Community Newsletter: Q&A: 12/02/05 Best advice for digitizing 90 years of photos
- 12/1/05 5:16 PM
TIFF files
by jamest1945 - 12/2/05 6:51 AM In reply to: Winning answer by Robert by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Good day Robert,
I read your reply and I am now a lot smarter about this whole project of scanning and image files. I am no stranger to doing this and have used scanners and various photo software for about fifteen years. However, I must admit I never save in TIFF format thank you for the valuable advice.
Terrific reply by the way!
Regards
James
iPhoto
by Awesomebase - 12/2/05 7:58 AM In reply to: Winning answer by Robert by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
If you have an Apple computer, I would highly suggest using iPhoto for storage and organization. It is a fantastic tool for tracking your photos. Also, you can add notes to each photo, a helpful feature!
In terms of organization, there are various methods, but one that is used commonly in ISO 9002 standards for files are YYYY-MM-DD_<title>_<description>. This helps for a few reasons. The first is that using this particular date format allows your photos to be filed according to their date (when arranging by the NAME of your file otherwise the date will actually be when you scanned it in, not when the picture was taken). The second is that it helps you search according to known criteria. If you simply have photos called 0123456789.jpg or .tif, you can not do a good search. However, with the aforementioned naming convention, you can search on a series of dates, names, subjects, etc. For example, you could search on "wedding" and have pictures with "wedding" in the title or description pop up for you. Also, with iPhoto, you can organize photos according to various criteria such as "Photos from 1945" or "Mom and Dad's 50th Anniversary" or "2001 Vacation" and include the same photo in any number of folders while only having one copy. There are plenty of other features too numerous to mention here, but it is something you should consider doing.
Editing movies (film) and photos.
by pscheck - 12/2/05 8:08 AM In reply to: Winning answer by Robert by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Robert: You should win the first prize, as your advice and suggestions were eye openers for me!
However, I am faced with a daunting task of transferring old 8mm film to DVD, as well as slides and old b/w photos. I purchased Serif's "Movie Plus" for this purpose, but as yet have not installed the software.
I briefly read the manual, and, frankly, I haven't a clue as to the sequential steps I have to take to get the film from the reels to the computer for editing and then to the DVD disk.
I know that common sense tells me to try a professional transfer service (I did for some wedding film, but too costly for the amount of film Ihave to transfer)but the cost is prohibitable (for me)and then, I like the challenge of doing it myself! Do you have any suggestions in how I can accomplish this task without frustrating the hell out of me? Thanks!
Paul Scheckel
C/Net has free classes!!
by katzie - 12/3/05 1:43 AM In reply to: Editing movies (film) and photos. by pscheckI just recently finished the free class put on by C/Net for doing exactly that!! Check out their classes site to see when it will be offered again. Must admit I have not tried it yet - but hope to get started soon - after I make an upgrade on memory to my computer.
Issues of Web Storage/Sharing and of 24-Bit Color
by battledp - 12/2/05 8:25 AM In reply to: Winning answer by Robert by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi Robert,
That was a very comprehensive answer!
Now for my first question: I've followed your advice in my own scanning ''adventures'' but have run into trouble scanning in 24bit color sometimes. When I try to edit photos, Photoshop says it cannot handle 24bit color images. Have you run into this problem and how have you handled it? I'm running Adobe Photoshop 7 on Windows XP and have a cable modem.
And here's the second question: I've created a website with photos using a free web hosting service (and put up with the ads). However, storage space is pretty limited on those sites. Do you simply post web-compatible (72 dpi) photos or do you post the ''real deal'' printable dpi files (in jpeg, I assume) and keep the tif files in local storage? I'd like a low-cost way to quickly upload files for sharing (ideally both printable and viewable file resolutions). What would you suggest? Also, does your family have any concerns about privacy? Do you use a password protected website?
Thanks,
Dianne B
Great info...quite usefull
by vojislav - 12/2/05 8:30 AM In reply to: Winning answer by Robert by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Just wonderfull information, for everyone! Thank you, Robert
Power Point
by Maxine - 12/2/05 1:02 PM In reply to: Winning answer by Robert by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Recently I began a project of scanning old (real old) photos into my MS Power Point, hoping to have a scrapbook type of presentation upon completion. With PP I've been including pages of what I know about these photos, on separate pages in between the photos... accross the photos if I choose and also add pertinent captions. For background, (over the photos on the scanner) I use colored materials (or paper), plain or wild prints. I have so much to learn about scanning and will reread all of these submissions to try and better understand my undertaking. I felt fairly confident of a nice end product untill reading all of these posts. Darn!
