Railfan Technology > scanning prints

Okay, its about that time to dive into the archives to digitally preserve my old pictures. I have a Epson 4180 scanner. What is the best way to make high resolution scans of old prints. Any tips, tricks, or suggestions would be much appreciated, and besides, its a win/win situation. I learn how to scan prints, then I get to post them in the nostalgia board for all to enjoy!
Thanks in advance!

DoctorEvil
- Justin Englert
Summerville, SC

"Come on throw me a frickin' bone here, I'm the boss, need the info..."

If you've got the original negatives, that's the way to go as far as scanning. Scanned prints will never be near the quality of scanning the original - take that from someone who did the same thing about eight years ago, and then wound up redoing it all with a real slide scanner. Print paper (at least the usual consumer-grade stuff) just doesn't have the resolution. Plus, you've then made two analog copies, and you've lost information from the negative to the print, and then from the print to the scanner.

Barring that, scanning prints is obviously better than scanning nothing. Prints (particularly color ones) do age rather poorly, so getting them into digital form now will pay off. My recommendation would be to scan at ~300dpi, 24 bit color, and save as a TIFF or PNG (ideal, since both are lossless and well-supported) or as a very high quality JPEG (lossy, but as long as the image is big enough and your quality is set high enough, it'll be adequate)

Nathan
http://www.drgw.net

I have 3 rolls of prints taken on a NS Steam Excursion trip behind 4-8-4 #611 that I took in 1993 that are sitting in an album in the basement. The negatives disappeared long ago so all I have is the one set of prints, I intend to get them into digital format soon, as I want to start a new section on my web site for non-Amtrak excursions, I have an Epson Perfection 4490 Photo scanner which is absolutely phenomenal with slides so I can only hope these prints are as good if not even better than the original with a little "Photoshoping".

Speaking of that 611 trip, does this look familiar? I have been trying to find someone who can identify the location.

Barry Stone

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poffcapt Wrote:
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> Speaking of that 611 trip, does this look
> familiar? I have been trying to find someone who
> can identify the location.
>
> Barry Stone


Were you on that trip? August 7th, 1993, Buffalo To Conneaut, OH, "The Lake Erie Limited"??? I rode in First Class with 2 buddies at the time, though I was in what they called a "cubicle", which was a room in a sleeping car that had seating for 5, and the other 4 people were old enough to be my Grandparents, and I was this 15 year-old kid! (At the time), I'll never forget that trip, sorry I can't identify that location but it's a good shot!