Scan workflow

[dfoo]

I guess its possible that you lose both your backup and your primary at the same time, but the chances are remote 🙂 At any rate, I think my point has been made. Adding another drive might be cheap, but dealing with the consequences of that may not be!

 

[funkaoshi]

Don't jinx yourself!

I think with stuff like this paranoia is good. On the other hand, it's really a bigger issue for digital than it is for analog. At the end of the day, you still have negatives.

 

[Keith]

I scan mainly black and white 35mm and finish up with 50 to 60 mb tifs ... the keepers from the roll that I really like are copied and maintained as tifs and the original files in total are compressed back to maximum size jpg. If you have a sensible negative archival system it shouldn't be too hard to go back and rescan something if you feel the need!

That said I still need a much larger hard drive than I currently have!

 

[Bob Michaels]

if I kept all of the images from all of my color film, I'd need to go out and get a few more TB of disk space. How do you guys manage your scans?

You manage your scans by learning to edit. Not being a smarta** as editing is very difficult. I will not say I have really mastered editing but I am comfortable.

Face realities, probably only 1-2% of what you shoot is really worthwhile. You really don't think that you shot more "good" photos in 2008 that Ansel Adams or HCB shot in their lifetimes so you? The key is learning to determine what is worth keeping. And you will make mistakes along the way, just like everything in life. But do it (edit harshly and permanently) and learn.

Once you have a true manageable number of good photos then backup becomes no problem as it is such a small number.

 

[dfoo]

Don't jinx yourself!

I think with stuff like this paranoia is good. On the other hand, it's really a bigger issue for digital than it is for analog. At the end of the day, you still have negatives.

True enough... and as long as my house doesn't burn down! 😉

 

[dfoo]

You manage your scans by learning to edit. Not being a smarta** as editing is very difficult. I will not say I have really mastered editing but I am comfortable.

Face realities, probably only 1-2% of what you shoot is really worthwhile. You really don't think that you shot more "good" photos in 2008 that Ansel Adams or HCB shot in their lifetimes so you? The key is learning to determine what is worth keeping. And you will make mistakes along the way, just like everything in life. But do it (edit harshly and permanently) and learn.

Once you have a true manageable number of good photos then backup becomes no problem as it is such a small number.

Thats true, to some extent... I take photos not just for artistic purposes. Yes, I agree, those should be ruthlessly edited. However, lots of my photos are important, not because they have any particular artistic value, but because they are precious memories about my life and my family.

 

[Bob Michaels]

Thats true, to some extent... I take photos not just for artistic purposes. Yes, I agree, those should be ruthlessly edited. However, lots of my photos are important, not because they have any particular artistic value, but because they are precious memories about my life and my family.

Very true. I look back at the family photo albums my father did in the 40's & 50's of us doing family things as we grew up. There are probably 10-20 photos a year that made the albums from the time I was born (first born) to my youngest sister graduating from college. That seems to be a complete collection. We are all so glad that he and our mom edited so well.

 

[amateriat]

My Particular Workflow

My Particular Workflow

Here's how I go about this business:

- Take two processed rolls of film at a time, cut into trips of six frames, and lay them out on my flatbed scanner (UMAX PowerLook 2100XL, tabloid-size, with matching transparency lid); create a scan of each roll, roughly high enough in resolution to create an 11 x 17" digital "enlarged contact" print. Create file number for each file. Tweak as needed in PS.

- Make 11 x 17" print of each "contact" file on decent-but-not-premium-grade glossy paper (these will go into dark storage, rendering issues of absolute lightfastness moot). 11 x 14 is just big enough to do general image evaluation sans loupe, although in some cases I'll print up to 13 x 19."

- Evaluate contacts. Choose "selects" for scanning on film scanner (Minolta DS 5400).

- Scan selects at maximum resolution (5400dpi). At this resolution, files from a color neg or transparency clock in at about 210-215mb; b & w come in at about 70-75mb. This is where the "big" contact prints pay off.

- Number and save files. Archive on CD-/DVD-R if desired or necessary.

From here, it's almost ridiculously easy. It's easy to "down-rez" an image file, and usually a mess to "up-rez" one, so working with a maximum-resolution file means almost never having to re-scan. Need a smaller version of the file for the Web or to e-mail/FTP to someone? Fairly easy to do in PS. I've even created Actions to automatically resize entire folders of full-resolution files to one of several sizes/resolutions, based on the specs of various organizations and sites (including RFf). This is not only one of the cooler aspects of PS to know, but essential if you're dealing with dozens or hundreds of images at a time.

On other related matters:

- Here's one damned good reason not to rely on mirroring as a substitute for a classic backup solution. This tale scared the daylights out of me. Get yourself a swatting-big HD, and a proper piece of backup software (on the Mac, my fave is SuperDuper!, which is both effective and almost dirt-cheap compared to previous backup apps).

And, speaking of hard drives, you might want to think a little about server/enterprise-class HDs (and, no, "Enterprise-class" has nothing to do with this, at least not directly). Every time someone wants to sell me a 1TB drive for a little over a hundred bucks, I think about just how tightly-packed that data will be on the drive. And I worry: just how bulletproof can this thing be for a hundred bucks?

I recall a Bell Helmet ad from a number of years back: "If you have a $10 head, get a $10 helmet." Pretty much says it all for me.


- Barrett

From

 

[mh2000]

Because Epson scanners cannot scan at nearly their stated hardware resolution and the real resolution is about half of that, the benefit in scanning at full resolution and then down sampling is that in the process you average out the scanner noise and end up with smoother images without any loss in real resolution.

For my Nikon scanner I actually get close to the full resolution so I never down sample, but the Epson scanners are basicly crap... but still good enough if you put a big enough negative on them...

hopt that helps!

I have questions:

I read that people "scan at 3,200 and downsize to 1,600" or 4,800/2,400, etc. Why? Waht are the benefits? How do you do it? Can we keep the discussion to Epson scanners for the time being? I own and use an Epson scanner. Giving me examples from Nikon, Canon, Minolta, etc. aren't relevant. OK, the conversion to half DPI would be relevant.

Why are you scanning 6x7, or larger, originals at 4,000 DPI? Are you printing billboards? Posters???????????

Help me understand.

EDIT TO ADD:

Downsample to 8 bit? Simple. Convert to JPEG. They look like crap. They are smaller.

 

[mh2000]

PS If you run your Epson with Vuescan you can simply put a reduction factor on the output and it will be down sampled automatically... but basically, if you aren't going to learn Photoshop or something similar you will never be happy with your scans IMO.