Film scanners and software for a large scanning project

I don't know about hardware but have a look at Silverfast Ai. It can
run most scanners either as a stand alone or as an Adobe Photoshop
plug-in. It also has a batch function and a good selection of film
negative profiles that will minimize the amount of post-scan colour
adjustment needed.

<http://www.silverfast.com/>

Most of the time 'doing a scan' is actually spent adjusting levels,
balance, cropping, retouching, downsampling and saving. Photoshop's
Actions or a Photoshop AppleScript could be used to automate most of
these other steps (Perhaps Adobe Elements will also do this?) Also, I
don't have Tiger yet so don't know anything about "Automator."

Either Photoshop or iView Media Pro will create web gallery pages. An
ftp program is needed to transfer those files to a web server.

robert mcgonegal

I don't know about scanners but I can suggest the software: Vuescan. It is specifically geared toward batch scans and on our flat-bed scanners it has worked better than the OEM software.

Interesting conundrum...

A few thoughts: A good flatbed scanner that can handle large
transparencies would let him gang up a boatload of negative strips on
the scanner glass and scan them all in as a single file. That would
be a HUGE timesaver. I've used this same techinique with a (fomerly
high end) Linocolor scanner, which I can only assume doesn't exist
anymore.

Quality was NOT as good as a dedicated film scanner, but for low res
web-only stuff, it ought to be quite sufficient.

ImageReady can then be used to slice and dice the big TIFF into
multiple smaller images.

Epson makes very nice fast flatbed scanners. The larger your scanner
bed with this technique, the faster you'll scan because it will be
less setup time for each scan. (I expect that will be the harder
part, NOT the scanning speed of the scanner.) The limiting factor
here is money.

Any of their XL graphic arts scanners will do a good job, and also
have a batch scanning mode to speed through scanning projects. They
also have full support for ICC profiling (including software to
profile them) so you can automate a great deal of your color
correction duties.

<http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?
BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=47915743>

For a thousand dollars less, you can use letter-sized scanner the
same way. Just more setup time.

<http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/consumer/consDetail.jsp?
BV_UseBVCookie=yes&oid=335338>

For cataloging and putting things on the web, I highly recommend
iView Media Pro. It will handle cataloging excellently, it can be set
up with watch folders so you can save your pics into the right folder
and they'll be automatically cataloged, and it painlessly creates web
pages of your photo albums. It's a wonderful and speedy piece of
software that should handle this project with aplomb.

<http://www.iview-multimedia.com/>

Hope this helps,

Nik

Efficiency of scanning is a top priority -- not resolution.

What a shame! Possibly priceless images relegated to low resolution. I would have tried to convince the photographer otherwise or not accept the challenge.

He could possibly donate (or will) those images to the "Center for Creative Photography" and the University of Arizona, or any number of other repositories, where they could be properly preserved.

Bob Reinking

Just a few comments regarding:

The Situation Someone I know has over 2,000 rolls of film negatives (over 72,000 photos). I think most are cut into strips of four or five negatives. He's retired and wants to scan in the photos, organize the scans, and make web pages from them.

The Questions 1) What's the best scanner for his scenario? Efficiency of scanning is a top priority -- not resolution.

First suggestion: Pre-sort, pre-sort, pre-sort, and then look at the massive pile again, and start your second pre-sort for the project, speaking to speed and efficiency. This works best if some form of contact sheets exist, or the photographer is happy over a light table.

From this still massive collection, figure out how to categorize your pre-sort into a meaningful way for use on the web: a theme, a direction an, angle, a story, whatever, again, speaking to efficiency.

Then consider scanning. Then consider Walgreens. Their scans are certainly good enough for use at screen resolution (though quite grainy from color negatives, for "Blow-Up" old-movie fans ), but could be considered almost CA (commercially acceptable) for 2x3 to 4x5-6 inch use at "magazine" resolution in print. (and probably larger depending upon levels of taste, the total production chain, etc.).

Order picture CD's, with no prints except the small index print, for cost savings.

[I have no connection whatsoever with them, and am not fond of their customer tracking methods, etc. ... but ... never-the-less, re:"scans"...]

For 2,000 rolls at approx US$7 roll, you'd have a US$14,000 expense to scan and archive every frame to CD, but you'd have human readable, sortable, index prints--like miniature contact-sheets with which to work on the first phase of the project.

If you can begin to believe me* that even with semi-auto film strip adapters to the popular "semi-pro, pro" level film scanners (from $500 to multi-thousands, including the scanner ), you'd still need to budget 3-5 minutes per-frame as the aggregate handling time, so: 72,000 frames x 3-5minutes = 3,600 to 6,000 hours of time. That is a lot of time (think edit, think pre-sort), depending upon who is doing the figuring, a "full-time" job is 2,000 (40 hrs/week) per year (up to 3,000+ hours per year, according to a close friend, "if you want to 'prosper'."

