Sorting, Organizing,Scanning, Posting ... HELP!

[ekovisions]

Ok, folks, I need some help from those who have traveled before me.

I have about a two years worth of digital photos, and 10+ years of

negatives and slides. If I had to guess, I'd say I have about 2000

digital photos and 5000 negs/slides. Both landscape/artsy photos and

family snapshots. I'd like to get a handle on this collection, get

everything decent into my computer, organize it, be able to find it,

and post the good stuff on my own website. My own url, not something

like www.shutterfly.com/kelly.

So, my rather complex question is: where do I start? What do you

recommend doing/getting to do this? My big thing is getting the good

photos into my computer at a decent resolution (say, snapshots big

enough to do decent 8 X 10 enlargements, and some big enough to do

larger enlargements, maybe up to 16 x 20), fix em up, be able to

find them all easily and keep them organized. Also sort through all

of the old stuff and find the good ones. My time is worth money, up

to about $1000-$1500 or so. Beyond that, I'm going to have to do the

time thing instead. I already have Photoshop, GoLive, FrontPage, and

ImageReady.

 

So, specifically, anybody have any recommendations for: 1. Scanners

or scanning services to digitize 2. Software/system to organize

photos on my computer and be able to find them by keyword. And

track "original" vs. "edited" photos. 3. Any other tips/ideas to

make this whole process easier! 4. and then there's the website

component, which is probably an entirely different discussion....

 

Thanks, everyone. I know there are a lot of people who have gone

through this. Please share your wisdom!

[pmj]

Perhaps Philip's <a href="http://philip.greenspun.com/photography/photoshop-scripts/">Scripting Adobe Photoshop to produce JPEGs for the Web</a> can be of help?

[roamingstudio]

Kelly:

 

Im actually going through the same process as you at the moment - but started with about 3 weeks more notice. Basically from what I have discovered so far (and reading through PN)

<ul>

<li>Scanner : Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 seems to be most reliable<p>

<li>Software: iMatch is recommended, although picasa from Google (free) seems to do a good job of searching for files, and included EXIF and IPTC information<P>

<li>Hard disk storage is a big issue; if saving 16 bit (per RGB) TIF images then you will quickly run into gigabytes of data. Perhaps a network based disk storage facility is useful.<p>

<li>Monitor: if doing colour processing a good monitor is recommended; either CRT or LCD. Pick the top range ones and get a colour calibrator (see other threads on monitors)<p>

<li>There are automatic scanning services (at least one american company lurks on the forum) ; but prices / quality vary. Where are you based?<p>

<li>website component is expensive - especially if you have to pay a hosting service. Alternatively try to use broadband and serve yourself.<p>

</ul>

Hope some of these ideas help.. I must say I have not yet sorted out any of these issues myself... but am putting together some form of document to help my colleagues.

 

Marc

[ekovisions]

Thanks for the responses so far... I'm based in Dallas.

[stevierose]

I am sure that others will provide you with info about software and storage. With a collection of that size you will need a decent image catalogue and database program. There are many good ones out there such as Portfolio or ACDSee for the PC or iView Pro for the Mac. The most important task is coming up with a filing scheme that you can use consistently and makes sense to you, so that you can retrieve what you want later. All of these programs have the ability to generate web galleries that you can then export to your web site.

 

The digital files will be easy. With these programs all you have to do is drop the folder of images on the program and it imports them and generates thumbnails. Then you need to file them according to whatever scheme you come up with. The negatives and slides will take a very LONG time for you to scan. These scanners advertise 20-30 second scan times, but once you turn on digital ICE (to remove dust and scratches) or other automatic features in the scanning software the scan time can stretch out to several minutes per image. That is not counting the time it will take you to so a basic dusting and insert the film strips or slides into the scanner, and it is assuming that you use all of the auto settings on the scanner instead of tweaking the scans for each image. Most scanners accept carriers that hold one film strip or 4-6 slides at a time which means you will have to be present to keep feeding the machine. Some scanners (I believe the Nikon is one) have optional bulk slide feeders that will allow you to feed batches of 50 slides or so at a time into the scanner. You can save scanning time by: 1. Prescreening your slides/negs and only scanning the real "keepers", 2. Turning off ICE and other features (but then you will have to do a lot of "dust busting" later), and 3. Scanning at the lowest resolution you think you will eventually need (2400 PPI instead of 5000 PPI). However, if you are committed to scanning all 5000 negs/slides and you can be very efficient (say 2 minutes per image) thats 10,000 minutes for your collection not counting categorizing and labeling the images! A daunting task that I have also just started. I am also interested in hearing from those who have successfully converted a large collection to digital files.

[steve_bennett6]

<p>Hi Kelly -</p>

 

<p>Please check out the comments on <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00D5jO">this thread</a> regarding scanning a big collection. I think that it applies to your project, too.</p>

 

<p>I would second the vote for the 5000ED. Note that you can by a slide feeder for the 5000ED, but it is costly. Without it, the process involves a lot more handholding. Negative scanning is just plain painful most of the time. Getting a workflow down early is the key to success.</p>

 

<p>I also suggest taking a look at iMatch for doing your organization. It is a good package with most features you will ever need, including a reasonably powerful batch processor to produced scaled-down versions for the web/etc. or add borders, watermarking, etc. The interface needs work; so expect to spend a bit of time to get to know the package. This is probably the best ~$50 you can spend.</p>

 

