Scanning Thousands of Slides

Andrey Tarasevich wrote:

Frank Pittel wrote:

...
I was finding that sitting and watching the grass grow was more
interesting then scanning slides! I disagree with starting with the
"important" slides first. After those are done there will be little
to motivate you to keep scanning the unimportant ones!
...


You can always try scanning several slides at the same time! Meaning
that you just stack two or, say, five of them on top of each other and
scan all at once as a single frame.

Nope. Doesn't work. They keep getting stuck in the slot.

You can maybe jam 'em in 3 at a time, but it's still real hard getting
'em out so you can put in the next batch.

Kodak used to make a "professional" film that would give you both slides
and negatives back I don't remember how it worked....Obviously the film in
the

You sure it was Kodak that marketed that? I remember one company marketing
that type of film. The film was actually motion picture film spooled onto
35mm. I guess with that particular film you get negative and positive
images. I tried it once and it was okay, but I never stuck with it.

CJB wrote:
Currently I have thousands of slides from the 1960/1970s which I want
to scan onto CDs. The quote from Jessops - never the cheapest - is 50p
per slide - OUCH!! I don't want to have to rig up a projector and
screen and take photos one at a time. So is there a slide scanning
device - with automated feed - that I can connect to a USB2 port of a
PC - for scanning batches of slides say 100 at a time? Many thanks -
CJB.

Nikon 4000/5000 and V. You need to purchase the feeder seperately.

Automatic scanning of so many slides means accepting the scans as they
come. Usually one does a prescan to check the exposure slide by slide.
Most esp. if the films are of differnt kinds and have color shifted
over time.

And despite the scanning (automatic or otherwise) there will still be
cropping, sizing for screen display, thumbnails, etc. (which can be
automated in part in Photoshop).

Then you have to think of long term storage ... "gold" CD's / DVDs'.

Cheers,
Alan


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"Mark Roberts" wrote in message
news
William Graham wrote:


"Mark Roberts" wrote

I'd note that you probably ought to consider some automatic dust and
scratch removal, like Nikon's Digital ICE, mandatory for the number of
slides you are planning to scan. Manual clean up could take years! My
Minolta doesn't have this kind of feature but as I rarely do much
slide scanning these days, I can live with this limitation rather than
go to the expense of replacing this scanner.

Much valuable time can be saved by cleaning your film well before loading
it
into the scanner......I use a very fine artist's brush and a rubber bulb
air
blower. the more crap you can brush off of the film, the less time it will
take you to clean up the scanned image in Photoshop.....

Well yes, that's what I do, in fact. My Scan Multi II doesn't have ICE
or any equivalent, so I have no choice But it's a bit impractical
when scanning three thousand slides.

ICE significantly increases the scan time. If I have to use it, I do, but
It's much better to clean and scan the slides without it if they are
relatively new and not scratched up or covered with fingerprints. I have a
bunch of 50 year old slides (and negatives) that are covered with mould
spots, and some have fogging at the corners....For these, I use ICE and
anything else I can get my hands on........

In article ,
Alan Browne wrote:


Then you have to think of long term storage ... "gold" CD's / DVDs'.

No, an external HD. IT is amazing how many times one will have "found"
slides or film strips that must be included in already scanned and
archived pictures. And, for many archived files of pictures, later
taken picts need to be included. I tried DVD's for about a year and had
a lot of gnashing of teeth because there was no room to enter new picts
that needed to be in certain files.

--
There are two ways to spell Ockham/Occam. Britannica prefers the former.

no_name wrote:
Andrey Tarasevich wrote:

Frank Pittel wrote:

...
I was finding that sitting and watching the grass grow was more
interesting then scanning slides! I disagree with starting with the
"important" slides first. After those are done there will be little
to motivate you to keep scanning the unimportant ones!
...



You can always try scanning several slides at the same time! Meaning
that you just stack two or, say, five of them on top of each other and
scan all at once as a single frame.


Nope. Doesn't work. They keep getting stuck in the slot.

You can maybe jam 'em in 3 at a time, but it's still real hard getting
'em out so you can put in the next batch.

Sorta the same as those old 3.5 inch floppies. Time they got to
saying "insert disk 3" you needed a hammer to get it in there.

William Graham wrote:

"Mark Roberts" wrote
William Graham wrote:

"Mark Roberts" wrote

I'd note that you probably ought to consider some automatic dust and
scratch removal, like Nikon's Digital ICE, mandatory for the number of
slides you are planning to scan. Manual clean up could take years! My
Minolta doesn't have this kind of feature but as I rarely do much
slide scanning these days, I can live with this limitation rather than
go to the expense of replacing this scanner.

