Railfan Technology > First slide scans: HELPFUL comments, please...

FINALLY got the new computer completely set up with two 3 TB hard drives and, most importantly, an Epson V550 photo scanner.

Attached are my first two efforts at scanning slides:

-- Both images are from Fujichrome 400 originals taken in 1988 of classic Iowa Interstate action.

-- Both scanned at 1200 dpi.

-- Basic levels adjusted in EpsonScan preview mode. Unsharp Mask and Grain Reduction ON for scan.

-- Post-scan adjustments included cropping and final adjustment of levels in Photoshop Elements 12 Editor.

They look pretty good to me compared to the original slides, but your thoughts on the final product? Any constructive comments are welcome. I want to fine-tune this process more before I start scanning whole-hog.

My professional photo experience was all pre-digital, so if nothing else I know what I don't know, hoping this group can enlighten me somewhat

Asbestos undies? Check.

NZ



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/14 01:30 by NebraskaZephyr.

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Okay, I suppose a couple of 400 ASA E-6 slides might not be the best examples to throw out there, so for compare and contrast purposes here is a scan of a 20-year-old Kodachrome from a trip to Ft. Worth, TX.

Same drill as the first two, except Grain Reduction was OFF.

Again, your helpful comments are invited...

NZ

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They look great to me,very nice scans!

Mark

Look good to me!

I've been scanning slides for 2 to 3 years. My Minolta scanner has digital ICE option, which is great for removing dust and some scratches. However, the scanning time is increased. I've recently been playing about with 'Neat Image' noise and grain reducing software. The free version works just fine, usually the default settings work well. This is superb for reducing the grain coming from the slides. Having optimised the scan in photoshop, my final trick is to run it through NI. Chris UK.

I have been scanning slides for over 10 years and have learned some tricks.

I scan at 3200 dpi and in post-processing crop and reduce to the size I want. That really improves the quality.

Let me speak to the second picture. The contrast is too high. The sky, even for a dull day, is over exposed and the dark areas, especially on the geep, are underexposed so a lot of detail is lost. The sky is full of dirt. And it needs sharpening. All scans need some sharpening. A good sharp picture really jumps out at you.

All three pictures have noise. That may be because you scanned at low resolution. But I agree, Neat Image is excellent for noise reduction.

Hope this helps. Good luck.

Marty Bernard

great pics man!

Have to clean off those slides before scanning--keep the scanner clean and make clean pictures.

I also suggest as Marty does scanning at a super high resolution--try researching archival standards for scanning slides and follow those.

Also, have the output format be .tiff not .jpg.

Put all your outputted .tiff files into a folder and don't touch them--no corrections or crops. If you want to process them, copy those originals and work with those. This way if you ever want to reprocess or what not, you have those origianls and don't need to go through your slides and rescan which can be nightmare.

Try to figure out a nice naming convention for your files. I put year first so they can be organized chronologically by name. Also try to add other info like railroad or town names to the file names so you can search them.


Just some thoughts. I scanned a whole collection of family photos and learned as I went. Made some rookie mistakes and what not but happily scanned at the high resolution and named them so they are searchable. If they weren't named it would be impossible to use the collection really.

Also, I think you'll find that having the rounded corners of the slide frame in the scan is actually a nice look.

sliderslider Wrote:
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> Also, I think you'll find that having the rounded
> corners of the slide frame in the scan is actually
> a nice look.


This is the only thing sliderslider said that I disaree with. My personal preference, and because I find a good number of slides need cropping.

Yes, definately keep your hi-res scans. And back them up.

Cleaning dirt off slides. You can always clone the dirt off a scan during post-processing. It seems a scratch or some dirt will get thru especially if the slide has been projected alot.

Marty Bernard

Okay, taking some of your suggestions to heart I re-scanned the second photo (the one that folks had specific issues with) with the following changes:

-- Slide cleaned with static brush
-- Scanned at 4800 dpi and 48-bit color
-- Applied the ICE technology
-- Saved as a .tiff file
-- During post-production in PS Elements, applied smart sharpen, noise reduction and gave it a little smarter crop.