So add the cost of the scanner, and hard drives to hold the scans, and even if the person values their retirement time at half, or a quarter of a minimum-wage, Walgreens is a bargain ... with the added attraction of the CD archive, and index prints.

If the time is no factor at all, even in fact a much desired use of time, and the project far more important than money, I'd still say, please at least consider the: edit ruthlessly/out-source the scan method. Having to pay for the scans has a wonderful clarifying effect upon your edits. You might even be surprised at how very good the real "keepers" are.

If you choose scan and archive it all, feeling that Extensis Portfolio, Canto Cumulus, or iView Media Pro (or whatever) software will help you edit ruthlessly and cull the best later, be aware of the potential costs of scanning and keeping it all (necessary perhaps for historical reasons), and also understand (I really don't want to sound this preachy, but, today, rave I must) that you have embarked upon an effort that will take years--perhaps many years--and may benefit from early foundation decisions, "wire-framing," and the cost containment (even if money is not an object for your photographer) that can be enforced by ruthless editing, and pre-scanning sorting decisions up-front.

I've contacted scanner manufacturers, searched the web and other discussion groups, and called scan-for-hire businesses for advice. The low-res part of the equation seems to be a big question mark for most people.

GraphicConverter and Photochop can batch process groups of files to specific lower resolution requirements, and Kodak's older but possibly still available PhotoCD format delivered five resolution choices (120x160 px up to 2k x 3k) for each frame, but held only 108 frames per CD, and the last I had done, a few years back, cost $15 per roll, if memory serves (3-rolls per CD), but were of a pretty high level quality (PalmerLabs CA, not sure they're still around in this economy).

Thanks in advance for any advice or suggestions on who else to try contacting. -Dave

...and, Minolta DiMage and Nikon Coolscan, are pretty good products, and the discontinued Polaroid 4000 and Pro series scanners are excellent buys. You may have to fuss with the software a bit. And always, it takes TIME to use these things.

You and your photographer may enjoy poking about at:

<http://www.luminous-landscape.com>

There is a wealth of information about digital image reproduction and visible examples of quite nice use of images on the web.

Just trying to help.

Later_Greg

(*photojournalist and then corporate/B2B photographer/illustrator, 20+years, not huge film use, but still around 300 rolls per year, sometimes 1,000+/- sheets larger format film/yr in the "busy years." Now out of that business for over a decade, so this advice with a grain of salt you must take.)

Photoshop CS 2 has a cataloger function called "Bridge". From what I can see, this is similar to Cumulus or Portfolio for individual use.

I have an older copy of Portfolio, but the blasted thing won't work on Tiger, and I'm not going to pay the $100 for the upgrade just for Tiger compatibility. I looked at Cumulus, which is much cheaper, and then read about Adobe Bridge, which looks like it'll be good enough for what I need.

But what I'm really waiting for is support for Apple's Tiger metadata model...

dave

I'm not a subscriber to Tidbits Talk, but I hope I can add my comments
to the thread for the sake of the original poster.

I have used a Prime Film 1800AFL, and find it ideal for bulk scanning.
It has an autofeeder for film strips of as few as 3 or 4 negatives up
to a whole roll. The software isn't the best, but it works. There are
some tricks to using it. For instance, I find the best setting for
scanning is not choosing a film, but scanning "raw" and adjusting the
colors manually, and applying that to the batch.

If he could get it working with VueScan (I never could, although the
scanner is supported) that would be ideal.

There are higher quality scanners from the same company. You can learn
more at this url:
<http://www.scanace.com/en/product/product.php>

The models I would recommend are the 1800AFL or the 3600PRO. The
1800AFL has a 1800dpi resolution and the 3600 has a 3600 dpi
resolution. The dmax (dynamic range) is average for scanners.

As for managing and editing the images, I would recommend
GraphicConverter. I store all my images in folders based on rolls and
the date. Since he is scanning work dating back many years, he probably
doesn't remember dates for them, so simply numbering them serially may
be best, or adding the film brand/ISO to help categorize them.
GraphicConverter's browser is an ideal tool for browsing the folders,
plus he can add keywords and captions and search them.

For creating albums, I'm surprised that nobody recommended the free
JAlbum <http://jalbum.net/>. It's Java-based I believe, but I've never
had problems running it on my G3 Powerbook.
--
-Jon Glass
Krakow, Poland

"If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough." -
Photojournalist Robert Capa