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Photo Forum / Digital Photography / DSLR Cameras / August 2006Slightly OT: Converting old Photographs to Digital
This is slightly off-topic here, so apologies if there's a better group to ask this question. I've a number of old photographs spanning some 25-30 years that I'd like to scan in and keep as digital images. I have a Fujitsu fi-4120c that I've tried this on already but the results aren't that good. The scanner has a tendency to place scan lines on the image and the image quality itself isn't that good. I've come to conclusion that I may be better off getting a decent flatbed scanner where the photograph stays static and the scan head moves rather then the other way around. Does anyone have any recommendations for a scanner that creates good quality image scans from photographs? The scanner must be at least A4 in size and be capable of 48bit colour and at least 1200dpi optical scanning resolution. Is it worth getting a scanner with a firewire interface as well as USB 2.  SignatureRegards, JasonB To reply replace NoSpam4me with blueyonder > This is slightly off-topic here, so apologies if there's a better group > to ask this question. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > scanning resolution. Is it worth getting a scanner with a firewire > interface as well as USB 2. Almost any modern scanner will do what you want, a mid-range Canon or Epson would be fine. I think your specs of 48-bit colour and 1200 dpi are rather excessive for copying paper photographs. A 1200 dpi scan of a 6x4 print will return a massive image of over 34 megapixels. At 48-bit colour - thats 2 bytes per primary colour, or 6 bytes per pixel, your file will be over 200 megabytes. The best color paper will resolve only 200 - 300 dpi at best; and the colour depth will be nowhere near 48 bits - it was in all probability printed from a 24-bit image to start with. So a more realistic scan would be 300 dpi at 24-bit colour; even at that, you're looking at almost 6.5 megapixels (uncompressed) for a 6x4 print. As a high-quality jpeg the file would be about a megabyte or a little over, which is more reasonable. Colin D. SignaturePosted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com <snip> > Almost any modern scanner will do what you want, a mid-range Canon or > Epson would be fine. [quoted text clipped - 4 lines] > 2 bytes per primary colour, or 6 bytes per pixel, your file will be over > 200 megabytes. In terms of specs I wasn't sure what to look for in terms of Photo scanning. As I mentioned I have the fi4120c which is more aimed at document scanning and goes up to 600dpi which is far higher then most people need for normal documents. Reading the reviews of a lot of scanners and checking the manufacturers websites, it's difficult to know where to start as most scanners provide at least 1,200dpi these days with the more expensive scanners going all the way up to 9,600dpi for consumer scanners. > The best color paper will resolve only 200 - 300 dpi at best; and the > colour depth will be nowhere near 48 bits - it was in all probability > printed from a 24-bit image to start with. Ah OK, I wasn't aware of that, so I've learnt something new today ;-) > So a more realistic scan > would be 300 dpi at 24-bit colour; even at that, you're looking at > almost 6.5 megapixels (uncompressed) for a 6x4 print. As a high-quality > jpeg the file would be about a megabyte or a little over, which is more > reasonable. That sounds about right. Some of the photo's I have (or more accurately my wife has) are black & white so file sizes will probably be a little smaller. Thanks for your input, I just need to decide on a scanner model now. SignatureRegards, JasonB To reply replace NoSpam4me with blueyonder > Does anyone have any recommendations for a scanner that creates good > quality image scans from photographs? The scanner must be at least A4 > in size and be capable of 48bit colour and at least 1200dpi optical > scanning resolution. Is it worth getting a scanner with a firewire > interface as well as USB 2. Any reasonable quality flatbed from recognized brands will do the job handilly. Scanning the very best, sharpest, B&W prints runs out at about 400 dpi. Scanning at higher dpi is not useful. The very best/sharpest, glossy, color print runs out at about 300 dpi. Scanning at higher dpi is not useful. The color depth of a color print is quite narrow, so high bit color is not all that useful. 