Re: my website, scanning

[Godfrey DiGiorgi <ramarren@bayarea.net>]

>Beware of this site. It may lead you away from the beloved and into a dark
>and devious world of espionage. :-) Seriously, I enjoyed the pictures. In
>fact there is nothing I like better than putting a picture to an "e-Mail".
>One question. How is everyone scanning their images for display?

Thank you for the compliment, Alastair.

I use a variety of means to scan photographs. Some have been done by 
Kodak and delivered on PhotoCD, but I prefer having more control through 
the scanning process, and the delays are fairly annoying. 

I decided I was doing enough of it to warrant some "heavy equipment". My 
setup now includes an old Apple OneScanner (8 bit flatbed grayscale 
scanner), a Polaroid SprintScan 35E/S, a couple of inexpensive video 
scanning devices, and I just ordered a new Apple Color OneScanner 
(300x600 optical resolution). 

Basically, 35mm negs and slides usually come straight off the film into 
PhotoShop where I color balance, crop, etc. With a bit of jiggery pokery, 
I can even scan 6x4.5cm format in the Polaroid, but it's not fun. I chose 
the Polaroid over the Nikon on three criteria: 
   - it was a little less expensive (comparing 10bit models), 
   - my digital photography dealer's recommendation from his 
     experience with warranty service, 
   - the software was simpler.
I chose 10 bit as opposed to 12 because I rarely shoot transparencies. 
You only really need 8-10 bits/color to do B&W or color negative, but if 
you shoot transparencies you should definitely go with the 12bit/color 
models. Either of the Nikon or Polaroid scanners will produce very good 
results once you get to understand how their little brains work. They are 
very little brains. ;)

For Minox submini, and for some specific images, you are better off 
making a quality 5x7 to 8x10 print and scanning that for digital post 
process. An 8x10 print at 300 dpi is roughly equivalent in image quality 
to a 35mm negative scanned at 2700 dpi. A Minox 8x11mm negative is too 
small to scan, even at 2700dpi it's just not quite good enough, so 
optical enlargement to 5x7 and then scan produces the best results. Some 
images are difficult to scan due to dynamic range and the darkroom 
enlargement first gives you a better shot at manipulating a good original 
than going direct from the negative or slide. 

It's fun and just as time consuming to do as darkroom wet lab image 
production. 

My site will be updated on an ongoing basis, I've included a "next 
expected update" date on the photography index page, it will be 
approximately weekly.

Godfrey
http://www.bayarea.net/~ramarren