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Community Newsletter: Q&A: 1/28/05 Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides
- 1/27/05 5:13 PM
Touch-up software
by skelem - 1/28/05 9:18 AM In reply to: 1/28/05 Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
You recommend Adobe Photoshop as a way to touch up digital pictures. I have Photoshop Elements which works well, but I'm getting tired of having to buy a new copy every year.
A better alternative is GIMP (yeah, bad name), which is an open-source alternative that is excellent. Go to http://www.gimp.org/ to download a copy. It runs on Unix, Windows, and Macs. It's free. Upgrades are free. There are a few books available. It does everything Photoshop does. (I haven't missed any features.) And...if you find a bug, you can report it and get a response back from the developer! (Compare that with Adobe & Microsoft!)
Found this one useful
by bertman714 - 1/30/05 1:56 PM In reply to: Touch-up software by skelemYears ago, when I bought my first scanner actually, I got a free copy of iPhoto Plus 4.0 with it and I've been using it ever since. It takes some skill and time, but with it I have touched up photos and even colorized B&W photos. I've used other products that say they can "touch up" photos with a click of a mouse button, but the results have been disappointing.
I am going to try GIMP though, and see what it has to offer, as I certainly don't have the cash to spend on something like Photoshop. As for the name, that doesn't bother me. I use a very nice paint program (freeware) called "Project Dogwaffle".
Tried This ????
by mykeemk - 1/28/05 9:22 AM In reply to: 1/28/05 Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Has any one tried placing a mirror shiny side down over 35mm pictures and doing a scan on the scanner ?
Would it work ?
mirrored device?? NO WAY!!
by higgie - 1/28/05 11:24 AM In reply to: Tried This ???? by mykeemkI have tried it... It looked terrible... so I didn't use any mirrored device... I suggest that you get a scanner that has built in adapter that will scan 35mm negatives and slides...
scanning slides and negatives
by oldgoat73 - 1/28/05 9:28 AM In reply to: 1/28/05 Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I'm still waiting for a scanner that you can stack slides in and scan them automaticly instead of 1 or 2 at a time.
I have 100's of slides that I would like to put on CD's or DVD's.
Scanning Negatives/slide
by Frosty59 - 1/28/05 9:42 AM In reply to: 1/28/05 Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
There are quite a few dedicated slide/negative scanners available, 3 or 4 close to $100. Having used a transparency adapter on a regular scanner, results were disappointing. I purchased a dedicated scanner a few years ago. Unfortunately there are no drivers for XP. Fortunately, I have a number of older computers that I CAN use the Parallel interface with. The software even changes wuth the mfr of the film you are using. If it is unidentifiable, there are generic settings. Let your fingers do the shopping on the net. Good Luck. BTW, I have a parallel interfaced Olympus Film Scanner ES-10.
Mike
Might be a Mac
by James Wojciehowski - 1/28/05 9:42 AM In reply to: 1/28/05 Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Just in case Robert owns a Mac Personal Computer, Macs have USB ports also and come with Image Capture software for scanning. Macs also come with iPhoto that will import the scanned images for annotating, editing, saving, and burning to CD.
Software Suggestion
by sedz - 1/28/05 10:41 AM In reply to: 1/28/05 Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Excelent,detailed answer by Len C. I agree that photoshop CS is the best photo editing program out there. However, like any great program, the learing curve is steep. I would suggest Ulead Photo Impact as the best alternative. I'm always impressed by Ulead's price point for solid feature rich products.
Cut Negs/Slides to CD
by boxpuppy - 1/28/05 11:29 AM In reply to: 1/28/05 Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
For scanning purposes you could check out photo labs around the area. This can get expencive depending on where you go. The Sam's Club in my area has cut negatives or slides to CD for 28 cents an image. I'm not sure about other places, I only go to my Sam's Club. I think CostCo has similar pricing. This can take awhile so the best thing to do is just drop it off and have them call you when it's done.
Jeff Anderson
Scanning negatives - more info
by Vannaman - 1/28/05 11:44 AM In reply to: 1/28/05 Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
In order to scan negatives, your scanner should have a backlight so it can scan the film properly. Some flatbeds come with the backlights built into them. Once scanned, the result will have an orange hue to it. Software meant for scanning negatives can automagically remove this; otherwise, you'll have to do it yourself. Checkout www.scantips.com for in depth information. (I am not affiliated with that website).
Tim.
Does anyone remember the disc camera?
by bigbird1967uk - 1/29/05 2:42 AM In reply to: Scanning negatives - more info by VannamanI'm not holding out much hope, but is there any way of scanning "disc" negatives? I've got bagfulls of them, and long since lost the prints...I'd love to be able to digitise them 
Re: Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides
by scottghall - 1/28/05 12:11 PM In reply to: 1/28/05 Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
I am going to have to disagree about using ordinary scanners for slides or negative work. I am in the same position, and my flatbed scanner had an adapter. But the results were abismal. Most consumer flatbeds only scan in 300 dots per inch (though they "emulate" up to 1200 dpi by interpolation). Even the more expensive flatbeds only scan at 1200 dpi.
A 35mm slide (or neg.) is just a little over an inch wide, and so you get maybe a 400 x 266 pixel scan. The results is a fuzzy pixelated picture that may not even be suitable for a web page, much less printing a picture. Similar to an old 1Meg camera.
If you look at the equivalent resolution of the silver grains in a negative, you're looking at approx. 12000 x 9000 equivalent pixels. If you want to capture any frames of old 8mm or 16mm movie film, the image area is even smaller. Therefore you want a scanner that gives you at least 6000 dpi for results with enough information to work with.
Another problem is aging. As you're film ages, different colors fade in a predictable way per film chemical makeup (the emultion and type used). Also environmental conditions such as temperature and humidity (and their changes over time) effect the preservation of images on film. Some of these effects can be corrected by software, but if possible, it is always better to get the information scanned from the film directly, so that you can correct for other problems that may be in the images.
Nowadays, you can get a specialized film scanner for only about $150, of about 7200 dpi, and with white-balance correction for different film emultions (Kodachrome, Ektachrome, etc.) and ages of film. This is about the same as a good regular flatbed -- you don't have to spend a lot of money to get a dedicated film scanner. And you'll feel much better about the results.
Re: Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides
by davidtayl - 1/29/05 4:07 PM In reply to: Re: Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides by scottghallWhat is a specialized film scanner, and how is it different than a dedicated film scanner? Who makes them?
Slides to Digital
by feline1618 - 1/28/05 1:26 PM In reply to: 1/28/05 Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Len C; Thanx for posting your past experience with modifying your scanner for digitizing slides. Sounds good to me I'll give it my best shot. I have some great graphic software to edit them with when needed.
Complete other approach
by vision4life - 1/28/05 1:53 PM In reply to: 1/28/05 Digitizing 35mm negatives and slides by Lee Koo (ADMIN)
Hi,
As experiment I tried the following for digitizing the slides.
I still have a very decent slides projector (Agfa) I have not yet a decent photocamera, but soon I will have one. Therefore I tried to project the slide with the projector lamp at brightest position on the plane white panel. The image looks nicely sharp. Subsequently I took photos with my video camera which also provides the possiblity of (only) 1 megapixel pictures. The first results don't look very bad. And this process is relatively very fast. However I have no idea what the result will be when I use a decent 4-5 megapixel camera. Is there anybody else who tried this method? Please send your comments.
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