"redtag" asked about scanning a "lifetime" of 35mm negatives.
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You've gotten some good advice, particularly about the importance of
archiving. Here is my 2¢:
First some questions: How many images are we talking about? How many are
Very Important, how many are Keepers, and how many are Losers? What do
you intend doing with the images?
As to resolution issues, this is a question of how large you want to
make prints. There is a (terrible) temptation to scan at your scanner's
highest res because you can and because you *might* need a large print
some time. I scanned my slides and negatives at 2800ppi (2500x3800
pixels) because I sometimes wanted to make cropped 4x6 prints and
1400ppi (1250x1900 pixel) images were occasionally too small. I'm not
entirely happy with the decision as I think 2800ppi is overkill for most
images, but I am very glad my scanner won't do 5400ppi so I'm not
tempted to do something really wasteful.
For all desktop scanners, their biggest drawback is the quality of the
pixels they generate, and nothing in the specs of a scanner addresses
"pixel quality". In the future, there may be significant quality
improvements that would make a guy want to rescan Very Important images,
but today's quality is probably good enough for all other Keeper images.
I wouldn't worry about having to rescan most images for any reason in
the future.
As to workflow, there are lots of options, just as there are lots of ice
cream flavors. I have a ScanDual III.I scan with Vuescan and save the
base scan as a mid-level jpeg. I then process the scan (crop, spot,
color-correct, etc.), save a full resolution copy, and save a screen-res
copy. Full res files are about 500KB and screen res images are 200KB, so
I can store all images on my hard drive plus archive the images in a
reasonable number of CD's. I have about 12,000 hi-res images in about
9GB and some 60 CD's of archived files. I have all images backed-up on a
second hard drive on my only computer.
When I want prints, I crop and resize the hi-res copy to 300ppi for the
print size.
Vuescan works very well for me. I have no problem with it at all.
I would not save files as Lab-color files. There is no advantage to it
over RGB, and it only complicates life. Except for color correction, any
use you want for the file will be RGB or CMYK. You can convert back and
forth between RGB and LAB until the cows come home and you will never
see any change in the file.
I began using Adobe RGB (1998) because I thought it was better than
sRGB. There may be a slight gamut advantage to Adobe RGB, but sRGB is so
universal that for most uses it is much more convenient. I recently
converted all my files to sRGB so I won't have to worry about sending
someone an Adobe RGB file and having them hose it by thinking it is
sRGB.
I file negatives chronologically and scan and save them by rolls. I
number and date each roll and save the negatives in sleeves (sheets) in
3-ring binders. I save an index file (from Vuescan) for each roll I scan
and make a cheap 8½x11 print of that file to file with the negatives so
I can easily see what is on each roll. For negatives, I scan all images
on a roll except the really bad ones and I may scan them if there are
only one or two on a roll as it is easier to scan them than to exclude
them. For slides, I edit the slides and scan only the Keepers.
I've tried several indexing programs (Portfolio, Adobe Album, etc.) but
have not found them useful--too much work for too little return. I can
generally find an image by doing a search in Windows Explorer for some
word I think is in the file name. I also have saved a copy of the index
file in a separate directory for the rare times I need to search for an
image that Windows can't find.
As they say, your mileage may vary, but this works for me.
Preston Earle
(e-mail address removed)
www.SawdustForBrains.blogspot.com
