Final word on the scans

Well, maybe not the final final word...

Back in April, I posted about sending film out to a service to get high quality digital files from our old photography. I sent about 50-60 35mm slides to Scan Cafe on April 23rd. 

Scan Cafe was offering the best price and the highest resolution. Resolution is important. A fairly high end scanner for consumers can scan negatives and slides (chromes) at a decent enough resolution for web use, but that level of resolution isn't good enough for greatly enlarged prints. A scanning service uses very high end machines that produce a resolution similar to current high end digital cameras.

In other words... Right now, we can shoot with our DSLR and a high quality lens and get files of 12, 18, even 24 MB, which can give us enlargements of 24x36" or bigger. (Provided that things like focus, subject motion, camera steadiness are done well.) When we looked at our old photos, we know that they are sharp, well exposed, properly focused. We used to send them off (or do ourselves) for HUGE prints. So we wondered, "Why can't I do that now?" 

Things is, we always have been able to. What changed was pricing and preferred format of the lab. To get a high quality very large enlargement from film stock today is getting pretty pricy. At the same time, we could upload one of our pic files from our DSLR to a myriad of places and get a low cost, very high quality enlargement.

That's why I was looking for a good scanning service. Many scanning services until now could give us the results we wanted, but we would pay a good amount per scan. Because scanning also often requires repair. Repair from warpage, color shift, mold, and lots and lots of dust. The new generation of commercial scanners and their supporting software make this much easier and faster. Thus, prices are lower. Large firms dedicated to scanning only, make it even easier and faster. The files I got back from my slides were anywhere from 10 MB to 22 MB. Of course, they were also sharp because of being created with proper photographic technique.

The only downside to the new situation is timing. From April 23rd, I waited until June 2nd before I could download my scanned files from the FTTP site, my finished disc and original slides didn't come back til June 18th.

Even so, I'm very pleased with the whole experience. The old chromes that I so carefully and artfully crafted all those years ago are now residing on my computer, on a DVD, in a back up drive, even on The Cloud. I can send a file of them to places like Canvas People where I can get the photos enlarged on a stretched canvas up to 24x36" for a reasonable price, sometimes even a sale price.

Final verdict: The wait is long, but the results are worth it. Rush orders are available. Next time, I'll try the rush service and report back to you all about that.

I'M SEEING STARS!

Always wanted to be a backyard astronomer but afraid of the cost or size of telescopes?

A great way to start is with a table top mini telescope. A modified dobsonian mount will not cost very much.

Check out this little scope! (click here)

When shopping for telescopes, don't be fooled by magnification factors. The real difference between scopes is the aperture and mount types. A larger aperture has more light gathering ability, so you can see fainter objects (like nebulae). Higher magnifications can even make your viewing experience troublesome. Too much shaking and being hard to find the item to center in on it can discourage a neophyte astronomer from continuing.

The simpler a mount is, the cheaper it can be. The scope linked to above has a very simple mount. Computerization of mounts can be intriguing, but be sure you want to continue before shelling out that much money.

Another great alternative for getting started in astronomy is a good binocular. I use my Pentax 10x42 binocs more than I do my telescope. Learning to brace yourself well will enhance your viewing pleasure. Check out this price! (click here)

Summer seems to be when many newcomers start thinking about backyard astronomy. It's comfortable at night, and we maybe are taking a vacation away from the city lights. It is a great time to start. Did you know, tho, that some of the best astronomy viewing is in the Winter? Cooler sky temps equal clearer vision. So, get started now. Get used to your equipment. We'll talk some more about Winter viewing in a future post.

Playing With Software

There are a lot of resources, both on the web and in books, to help you figure out how to use whatever image manipulation software you have. So, I won't be posting tips for ACDSee users, Photoshop Plug-ins you need, or any LightRoom for Dummies type stuff.

What I hope to do is to inspire you to learn what your program is capable of, so you can make the most out of your image files.