Many, many thanks!
by Boatswain - 12/2/05 4:54 PM In reply to: Winning answer by Robert by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I have been scanning and saving many old pictures and never really knew what to do. The info that came with the scanner was not very detailed and I was saving everything at the default settings; i.e. 75dpi and .jpg. I reset the scanner to 200dpi and .tif and the very first picture was a big difference!!! Thanks again!
Resolution and image size.
by deedplot - 12/3/05 6:12 AM In reply to: Winning answer by Robert by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Great article Robert. I have done several and used jpeg at the time and agree with you it was a mistake. The one rule of thumb is I scan all pictures at 300dpi as you do and make the target of size 8 X 10. This includes color slides. That way all of my copies have exactly the same number of dots stored.
Safeguarding those precious memories
by legacygroup - 12/3/05 7:31 AM In reply to: Winning answer by Robert by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Most people aren't as tech-savvy as those in here, and many who are simply don't have the time to scan all those old photos. I'm in South Florida, where Wilma wiped out lots of people's photos, and now they're lost forever. And when watching 60 minutes recently, a man went back to his home seeing just about everything destroyed. The thing that he was most devastated about was the loss of the family photos... the only things that can't be replaced.
www.legacyphotomax.com offers FREE storage for all your photos. They back up all the data every night, and store it in granite vaults in the Wausach mountains of Utah. It's a very valuable service.
In addition, they offer lots of other services, most notably the photosaver service, which allows those not-so-tech-savvy or time-challenged people to send in their photos and, for a very fair price, scan them at 300 dpi, post them to the free account, put them on a backup cd as well, and send them back to you. This way everyone in the family can have a copy, and they're safeguarded from every type of disaster!
legacyphotomax.com also offers just about every product imaginable from your old photos-- from hard cover, leather-bound books, to the proprietary "Movie Magic DVD" (which has to be seen!)... to holiday cards, jigsaw puzzles, jewelry, paint by number kits, and lots more.
And in first quarter 2006, they'll be launching "Video Saver"-- a service that will digitize your old VHS tapes!
Pretty amazing stuff... and a great company too.
You can sign up for a free account at www.legacyphotomax.com, and get your 5GB of free storage, plus 20 free 4x6 prints and 1 free 8x10 too. Check it out... it's free, and it'll protect your precious family photos, forever!
Scanning slides
by LDMatteson - 12/3/05 10:21 AM In reply to: Winning answer by Robert by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Do you scan slides by just laying them flat on the scanner bed or do you use one of the attachments that allow a larger image and what is the quality of the images made from slides?
scanner for sides
by masuk39 - 12/3/05 8:01 PM In reply to: Scanning slides by LDMattesonIn reply to the query about scanning slides, I bought a Canon "Canoscan8400F".
Scanning slides of course must be through backlighting and not reflected light, as you would a sheet of paper, and this copier does that perfectly. It will also copy film strips and negatives and automatically bring them up as positives.
I can only do for 35mm slides at a time, but this allows me to check each slide, correct the colour and remove spots using Photoshop once they're scanned.
slide scanner
by cesareDH - 12/4/05 5:52 AM In reply to: scanner for sides by masuk39I use a PrimeFilm 1800u which does an exellent job on positives and negatives, but only does one at a time. I guess I'm having trouble understanding how you could get good results scanning multiple slides at a time.
If I remember correctly, the PrimeFilm scanner will scan up to around 14,000 dpi, enough for anyone.
Slide scanning
by tjamison - 12/5/05 12:23 PM In reply to: slide scanner by cesareDHI use a Canon Canoscan 9900F, similar to the 8400F. The scanners are flatbed scanners with a lighted cover that provides the backlight for the slides or negatives. These Canon scanners were some of the first to do double duty as both a regular flatbead and a high-quality slide/negative scanner, as they provide up to 3200 x 6400 optical dpi (if I remember correctly). They can automagically scan multiple slides and negatives because they have a set of plastic trays that sit on the scanner glass. The trays have holes to fit different size media. Somehow, it knows whether and which tray is loaded and scans only the holes where the slides/negatives are mounted.
I am VERY pleased with the quality of the scans I got from my slides. By scanning at different resolutions, I figured that the most I could eek out of my 35 mm slides was about 12 Megapixels, which was at slightly less than the full optical res of the scanner.
Slide Scanning
by alos16 - 12/5/05 5:18 PM In reply to: Slide scanning by tjamisonThe way I scan my slides is with the help of my D10 Canon camera and an extension tube attached to a 100 mm Macrolense with a slide holder in front, It works very well.
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