I can see a difference on my screen, we'll see if you can spot any at 1000 pixels wide re-saved as a .jpeg (TO doesn't support .tif files). I actually preferred the saturation and levels of the first version...I can live without seeing all the truck detail. (EDIT: I've now added a second version to this post that to my taste best captures the feel of the original slide.)

Thanks for the suggestions, let me know if I'm on the right track, so to speak.

NZ



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/14 08:11 by NebraskaZephyr.

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Ok, I did a reply before but dropped it, so here are my ideas/ opinions.
1)ASA 400 fuji was not that great, esp the earlier version, you would be better off learning scanning with provia 100F scans if you used that. If you only only 400 esp on sunny days that is too bad. Provia 100F was THE film in that time frame (sorry KR).
400 may have noise(grain) and the quality is just not there.

2) get a loupe(magnifier) so you can look at the detail and dust on slide. Lots of my slides are not that great under scrutiny, they have looked OK
viewed quickly on the projector screen but not that great.

3) learn on a "perfect slide", well exposed, blue skies, shadow detail good, in focus etc, you need a good air blower like the rocket and an good brush

4) i don't know what you can do in elements but in regular P/S you can bring the scan into RAW and work with the sliders which is a big advantage
esp for washed out skies and shadows..

5) Again don't know what is in elements but you have to know how to use the clone tool and the healing brush(PS) to get rid of the persistent crap on the emulsion- slides have two different slides, on the emulsion side you have to be very careful, on the acetate side(shinny side) you do not have to be so careful

6) don't put information in your slide names if you archiving them, naming them specific is fine for specific use but not for archiving.
this not my opinion, database management 101, use folders or set an excel spread sheet

7) don't over sharpen, this adds noise esp in the sky.

opinions

bob jordan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/06/14 13:39 by robj.

>
> 6) don't put information in your slide names if
> you archiving them, naming them specific is fine
> for specific use but not for archiving.
> this not my opinion, database management 101,
> use folders or set an excel spread sheet

>
> bob jordan

Not quarreling about this point but what's the standard archival practice for naming files and managing them?

sliderslider Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > 6) don't put information in your slide names if
> > you archiving them, naming them specific is
> fine
> > for specific use but not for archiving.
> > this not my opinion, database management
> 101,
> > use folders or set an excel spread sheet
>
> >
> > bob jordan
>
> Not quarreling about this point but what's the
> standard archival practice for naming files and
> managing them?

Files maintain their original numeric sequence. Thus this information is not lost. The problem in naming files with information is it becomes very cumbersome to change and maintain. If you are going to put information in file names you don't want to be on number 7809 and realize you want to change how you are naming your files and redo 7808, even tho there are ways to make name changes. If you have 500 scans it probably doesn't matter??

Bob

I consider 48-bit color to be overkill. 24-bit color produces more than 16 million shades, which is far, far more than the human eye can distinquish, even after the best of cataract surgery. Even 16-bit color, which generates 65,536 shades, might be adequate for scanning purposes.

I think the color of the first is green and dark. I am also concerned that you may not be scanning at a resolution that will be adequate for quality printing.

Dennis Livesey
New York, NY

I am not really good at the scanning part, what I did nail was the naming of the files. When I went to taking slides I numbered each roll sequentially from the start of the year and then used the numbers stamped on the individual slides. It is not the best way but I simply filed everything sequentially. In scanning I would change the file name to fit the number on each box of slides. The Epsom automatically numbers individual slides in sequence. I had to be careful to make sure that the numbers matched and if I had a missing slide advance the number before scanning. What was nice about this is when I found the missing slide the computer program would automatically default to the missing slide numbers most of the time when I changed the file names to the correct boxes of slides.

There have been some great suggestions here that I will have to try out to improve scanning.

Have Fun

Jim

I use a Canoscan 8800F, scan at 4800 dpi to make a .jpg..

Clean slide before as best I can and run thru Lightroom..

bob in Smiths Falls ON

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I have compiled my own lessons-learned on this web page. It includes the steps I use and the software I have found to work well, for both color and black and white.

http://www.utahrails.net/tech-talk-photos.php

Don Strack

Don,

That's a very good compilation of your experiences as well as many of the discussions we've had here on the subject. The information should be very helpful to folks getting started down the long and arduous "scanning road".

Mike