Let's look at a raw photo I have on file:

A nice, moody shot of a famous landmark, from a camera angle that is fairly unique (most Golden Gate Bridge pics are from above or at street level on the San Fransisco side). Nice, but it needs work to bring out all its potential. 

First, let's tweak that exposure. There is plenty of info in the file, so I opened up the shadow detail and toned down some highlights. Doing that made the famous red color a bit weak, so I punched up the burnt red color profile by re-sampling an exposure curve broken down into additive and subtractive colors (can't do that in any darkroom!) to adjust only that color. About a 5% add on the red curve (very slightly skewed toward yellow), and flattened out any blue/green tint. Next, the tilt was bothering me, so I moved everything 3.5 degrees counter clockwise. I cropped for a true 4x6 (usable in many enlargement sizes, too) without choosing to lose much. 

Here's the final file:

Now, here's one where I did more color work.

Original file:

This is the melt lake below the St Mary's Glacier in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. 

I first adjusted the exposure a bit, mostly lowering the entire value, and dropping out some of the non detail holding highlights. Then, I did colors. I enhanced the blue already present by sliding the vibrancy up about 10%, and adjusting the hue to a more realistic blue after that. Bumping up the vibrancy by itself would look a little too fake for what I was wanting with this photo, but can be a great enhancement for other types of subjects. Next, I sampled the deep, rich green in the middle foreground and applied its values to the rest of the greenery. (The distant trees are actually a bit blue/green because of distance haze effects, so I left those as is.) Finally, I cropped out some distractions on the left side.

End result:

The results in both cases is that a nice picture gets made a little more pleasing. 

This post is geared towards a natural look end result. In future posts, I'll go over some other ideas, including special effects and false colors. People will be another subject altogether.

Hopefully you are inspired to play with your own programs and image files by reading this.

Scan Results

The scans are finished. Now I can download them from the fttp website. Full resolution files were put up, took me an hour and forty five minutes at high speed cable internet speeds to get them. A DVD hard copy will still come in the mail.

What do I think?

I liked how they turned out. 

I am rather meticulous about dirt, dust, scratches, smudges, etc... but they are, too. I had my chromes stored properly, and I cleaned them all before packaging them off. A high resolution scan will show even the minutest amount of dust. So, I wondered how well these guys would care for the images. They cleaned them very well themselves, and applied the ICE dust and damage management system from Nikon, plus they post processed them to virtual perfection. So, no dust or scratch problems.

Now, the resolution. Certain old slides I had were taken with a mass market 35mm of late 50s vintage equipped with a simple anastigmat lens. The film base varied from the early 1960s version Kodachrome II to various european brands. These slides ended up resolving into 4.5 - 6.5 MB files. That's good enough for up to 11x14" enlargements.

Two examples (re-sampled to lower resolution for the blog):

As you can see, the scans preserved the tonal variations of the originals as well as their sharpness.

Now, let's turn to some of my chromes from my modern era of film photography. Using high end equipment such as Leitz and Nikkor lenses specially designed for the sharpest transmission of image tonality and resolution. And shot with highly disciplined photographic techniques used in my professional photography business and in my teaching photography to advanced students. Films used varied from the sharpness champion Kodachrome 25, to pro versions of Fuji, Agfa, and Ektachrome. 

So, you would think that those images would resolve into bigger files, right? Well, they did. Those slides gave results from 18 - 21.5 MB file sizes. I could easily print up to 24x30" or bigger from that size of a full file.

Some samples:

Web sized images don't quite do the scans justice. The detail, both in the tonal range and actual resolution, is phenomenal. In both the older images and the newest ones. I'll post later some of what I have been able to do with the higher resolution images and my image manipulation software. Let me just say that there is more than enough detail in the files to enhance to my heart's content.

Final cost per image, including the DVD and all shipping costs to and from ScanCafe, was a surprisingly low $0.77 per slide.

Verdict: High end digital scanning is very much worth it!