Pages: [1]   Go Down

Author Topic: Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides  (Read 8922 times)

glenerrolrd

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 65
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« on: October 29, 2006, 06:07:51 pm »

Long overdue I need to scan the family legacy collection of K25/64 slides.  These are all Leica slides  both M and R  taken between 1976 and 1990.  Over 250 slide boxes so thats 9-10,000 images .  I would love to scan them all so that we could have a digital archive.  My guess is that utlimately I will  want maybe 200-300 very high quality scans to print from.  I am assuming this is something I should do myself?  We have a nice digital darrkroom.G5 , Epson 4000 but no scanner yet.  I doubt that we would use the scanner much after the archieve is established as its all digital now.  Ideas ...what should I be reading?
Logged

Greg_E

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 113
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #1 on: October 29, 2006, 06:43:52 pm »

Assuming all those slides are mounted, you would want a scanner with a slide feeder. Probably one of the Nikon scanners. If you find a few images that you really want good clean scans of, send them out for drum scanning.

Clean them before scanning to cut down on the post processing needed.
Logged

glenerrolrd

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 65
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #2 on: October 29, 2006, 07:44:02 pm »

I have been considering the Nikon scanners with the slide feeder.  I read a post last year when a small studio was trying to do this .  The big issues up front where ..processing time and storage requirements.  I might have to first do a low res scan to get them organized into say 200 shoots.  Then I could create a pick list to get them down to say 2000 images and rescan them hi res for the family archieve. Then down to say 200 for the portfolio prints.  These could go out for a drum scan ..probably in batches. First I need to lick the volume issue and get the photos organized , labeled etc .
Logged

Tim Gray

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2002
    • http://www.timgrayphotography.com
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #3 on: October 30, 2006, 12:49:34 pm »

One option to just get them digitized, is what I did with about 600 of our family shots.  Made a cardboard slide holder held in a vice, used an extension tube on a 28-135mm and D30 (yes, the original - this was a while ago) and tripod, back lit with a lamp, did a custom wb setting, and just took pictures of the slides one after the other, as long as you're dead on parallel and framed precisely it works ok as a "draft" copy.  Once you're organized you can use a more technically sophisticated technique for the portfolio shots.  I believe there are also commercial holders that will do this, anchoring the slide holder to the camera/lens.
Logged

Julian Love

  • Guest
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #4 on: October 30, 2006, 03:29:28 pm »

I have used the Nikon Coolscan 5000 with auto slide feeder to scan in about 2000 old chromes last year. I found it works very well, never jams, takes about 1.5 hours to scan 50 slides.

Note that you will need to go back over each image to crop away the black frame and rotate to the correct orientation (all images have to be scanned in landscape with the slide feeder). Digital ICE does a good job of removing most of the dust.

Be prepared to use a lot of hard disk space though....staright scans in 16 bit mode at 130MB each before you crop the frame... about 110MB afterwards.

Julian
Logged

glenerrolrd

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 65
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #5 on: October 30, 2006, 04:39:23 pm »

Quote
I have used the Nikon Coolscan 5000 with auto slide feeder to scan in about 2000 old chromes last year. I found it works very well, never jams, takes about 1.5 hours to scan 50 slides.

Note that you will need to go back over each image to crop away the black frame and rotate to the correct orientation (all images have to be scanned in landscape with the slide feeder). Digital ICE does a good job of removing most of the dust.

Be prepared to use a lot of hard disk space though....staright scans in 16 bit mode at 130MB each before you crop the frame... about 110MB afterwards.

Julian
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=82937\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
This is my primary concern..lets say I only scan about half my Chromes ..thats 5000 @ 1.5hr/50 or 150 hours ....yikes .  I think the trade off must be to scan at low resolution or send them out which I expect will be very expensive.  The storage requirement looks bad as well be manageable ...130GB per 000...only solution looks like low res first ..more time sorting then scan to best quality.
Logged

bwpuk

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 64
    • http://www.barriewatts.co.uk
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #6 on: October 30, 2006, 06:07:23 pm »

Well the quickest way to scan this many Kodachromes is to use a flatbed scanner such  as a Fuji or a Creo, one of the A3 ones. You can scan quite a few at a time. The major problem in my experience, is that with Kodachrome you can't use digital ice to get rid of all the scratches and dust like you can with Extachrome or Fujichrome. That means hours and hours of retouching for any important critical images. I know believe me, I've got forty thousand K25 and K64 trannies just sitting patiently in their little yellow boxes. I reckon I would have finished them in about twenty years at the rate I'm presently doing them.

