is obviously off-topic but I could do with some help and don't
know where to go. I'm looking for a transparency scanner but can't find a
group dealing with scanners. If anyone knows of one could you, please, let
me know.

In the hope that no one minds but some one may have the answer I'm looking
for I will give my problem.

I have, over the years, taken and collected about 8000, 35 mm., colour
slides of my family and now want to scan these into my computer and put them
onto a CD.

However, I don't know what DPI I should be looking for or if there are other
parameters I ought to be considering.

Because I'm involved in family history, my main intention is to keep these
pictures for the future, for my children and grandchildren but I would,
obviously, want to print and show them on the television screen, for family
use.

I'd be grateful for any help, off list, and apologise to all those that I
must have wound up by this off-topic posting. Sorry!

Kindest regards,

John
 
Because I'm involved in family history, my main intention is to keep these
pictures for the future, for my children and grandchildren but I would,
obviously, want to print and show them on the television screen, for family
use.
Click to expand...

I used an old 300dpi scanner which used a white light and colour CCD to
scan in some very, very old negatives. I placed a few sheets of white
paper behind it with "brilliant white" inkjet paper as the first sheet for
maximum reflectivity. At 600dpi (interpolated) it gave acceptable
results. This was with 35mm and bigger negatives as well as 35mm colour
slides. I tried it with some 110 negatives at 1200dpi interpolated and
it...well...it worked. A more modern scanner with true optical 600dpi or
better might do a good job.

When it broke, my employer gave me a cheap USB scanner (I needed it for
work) but it uses a tri-colour flashing scanning light with a monochrome
CCD. There's not enough light to scan negatives with that.

HTH

Dave
 
As in most things in digital PHOTOGRAPHY the WORD "DEPENDS" is often used.

I think that the dedicated film scanner ( yes it can be three to four
times the expense of a flatbed with a transparency) is a good choice but
DEPENDS what you plan to do.

For current display, 72 dpi resolution is adequate for computer and web
site display. If you or someone plans on printing, then final print
resolution of 300 dpi is needed DEPENDING on the print size.

FOR the greatest POTENTIAL printing options, a film scanner of 4000 DPI
would more then compensate for your needs.

8000 slides will take a GREAT deal of time to SCAN, ADJUST, and ARCHIVE and
CATALOG. Scanning is an entire learning curve all by itself.

Good luck and I hope this helps
 
On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 10:54:49 -0000, john.quelinor wrote:

=>I have, over the years, taken and collected about 8000, 35 mm., colour
=>slides of my family and now want to scan these into my computer and put them
=>onto a CD.

You should look at dedicated slide scanners. I have a slide
scanner attachment for my HP 4470c, and it works quite
well, but you need a machine that you can load with a box
of slides, turn on, and let work on its own. O'wise, the
time it will take may be prohibitive.

EG: it takes about 2 minutes per slide to scan each set of
4 slides with the 4470c - that's loading time, "warming up
time", and scanning. (The HP does two passes, the first so
that you know what it sees, the second to select and save,
etc.) That's 16,000 min just to scan 8,000 slides, or 267
hours. (And I'm no even considering the prior work moving
the slides around physically from and back to storage -
such chores always take longer than one plans IME.) Then
you may wish to annotate each slide, adjust colour balance,
etc, and group the slides into albums. Estimating 5 mins
per slide on average is not IME out of line for such a
combination of chores. That's 80,000min, or 1333 hours.
IOW, it's close to a year's work, full time, to do what you
plan to do.

And believe me, devising a file-naming scheme that will
help you organise 8,000 slides, and to make retrieval easy,
is no simple chore in itself. After all, what's the point
of having 8,000 slides on CD if you can't find the one you
want? Over the years, I've tried a number of ways of
identifying negatives and slides, and have finally settled
on film number + frame number. The film number is the date
of the last frame in yyyymmdd format, so that when I do
catalogue the pix in a database, sorting is simple. But
having catalogued a few hundred photos, I can tell you that
it's a chore - adding Notes to identify the pix turned out
to take the most time. As you may be able to tell, the
cataloguing project has languished. :-)

But it's your life. :-)

HTH&GL
 
Good site, much info. www.scantips.com

Bob


| Sorry! This is obviously off-topic but I could do with some help and
don't
| know where to go. I'm looking for a transparency scanner but can't
find a
| group dealing with scanners. If anyone knows of one could you, please,
let
| me know.
|
| In the hope that no one minds but some one may have the answer I'm
looking
| for I will give my problem.
|
| I have, over the years, taken and collected about 8000, 35 mm., colour
| slides of my family and now want to scan these into my computer and
put them
| onto a CD.
|
| However, I don't know what DPI I should be looking for or if there are
other
| parameters I ought to be considering.
|
| Because I'm involved in family history, my main intention is to keep
these
| pictures for the future, for my children and grandchildren but I
would,
| obviously, want to print and show them on the television screen, for
family
| use.
|
| I'd be grateful for any help, off list, and apologise to all those
that I
| must have wound up by this off-topic posting. Sorry!
|
| Kindest regards,
|
| John
|
|
 
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