[Leica] Batch Scanning

[lew at speakeasy.net (Lew Schwartz)]

>From your post I think you are referring to scanning a bunch of cut strips
on a flatbed scanner (essentially a contact))?

--Yes

If so I'm interested in this approach as it avoids some complications in
film positioning.

--Actually not, I encounter the same problems when I proof a roll of 35mm
negs in a wet darkroom. Sometimes they overlap a bit.

First, are you using a scanner with an extra  light source above the film
area (aka transparency adapter)? 
I'm assuming this is needed in this approach, but not certain, and possibly
it depends on other details of the scanner.

-Yes. There's no other way.

Once one has produced say a 300DPI scan of several strips of 5 or 6 frames
(negatives) each, I anticipate 2 issues-
1- variation in individual frame density/contrast/colour 

-- Yes the do vary, but keep in mind that these are proofs only. The same
problem exists in traditional, wet proofing & motivates you to be fastidious
about exposure.

2- ease of extracting individual images (eg. for cataloging, sending copy
etc)

-- I use ps to make small "working prints" via crop/save which I catalog
along with a .tif of the entire sheet. These can be corrected in many ways.
I cross-reference the wp's with the full roll proofs and add in any high q
scans I make of the one's I really like. After I get a cd's worth, I burn a
disk and remove the images from my hard drive. The software remembers which
images are on which cd's(at least that's my plan). Possibly it will include
a thumbnail of the wp's.

I know one can rescan, adjust and crop, and this is simple for a few images
or rolls, but it is daunting when there is a large backlog. 

-- Yes. It took months to digitize my library, but compare the cost of
sending them out. 

--I only rescan if I'm looking for an exhibition quality reproduction.

I'm trying to achieve the capability you would get if every roll on file had
a photo-CD with snap-shot quality scans- possibly that is not what you need,
but if it is, how have you handled the issues
above?

-- This is somewhat of a contradiction. Your neighborhood 1 hr photo
actually has a very expensive machine that enables him to look at/correct
each frame individually and then produce the cd. That's way too expensive
for me. My main justification for getting a really good scanner was that,
instead of $8-12 per roll, I'm down to $2 for process only, no prints or cd
for c41. Plus can I include my traditional negative & transparency work in
the same flow. The so called "photo-CD"s are usually a max of 600dpi &
useless for quality work.