Also a major problem I've encountered with the bulk loaders is that thin cardboard mounts that have curved over time are a major cause of jamming. Ideally remount them in glassless plastic mounts, but again if you've got a large quantity to do this is a major problem, it takes time.

I'd welcome advice too on this major problem because I can't see an easy fix to the problem if you want top reproduction quality digital files from your old Kodachromes. Kodak used to operate a picture CD service where they would scan and write a disc with a maximum of 100 to each disc at a cost of about £1 for each image. These scans weren't too bad either but the maximum size was only about 17MB. I loved Kodachrome when I shot film, but boy am I glad I now use digital. It has saved so much time and I don't get the Kodablobs and scratches on my images anymore. Kodak used to provide them free with each film processed!


Barrie Watts
Logged
Barrie Watts
 [url=http://barriewatts.co.

wolfnowl

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 5824
    • M&M's Musings
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #7 on: October 30, 2006, 07:44:52 pm »

Quote
Kodak used to operate a picture CD service where they would scan and write a disc with a maximum of 100 to each disc at a cost of about £1 for each image. These scans weren't too bad either but the maximum size was only about 17MB.

If you and I are thinking of the same process, the output is (was) to a Kodak Picture CD format - .pcd  The only problem with that is finding a software package that will read them.  I have an older version of Corel Photopaint that will open .pcd files that I rewrite as .tif files, but a lot of software won't recognize them.

Mike.
Logged
If your mind is attuned t

Greg_E

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 113
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #8 on: October 30, 2006, 08:59:09 pm »

If you just want rough guide scans at a low resolution, you might want to get one of the cheap Primefilm scanners. The time issue is always the hardest part to find. And sending that many out for scanning would be a huge amount of money, even at $1 each if you could find anywhere that would do it for that low a price.

Keep in mind that drum scans will require that the slides be removed from the mounts, and ideally wet mounted.
Logged

Gordon Buck

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 458
    • LightDescription
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #9 on: October 30, 2006, 09:23:34 pm »

You might consider scanning at 16bit, medium resolution but using the scanner software to auto process and downrez to a jpeg.  For example, have the jpeg output suitable for making a 4x6 print or displaying on a projector or TV -- something like 800x1200 pixels.  In that way, you could scan them all for posterity, make prints and view onscreen - or make a slideshow.  This would speed up the process and also reduce storage requirements.  

After this first scan, you could view and flag the slides for which you want to make enlargements and rescan those later.

I use Vuescan software.  Vuescan will scan at reduced resolutions, auto crop, auto adjust and then save as a jpeg.  I'm sure other scanning software packages must do the same.

Alternatively, you could scan at the highest resolution, 16bit, save the full size file (about 130MB tif), process a batch at night with a Photoshop action that would downsize to a more manageable size, keep the downsized jpegs and discard the large originals (or burn to a DVD) except for the ones you wish to work up for enlargements.  This would be quite a bit more work but would give you a bit more control over the final (downsized) file and save having to rescan the best slides.

In your situation, I'm pretty sure that I'd use Vuescan to generate a mid-sized jpeg image of all slides and rescan, then hand work the better slides.
Logged
Gordon
 [url=http://lightdescription.blog

bwpuk

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 64
    • http://www.barriewatts.co.uk
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #10 on: October 31, 2006, 04:19:25 am »

Hi,

With the Kodak CD's I use Photoshop to read them so that's not a problem for me. I also use Silverfast scanning software for my 35mm Canon FS4000 scanner. This scanner is excellent and quite cheap now. I've tried a Nikon Coolscan 5000 and this was great too. For medium and large format I also use an Epson 4990 with Silverfast. The Epson is nowhere as good as the Nikon and Canon for 35mm scanning but excellent for prints up to A3 for the other formats.

