Railfan Technology > Sharing train photos with others

I'm sure this has been asked and answered many times, so I apologize ahead of time.
If I ever get my act in gear I would like to share digital images, plus scan in slides and negatives to also be able to share.
I know there are various photo sharing sites in the rail fan community.
Would it be best to simply pick "share worthy" images to share on various pages here like Eastern Railroads.
Have a URL set up here for me so that I can share up to 50mb's worth of images, which dosen't seem like a lot so maybe technology is used
to pair down a large image into something more manageable, or what.
Also suggestion on slide/negative scanners. I have a very old Dimage Scan Dual IV but it's not even Win7 compatible, though I have seen posts
out there on how to make it compatible.
Two flat bed scanners I have seen get good reviews are:
Epson Perfection V850 and Canon CanoScan 9000F MKII.
Just wondering your thoughts.
Thanks ahead of time.

Rusty
North Stafford VA
5 miles west of the RF&P mainline

Rusty, I applaud your idea! :)

As for your trusty old Dimage Scan Dual IV, it's _NOT_ guaranteed that the film scanner will never work again simply because the manufacturer-provided software driver is out of date. As long as the mirror inside of the scanner is not covered with too much dust (between uses you *have* been storing it in a fully sealed bag of some sort, I hope?), then if all other hardware factors are equal I'd say there's no pressing reason to blow a big pile of cash on a brand-new scanner.

Have you heard of VueScan?
It's a third-party software driver created & maintained ever since 1998 (!!!) by Ed Hamrick, for both film as well as flatbed scanners. VueScan's reliability and functionality are very solid. Point your web browser to www.hamrick.com and read VueScan's hardware compatibility list; it's gigantic - over 2,000 scanners supported.

VueScan runs on various modern AND not-so-modern versions of: Windows, Apple's Mac OS X, Red Hat Linux and Ubuntu Linux.

There's two different paid versions: Standard and Professional. Read about them in detail on the website, and decide which one offers the best value over time for your situation. A free Demo version also exists, but be advised that it will watermark the resulting images that your scanner outputs.

Consider using Flickr or PBase which are set up for photographers to show their work. Flickr and Google also promote the images that they have access to, encouraging people to come to their site to see more images.

A consideration is letting the images get out of your control, sometimes considered an abandoned photo. Copies of the image may be sold by third parties or sold into publications for advertisements or mis-representation. There is legal precedent, for example one prevention is the copyright symbol and a legal name on the image. The above mentioned web-sites have software to make copying more difficult by preventing using the right-most button on the mouse.

Thanks for VueScan info. I actually had that link in the past but forgot about it, so will check it out.
Sealed bag. Yeah right. I guess it's not a good idea to have my computer and camera equipment in the same bedroom my cats do their business.
And thanks for the info about Flicker. I always wondered, and I guess still do about images, even those posted here.
Some just show the image while some have their name around the border or in a corner.
I figure if the image is a small size you are not going to be able to do much with it. And even if you have your name on there, one could always
crop your name out. So possibly if your willing to put your image out there online, you might have zero control were it truly ends up.
Rusty

I'm running a Minolta Dimage Scan Dual III with Vuescan on Windows 10. No problems, and a lot of flexibility. With Sony gobbling up Minolta, there won't be any scanner help from that direction.

If I remember correctly, the "pro" version of Vuescan provides you with lifetime updates and is very much worth the increase in price. I put my railroad and other photos on flickr. There are some groups on Facebook, but searching for something there is hit-and-miss at best.

I'm at https://www.flickr.com/photos/74312783@N00/
Comments and questions are welcome.

It keeps the honest folks honest and that's about it. They can crop out almost anything, or photoshop it, but if it comes down to it showing the original with a copyright, where it was posted and the larger 'before cropping image' is the standard. But that's a big hassle so most publishers try to work with known photographers, showing your pre-existing website becomes your resume so to speak.


rustyr0824 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
... I always
> wondered, and I guess still do about images, even
> those posted here.
> Some just show the image while some have their
> name around the border or in a corner.
> I figure if the image is a small size you are not
> going to be able to do much with it. And even if
> you have your name on there, one could always
> crop your name out. So possibly if your willing
> to put your image out there online, you might have
> zero control were it truly ends up.
> Rusty

Thanks for the comments and grahamline I will check out your flicker page and maybe ask you some questions outside this loop.
Rusty