Recommendations please on converting photographs to digital

emc

I want to convert some photographs, most of which I have the negatives for, into digital format, and would be grateful for advice on how to do this, such as recommendations on a reasonably priced film scanner to do the conversion myself or alternatively a shop scanning service.

Thanks folks.

totalsolutions

Nikon film scanners not cheap >£600 Anything under this price and quality goes right down.

How many do you have?

Robin_T_Cox

I recommend the Veho slide and negative scanner. Available from many outlets, e.g. Play.com:
http://www.play.com/Electronics/Electronics/4-/3366352/Veho-VFS-001-5MP-Slide-And-Negative-Photo-Scanner/Product.html

aamuk

There are a couple of items at the moment at Maplin that you could have a look at:

Film / negative scanner
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=228759

Photo Scanner
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=226657

emc

Thanks for your suggestions.

I originally considered converting just a small number, probably a few dozen, of the oldest and most precious photographs from the family collection, which totals several thousand, so a shop conversion service may have worked out cheaper than buying a scanner myself. However buying a reasonably priced scanner may be a more flexible option.

From your suggestions, the photo scanner at £50 looks the most useful, as the oldest photos are the ones that I do not have negatives for. Has anyone used such a photo scanner and can comment on the results, particularly against the results from negative scanner?

peteb23

Some reviews on the ION scanner over on amazon - price is cheaper at maplin though

totalsolutions

I visited customers with high end pro drum scanners £20-30K stuff with operator costs on top. The best you can do is borrow, rent, loan a Nikon coolscan for a few weeks. Scanning a negative is best, but the negative is small and the details that can be lifted from them is awesome, this requires very good optics and light colour sensors.

A photo comes out well from flatbed scanners too, mine is (£500) but costs have come down, however if you cannot get the negative a photo will have to do. Prints are much bigger say 6x4 or 10 x 8 and the detail is at a ratio now of 1:1 whereas the negative has to be "enlarged" requiring finer optics. Afterwards retouching with photoshop. You are going to be busy.

Get people to upload their scans from their machines?

isofa

A good quality Nikon or Canon dedicated slide scanner will give you anything from 2500 to 4000+ ppi scans which will be ideal from your negatives.

If you are serious about quality, ignore the rubbish £100 scanners, they really can't compete, the output from them is poor.

I've got a Canon Canoscan dedicated scanner for slides and positives and the quality is stunning. If you compare the output with printed images from the negs the difference is incredible, the dynamic range and detail in the negs, will blow your mind!

If you have a set number, offloading to a good pre-press bureau for scanning would be cost effective, but if you have many hundreds and you have the time, investing in a good quality slide scanner will reap dividends. Remember you can always sell it after you are finished, professional quality equipment holds it's value well.

For local pre-press bureaux look in your local yellow pages, and go in and chat to them, they are professionals and can offer good advice and costing, if you want quality, don't take them into a high-street shop for a quick dirty scan, you might as well scan them in yourself with a cheap flatbed.

buglawton

Try scanning the prints at about 720 dpiin a £100 scanner, then in a photo editing program halve the size, then export/optimize and make file size about 150 to 200 K bytes. Using prints rather than negs excludes issues with dust particles or tiny scratches spoiling the images. You could sent 1 roll of neg off to a scanning service, then compare their result with yours. If difference is no big deal, do the rest from prints.