Much valuable time can be saved by cleaning your film well before loading
it into the scanner...I use a very fine artist's brush and a rubber bulb
air blower. the more crap you can brush off of the film, the less time
it will take you to clean up the scanned image in Photoshop.....

Well yes, that's what I do, in fact. My Scan Multi II doesn't have ICE
or any equivalent, so I have no choice But it's a bit impractical
when scanning three thousand slides.

ICE significantly increases the scan time. If I have to use it, I do, but
It's much better to clean and scan the slides without it if they are
relatively new and not scratched up or covered with fingerprints.

Agreed, manual cleaning is preferable... if you have the time. ICE
makes the scans take longer, but that's of no concern if you load the
scanner with 50 slides and to bed (or to work or do anything else).

--
Mark Roberts Photography & Multimedia
www.robertstech.com
412-687-2835

"Mark Roberts" wrote in message
...
William Graham wrote:

"Mark Roberts" wrote
William Graham wrote:

"Mark Roberts" wrote

I'd note that you probably ought to consider some automatic dust and
scratch removal, like Nikon's Digital ICE, mandatory for the number of
slides you are planning to scan. Manual clean up could take years! My
Minolta doesn't have this kind of feature but as I rarely do much
slide scanning these days, I can live with this limitation rather than
go to the expense of replacing this scanner.

Much valuable time can be saved by cleaning your film well before
loading
it into the scanner...I use a very fine artist's brush and a rubber bulb
air blower. the more crap you can brush off of the film, the less time
it will take you to clean up the scanned image in Photoshop.....

Well yes, that's what I do, in fact. My Scan Multi II doesn't have ICE
or any equivalent, so I have no choice But it's a bit impractical
when scanning three thousand slides.

ICE significantly increases the scan time. If I have to use it, I do, but
It's much better to clean and scan the slides without it if they are
relatively new and not scratched up or covered with fingerprints.

Agreed, manual cleaning is preferable... if you have the time. ICE
makes the scans take longer, but that's of no concern if you load the
scanner with 50 slides and to bed (or to work or do anything else).

Yeah....I don't know how to do that....Does the program save them for you? -
I guess it would have to, or you would be wasting your time....Can you
toggle it to save them, "raw", so you can clean them up later? Will it
protect itself if one of them jams? My KM machine is pretty delicate....I
would probably want a more durable machine if I wanted to do that.....Even
if I wasn't sleeping, I could use a machine like that....I could practice my
trumpet in the same room as it scanned, and just check up on it every few
minutes.......

In article , weg9
@comcast.net says...

"Frank ess" wrote in message
...
CJB wrote:
Very many thanks for the ideas and info. Many of the slides are boxed
new and probably not even looked at!!

Unfortunately there any many more than 3,000.

Its nice to see that there are bulk slide feeders - but only 50 at a
time. But I hadn't thought of the dust and cleaning issue.


"Only 50 at a time" does't take into account the possibility of refilling
the hopper during the process.

In any case the decision is: how much of your life and/or money is this
project going to claim? If you do it yourself, no matter how much you have
edited the pool and streamlined your process and made efficient your
technique, it is likely to eat you alive; if you pay to have it done, you
will _pay_, and aside from losing control of the adjustments, you are
vulnerable to inadvertant or purposeful loss of slides.

I still think the best solution is to buy the equipment and train an
intelligent "intern" who can work nearby for easy supervision, and at a
reasonable rate.

This is a good idea, and one that I have been considering too.....Perhaps I
can find some student looking for a Summer job. You could also give them
instruction on how to use Photoshop to remove spots and scratches....The
right person could make a living doing this kind of work.

How much you gonna pay, senor? You gonna geev me top dollar? I very
esperiensed with da scannin' ese.

--
Now with uploadable photo critique section in the forum
http://www.nikongear.com/

no_name wrote:
wrote:

CJB wrote:

Currently I have thousands of slides from the 1960/1970s which I want
to scan onto CDs. The quote from Jessops - never the cheapest - is 50p
per slide - OUCH!! I don't want to have to rig up a projector and
screen and take photos one at a time. So is there a slide scanning
device - with automated feed - that I can connect to a USB2 port of a
PC - for scanning batches of slides say 100 at a time? Many thanks -
CJB.


as an aside it would be easier to scan the negatives if you still have
them? film scanners have been on the market longer so are cheaper.


You know, now that you mention it ... they've never given me my
negatives back when I took film in to have it processed for slides.

Sheesh! the slides ARE the negatives, or more properly color slide film
is color positive film. sigh.