If all you wanted was to catalogue your chromes for small print, DVD slide show use then I'd scan at low res and use a good catalogue software like iView Media Pro to control your archive. I'd then just choose the most important ones to scan properly as when you get the time. The problem I have is that most of my hoard are potentially saleable and I'm losing stock sales by them just sitting there. I just wished I saw all this digitisation of stock coming a few years ago so I was prepared for it when it happened.

Barrie Watts
Logged
Barrie Watts
 [url=http://barriewatts.co.

PaulB

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 2
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #11 on: November 08, 2006, 06:26:56 am »

Quote
Long overdue I need to scan the family legacy collection of K25/64 slides.  These are all Leica slides  both M and R  taken between 1976 and 1990.  Over 250 slide boxes so thats 9-10,000 images .  I would love to scan them all so that we could have a digital archive.  My guess is that utlimately I will  want maybe 200-300 very high quality scans to print from.  I am assuming this is something I should do myself?  We have a nice digital darrkroom.G5 , Epson 4000 but no scanner yet.  I doubt that we would use the scanner much after the archieve is established as its all digital now.  Ideas ...what should I be reading?
[a href=\"index.php?act=findpost&pid=82837\"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

For such a number of slides you could look at the BraunMultiMag Slidescan 4000 - which uses slide magazines with 100 slide capacity.
Don't know anymore than that about it - price, availability, resolution etc. - though.
Logged

ericstaud

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 396
    • www.ericstaudenmaier.com
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #12 on: November 09, 2006, 02:24:48 am »

What about using a slide copier attached to a digital SLR?  If you slid the images in one at a time and the process was easy, you could shoot maybe 400-600 images per hour (this assumes you are not changing the focus or the exposure).  You could set the camera for small jpeg, get the color balance close, and go.

Here is a slide copier for the coolpix 950.....

http://www.steves-digicams.com/happenstance.html

It would be much faster to get to 10,000 using this than using a slide scanner.  You would have to push the button 10,000 times though.  If the slide scanner's feeder let you drop in a big stack, hit the button, and walk away, that might be preferable though.

Here is a version of the Nikon SLR slide copying setup....

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardw...o/ff2bellow.htm

The bellows comes in several different generations... Pb-4, Pb-6, .....
There is a Pb-6 on ebay right now.  I think you specifically have to use the 55 macro with it though.

-just some crazy talk here
Logged

tived

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 714
    • http://
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #13 on: November 09, 2006, 08:57:18 am »

Hi

I feel your pain here, You have get to terms with that this is going to take time no matter which way you look at it. If not then it will take the better part of an annual salary :-)

Having just bought the new Epson V700, I have been impressed by its speed, it does a nice job with the colors but by no means perfect. Having used an older Imacon this one here is lightning fast...quality aside.

Apart from using bulk feeders, this one here doesn't get much faster and i agree with most here, make scans in low res and identify the keepers. You better get your DAM set up while you are at it ;-)

Please let us know what you end up doing as there are many of us here with large collections of film left.

Hope you get it sorted,

Henrik
Logged

CBBN

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Offline Offline
  • Posts: 24
    • Christopher Bain
Need to Scan 10K K25/64 Slides
« Reply #14 on: November 09, 2006, 05:13:08 pm »

If you want to consider outsourcing the entire thing, I could provide you with the contact info for a company in India that is scanning a few hundred Kodachromes for me now.  Drum scanning 35's requires removing them from the mounts, of course, and the quality is hard to beat,  not to mention the price there ($4.50 per).  I've handed them some of my work from the Philippines and China in the 80's and expect it back any day now, so I can let you know the results shortly.  If all turns out well I'm going to send them hundreds of 4x5's, B&W prints and medium formats that we've accumulated over the years.

I've also had them silo hundreds of memorabilia shots onto white, leaving the clipping paths in place,  and so far their work has been terrific.

Chris Bain
Photography Director
Barnes & Noble
Logged
Pages: [1]   Go Up