Perserving the Past...

[WDWFWfan]

Hi all, I'm currently trying to transition from film to digital. As a part of the process, I have several hundred (if not thousand) prints and slides that I would like to digitize in order to preserve them. I know I need a film scanner and a lot of time, but other than that, I need some advice.

1. Can someone recommend a good quality film scanner that will not break the bank? I will be scanning prints, negatives and slides (Velvia mostly) and I would like good enough quality to be able to produce prints up to 16x20 or so. I know I'll have to compromise some here...I simply cannot afford a $500-1000 scanner.
2. Is it better to scan negatives or prints? I would think that it would be better to scan negatives since it removes poor lab results.
3. What software do I need to clean up the photos, revitalize them, etc.? All I've used in the past is freeware like Picasa. I would also like a better means to archive the files than simply using various folders (Windows "My Pictures").

Sorry for the length of the post, but thanks for any help!

 

[rtphokie]

Rather than buying a scanner, you might consider sending your negatives and slides off to a service to scan them for you. For the price of a good quality film scanner, you could have a service scan a couple thousand of them for you.

 

[boBQuincy]

Nikon's "entry level" $500 scanner (CoolScan V ED) has been discontinued, leaving the entry level at about $1000. At that point it may be more cost effective to have your negatives scanned by a 3rd party.
http://www.pixmonix.com/myths/myth-doing-scanning-yourself.php

For prints up to 16x20 the rule of thumb (300 PPI) indicates you will need a scan at about 4800 PPI, which is quite a lot. It may be better to scan all the film at a lower resolution and then rescan only the ones you want to print at the higher resolution.

Either way, scan the negatives and slides as they are the first generation and will have far more information than the prints.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I also agree that it is probably better to pay someone to do it rather than do it yourself. Scanning well requires equipment and knowledge and both are pretty costly to acquire.

If you want to scan yourself and save money, try eBay. Just be careful about how the scanner connects. Older scanners use SCSI ports rather than USB and it is unlikely that you have a SCSI port on your computer.

If you do want to scan them yourself, you have a big advantage over sending them out. You know what you want. You have a significant amount of creative control while scanning (adjusting exposure, scanning for HDR, etc). It's darned time consuming, but with print film especially, you can do some amazing things.

Like Bob said, scan the negatives and not the prints. Scanning prints should be a last option. In addition to losing everything that was lost between the negative and the print (more than you probably realize), you'll also pick up print artifacts like texture from matte prints.

Another option is to do what most people do. Put it off doing anything about it until next year. And the next year. And the next year....

 

[steery1]

Funny you should post this at this time. I've decided to do a kinda family history photobook and give a copy to each of my brothers and sisters.

I've started gathering up old photos from all my family members and scanned some of them onto my PC just today. I just whacked them over using the cheapo printer/scanner/fax that I got free about 4 years ago with my PC.

To my untrained and easily pleased eye I'm pretty happy with the results. I kinda think old photo prints need to look a bit old anyway. Just how these will print onto a photo book is a different matter.Heres some examples...

After photoshopping. Cropped and some colour/saturation/sharpening enhancements
(BTW thats me in the sailor suit!)

Original scanned print...

 

[steery1]

After processing...

Original scanned print...

 

[11290]

FWIW: I scanned around 23,00 photos this summer while working nights (work in a guard shack on 2nd shift and nothing goes on but it still took around 5 months) and copied 2000+ slides. Made a slide copier to fit my Canon Xsi with a light source, etc., and took a "largest resolution" .jpg image and then cropped in Photoshop to get a final, large resolution image. Had about $15 in the total copier stand including a "daylight" twisty bulb for the light source. Will try to post some pictures of it on Monday. All came out very good although the Ektachrome ones from the 60's ended up with a bit of a bluish cast to them. Kodachromes did real well considering the age. Many were taken during my tour in Vietnam in 1969 and some were even taken with an Olympus "half-frame" camera.

After the first of the year, I will begin the process of moving all of them to the proper organization location and then doing "post processing" in Photoshop. Have done several hundred already and some only need some of the standard quick-fixes and others need some additional work to make them decent. I figure I will need about another 8 - 10 months to complete. Right now I gave each scan group a unique folder identifier and have the originals in photo boxes (27 of them) with dividers that have the same identifier. When I actually end up organizing them, I will move them to a new naming system and then use that on the dividers so there will always be the originals to go back to also.

Here is a link to a location that gave me the idea for the slide "copier".

http://www.pbase.com/lowthian/digitizing_old_slides

I made mine somewhat different as I wanted it mounted to a flat board so I could take it to work with me in one piece.

Takes a long time to do all of it but the results are worth it. After I organize all of the pix and slides, I will add all of the current digital camera images (around 30,000) and at some point, I will give each of my kids an external hard drive with all of them on it and they can add to it in the future to hand down to their children. Whenever anyone gives me a hard time about taking so many pictures I always tell them I don't take pictures, I take memories, and after seeing all of these, I have a LOT of memories.

Just my $.02

 

[My2Girls66]

I'm in the process of scanning my old photos then saving them to my computer, Smugmug, discs and external hard drive, mostly as a backup to my millions of albums. I'm not using anything fancy- just my printer/scanner/copier that I set to 300dpi because anything higher takes a long time, I might be sorry later that I didn't use a higher resolution but its very time consuming! I have LOTS of photos. I had gotten thru 6 years of my kids early years then recently switched to trips my family took when I was a teen and in my early 20's. Got a looong way to go. Its cool, tho. My brother, sister and parents can look thru our old trips on my smugmug

 

[steery1]

After processing.....

Original scanned print...

 

[WDWFWfan]

Thanks to everyone so far. It appears that this project is going to be as inexpensive as I had hoped and perhaps more time consuming as well. Anyway, after a little more research and some advice found here, it looks like a Nikon film scanner may be the way to go. Perhaps I can buy one, use it for a few months and resell it on e-bay without loosing too much. After all, that would be MUCH cheaper than having someone else do it for me.

 

[wdwwishes]

I always figure my time and effort are worth something. I'm in a similar sort of process however for time, effort and money's sake, I'm really looking at each photo and the event it captures then deciding whether or not to bring it into this century. I've also decided that the "professionals" are better at this than me.

 

[boBQuincy]

Slides are a lot easier to copy than negatives. I use a setup similar to what 11290 has, except mine uses a dedicated slide duplicator instead of a macro lens, and an Ott-Lite for a light source.

The duplicators are very inexpensive but on a 1.6x camera they only copy the central 63% of the slide. This can be corrected sometimes easily, depending on how the duplicator is built. For more information PM me.

Negatives can be copied in a similar fashion but there is that troublesome thing about fixing the colors.

 

[Groucho]

If you have a fixed number of things to scan, the way to go is to buy the Nikon scanner off eBay then resell it when you're done. The depreciation on them is pretty much nil - in fact, it may go up. (The $500 Coolscan Vs are now going for $650 or so!)

Your other option is an Epson flatbed with digital ICE, they have one for under $200 that is pretty nice. It won't be quite as nice as the Nikon but quite good, and more flexible (since it can scan a lot more than just 35mm slides and negatives.) It will probably be more reliable, too.

I would avoid the <$500 slide/negative scanners. From what I've seen, they're pretty much junk across the board.

I just got my Coolscan 4000 back from being repaired - I'll post more details in a separate thread as soon as I catch up with all the other threads.