<p>Tracking "original" vs. "edited" images is not a completely solved problem. iMatch doesn't directly tackle this. Please check out <a href="http://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/flow-catalog-compare.html">this page on Impulse Adventure's website</a> for a comparison of a bunch of different packages.</p>

 

<p>Regarding your budget of $1000-$1500. I expect that you will find that this is a bit low... even if you do it all yourself. In addition to the scanner (and slide feeder?), there are other "incidentals" that will end up eating up your money -- canned air to clean the slides and negatives (can get to be quite costly -- or buy a compressor w/ filter/dryer), a light box (really a must have to stay sane through a big scanning project, cleaning fluid and cloths, gloves, other software).</p>

 

<p>There are lots of decent web hosting places out there... but if you require lots of storage it will cost you a few dollars a month. E.g., Yahoo gives you 2GB for $12/month. 1and1 has 2GB Windows hosting for $10/month. I'm sure you can find cheaper (perhaps at the expense of customer service and reliability). Hosting at home is too much work, IMHO (unless you are a tech person who likes to fiddle with this sort of thing -- and understands all the security issues).</p>

<p>Good luck -</p>

 

<p>Steve<br>

<a href="http://www.pixmonix.com">www.pixmonix.com</a><br>

Professional Slide and Negative Scanning</p>

[pmj]

Quantity versus quality: when scanning an archive, sadly, you will have to concentrate on

quantity or you will never get the job done. I use the Konica-Minolta Dimage Scan Elite

5400 II and scanning four slides takes about half an hour. This includes the following

steps:

 

<p>

 

- select slides from folders, blow off dust and put them in slide holder

<br>- let the scan software do its setup and indexing routine

<br>- select all frames, select appropriate quick setting

<br>- wait four the scans to complete.

 

<p>

 

The setting-up part takes a few minutes, the scanning takes about 25.

 

<p>

 

I use the following settings: 5400 dpi, 8 bit, autofocus, Adobe RGB profile, ICE and GEM

(33/100). This results in 120 MB TIFF files, that need to be opened in Photoshop, rotated

where needed (all slides need to be loaded in landscape orientation, even the portrait

ones), cropped (a part of the slide mount is scanned along with the slide itself) and

perhaps leveled. Save as compressed TIFF.

 

<p>

 

For me, ICE and GEM are not optional. Despite apparently clean slides, there are still lots

of very small dust specks on them which are shown quite clearly at 2700 or 5400 dpi

resolutions (so: use ICE or spend an eternity in Photoshop cleaning up). At high

resolutions, the film's grain becomes visible as well. Applying a moderate amount of GEM

seems to fix this without affecting sharpness too much. GEM, on my computer, accounts

for just over 3 minutes per slide of the times mentioned above.

 

<p>

 

For some of my older slides, which I must now admit aren't terribly good anyway, I have

skipped a few corners by using 2700 dpi and no GEM. It reduces file sizes to 30 MB (half

the resolution/number of pixels in both ways, so a quarter file size) and makes post

processing in Photoshop easier. I guess I could process most of my slides at 2700 dpi and

be quite happy. The 5400 dpi scans do look just a little better, but it's not night and day at

all.

 

<p>

 

I will probably use software like Graphic Converter or Image Magick, or Philip's Photoshop

scripts to convert the TIFFs to JPEGs for easy browsing and/or web publishing.

 

 

<p>

 

I have been pretty dedicated to scanning as much slides as possible during the last couple

of weeks. I can manage up to 140 slides in a weekend, perhaps 32 or 40 on a weekday.

Note: that is just the scanning part mentioned above and no work in Photoshop

whatsoever. Obviously, I do household work, prepare meals and read the paper either

when the scanner is busy, or between sessions. Oh, and YMMV, particularly if you're not a

single guy like me. A significant other will surely not like this regime.

 

 

<p>

 

My naming convention sofar has been to include roll and frame number so that I can

match the scan with the original slide or negative. That means I have files called f0051

-004.tif. I am not certain if I should include a few keywords in the filename, such as

f0051-004-beverwijk-railway-station.tif. That would make searching with regular tools

easier.

 

 

<p>

 

I also haven't yet decided on which software to use. Maybe Mac OS X Tiger and iPhoto

would do, though I have my doubts about iPhoto. Adobe sent out an invitation to a free

seminar of sorts, focussing on their new CS2 products. Perhaps I'll go and learn something

about archiving, indexing and, most importantly, actually finding your images later on. I

hope it doesn't turn out to be a bunch of marketing blah-blah.

 

 

<p>

 

I currently use an Apple PowerMac G5 (single 1.6, 1.25 GB RAM, 80 GB internal disk, 160

GB external Firewire 800 disk) and I am very rapidly running out of disk space. I am

already storing scans on the external disk, which was originally meant for backups. I

should probably add a second disk and continue working, but it is tempting to upgrade a

bit more (more memory, perhaps also Mac OS Tiger, perhaps take the plunge and go for a

dual-G5 if it helps cut down processing times).

 

 

<p>

 

Finally, I bought the scanner on July 27th, 2005, which means I don't have a whole lot of

experience with it just yet. I think the Nikon Super Coolscan 5000 ED with the extra slide

feeder (50 slides) would have been better, but it was 1000 euro more expensive. I decided

to put that money into my virtual savings account for a digital camera. Perhaps I'll regret

that decision in a few months time.

[pmj]

And this is what it looks like:

 

<p>

<center>

<a href="http://www.photo.net/photo/3636305"><img src="http://

d6d2h4gfvy8t8.cloudfront.net/3636305-sm.jpg"></a>

</center>