Is There Anything More Boring Than Scanning??

[Keith]

Yes it's like putting paper in a shredder. What comes out is unuseable.

There you go again ... sprinkling your negative fairy dust all over us again with your biggoted views about scanning!

 

[JayGannon]

Another thing I do to speed it up is all 35 is scanned at 800 and 120 is scanned at 1200. I consider them all test scans to look at and evaluate. When I find a few I want to print it is no big deal to go back and scan at a higher resolution for printing.

I do this too, and read a book while waiting for the scanner.
I scan at 800 I have a photoshop action to give me a rough idea of what the frame looks like (Does a curves, levels and color balance adjustment based on what film I'm scanning) then I usually print that as a contact sheet and go back and scan at high res what I like and feel will be worth the effort of a good scan.

 

[rxmd]

The one thing that is probably right up there on the tediousness scale is printing 1000 prints.

 

[erik]

I don't mind it. I don't see much difference between that and editing and processing a 1000 files downloaded from a digital camera. Or even making a pile of contact sheets in the darkroom. Any job is tedious if there is a mountain of it to do. Keep your eyes on the prize. With scanning I think it helps to pair it up with another task, like reading (maybe not x100 threads). Just like in printing, there are some creative decisions to be made in scanning, that can help make it more interesting. hang in there...

 

[Riverman]

I loathe scanning. Sitting beside the Coolscan the noise it makes is like sitting inside an MRI machine or having somebody work away at your skull with a pneumatic drill.

 

[antiquark]

I got into the habit of making a crude "contact sheet" by laying my negatives on a lightbox*, photographing them with a digital camera, then inverting the image. That saves me the time of scanning the whole roll.

(* or a laptop screen)

 

[tlitody]

OK, I gotta ask: What do you enjoy about scanning? The potential for Zen-like mind cleansing? 😉

The best thing about scanning is it's like banging your head against a wall. It's nice when you stop.

 

[Mablo]

I usually run a preview for each film strip and then decide whether there's anything interesting enough to do a proper scan.

 

[jbielikowski]

"hell yes, I'm gonna print it in darkroom asap!" <-those are moments I like about scanning.

 

[Steve Ash]

Since I do the ironing in between the scans my wife clearly prefers film to digital imaging.

Regards
Steve

 

[bigeye]

No, but Photoshop is #2 for me.

.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Anything more boring? Yup. Watching (expensive) paint dry, aka inkjet printing.

Cheers,

R.

 

[wgerrard]

Do you really have 1,000 worthwhile images?

Nah, of course not.

I use the scanner's preview function in lieu of a loop. That takes just a few seconds. Then, I scan something if it looks at all usable. Many of those don't go anywhere after that.

This is stuff from a recent vacation. Otherwise, a roll or two a week is more typical. And, I'll put an unusually high percentage of the shots online for "the folks".

 

[rxmd]

Anything more boring? Yup. Watching (expensive) paint dry, aka inkjet printing.

Watching wet prints dry isn't exactly exciting either, I guess...

 

[wgerrard]

Yes, the one thing that bores me more than scanning:

Spot removing the dust after scanning...

Now, that's the truth. It's got to be a wondrous photo these days before I'll spend a lot of time spotting the little dusties. This is a batch of Portra and Ektar and, happily, the lab seems to have left the negs pretty clean. I've got some b&w I'll do myself.

If I generated numbers like this on a frequent basis, I'd certainly use digital for all of it. I do have about 300 digital shots from this trip. They took about 2 minutes to load: remove card from camera, put card in little plastic card holder, attach card to USB port, copy files, remove card.

 

[andredossantos]

Of course it's boring if you are just sitting there staring the wall waiting for the scans to be finished. I always read, or listen to music, or watch TV while the scans are being done. That's why it's fun for me, it gives me time do whatever and as a bonus every couple min. I get to see the results from a roll of film (which is always a thrill).

 

[healyzh]

Standing in-port 00-04 watch in the weather office of a moored aircraft carrier in San Diego, Ca is FAR more boring than scanning.

That's the perfect time for striping and waxing the deck outside the office. 😀 Anyone bored while sitting in an office on the mid-watch isn't properly applying themselves!

Now Quarterdeck watch is boring! Thankfully I only had to do that a few times, as it wasn't a normal watch for my rates.

Zane

 

[Steve_F]

Scanning = Boring comes second to spending all night filling sandbags with Salisbury Plain chalk, under tactical conditions - no talking, brews or smoking ('cept when the PS cleared off and you could hide in the bottom of the fire trench for a fag) for GPMG SF OHP.

That was boring!

Steve.

 

[kubilai]

Since two years, have been scanning my archives (slides and negs).
Began by the more recent.
I am proud to say that today I started the job for 1994.
One day I will give my conclusion about Coolscan V ED (some TMAX strips are very reluctant).
[added next day]
The worst is Kodachrome (and reluctant black & white also) : since you cannot use digital ICE, it is faster : a good thing but you can do nothing else during a session: load slide, start scanner, undust next slide, unload, load...
Colour negatives are better : while processing 4 images strips with ICE, you have time to prepare numerous cups of coffee, read rangefinderforum on the browser, and so on.

 

[wgerrard]

I've just remembered that in college I knew a guy from Rochester whose summer job one year was to sit all night in big room at Kodak where they tested slide projectors by running dozens of them until something happened. His job was to notice when that happened and record the time and the number assigned the projector.

That's always struck me as pretty high up there on the boredom charts.