36 bits is more than adequate; for that matter 24 bits is too. USB/Firewire: one or the other should do fine. A firewire machine might be faster by as much as 50 to 100%. www.scantips.com is a good learning resource. Cheers, Alan. Signature-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm -- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm -- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin -- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch. I have a Epson Perfection Photo, which got good write-ups and seems very good to me. It also has attachments to scan negatives and colour slides, though a dedicated scanner might be better if you do a lot of those. Mine is old and the model number is 1200, but I've also seen good reviews of more recent ones. Peter Brunning > Does anyone have any recommendations for a scanner that creates good > quality image scans from photographs? >I have a Epson Perfection Photo, which got good write-ups and seems very >good to me. It also has attachments to scan negatives and colour slides, [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] >> Does anyone have any recommendations for a scanner that creates good >> quality image scans from photographs? I use an Epson perfection 4490 Photo. It not only can scan photos but negatives as well. If you have the negatives from the photos it's better to scan those. The results of the 4490 are perfect (in my opinion). I had some very damaged negatieves and scanned them using digital ICE. Perfect! Scanning photos goes quick. But a 35mm film with 36 negatives will cost me an hour. I have still hundreds of films to go :( TFD > This is slightly off-topic here, so apologies if there's a better group > to ask this question. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > scanning resolution. Is it worth getting a scanner with a firewire > interface as well as USB 2. Thanks all for your comments, I think my search will be narrowed down to a couple of Canon CanoScans or Epson Perfection scanners. SignatureRegards, JasonB To reply replace NoSpam4me with blueyonder >> This is slightly off-topic here, so apologies if there's a better >> group to ask this question. [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > Thanks all for your comments, I think my search will be narrowed down to > a couple of Canon CanoScans or Epson Perfection scanners. If want the best bang for the buck, in my opinion you can't go wrong with the Canon 8400F. Newegg has it for $121.75 right now. (See link) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16838111118 I used this model for happily for quite a while for both prints and medium/large format negatives. Have since moved on to an Epson v700, but that would be overkill for your purpose I think. Hope this helps, Dave >> This is slightly off-topic here, so apologies if there's a better >> group to ask this question. [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > Thanks all for your comments, I think my search will be narrowed down to > a couple of Canon CanoScans or Epson Perfection scanners. Jason, I forgot to mention that if you may want to print 4x6 larger than the original, scanning at 600 ppi isn't a bad idea. Dave > I forgot to mention that if you may want to print 4x6 larger than the > original, scanning at 600 ppi isn't a bad idea. Except you won't get any additional detail beyond 300 dpi (from a color print). >> I forgot to mention that if you may want to print 4x6 larger than the >> original, scanning at 600 ppi isn't a bad idea. > > Except you won't get any additional detail beyond 300 dpi (from a color > print). Another reason (which I neglected to mention) I want to get a scanner is to scan the medium format negatives provided to us by the company that did our wedding photographs. We booked our wedding photographs last year with a company that has since decided to quit the wedding photography market and consequently has offered all of their customers the negatives and complete rights to the photographs. What I'd like to do, in addition to scanning in our old photographs, is to convert these negatives into digital pictures, so in this case the extra dpi offered by a good scanner would be useful. SignatureRegards, JasonB To reply replace NoSpam4me with blueyonder >> Except you won't get any additional detail beyond 300 dpi (from a >> color print). [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > to convert these negatives into digital pictures, so in this case the > extra dpi offered by a good scanner would be useful. I wasn't suggesting that you needed to find a 300 dpi maximum scanner; but rather that scanning above 300 dpi (color print) or 400 dpi (B&W print) would be fruitless. For MF/LF negatives/slides, the Epson 4990 will do a decent job, and if the negatives are 120/220 format then a higher end scanner such as a Nikon 8000 or 9000 would get the most detail in a "home" film scanner. (Will not scan prints, however). Lot's of $'s in this case ($1,850 at B&H for the 9000 ED). Beyond that, drum scanners can be bought for a lot more $'s. Cheers, Alan. Signature-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm -- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm -- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin -- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch. <snip> > I wasn't suggesting that you needed to find a 300 dpi maximum scanner; > but rather that scanning above 300 dpi (color print) or 400 dpi (B&W > print) would be fruitless. No I realise that and I haven't seen a scanner that does anything less then 1200dpi in my searches anyway. Your point about scanning above 300dpi for prints though is taken, the only purpose it would serve (as I see it) is to chew up additional disk space. > For MF/LF negatives/slides, the Epson 4990 will do a decent job, and if > the negatives are 120/220 format then a higher end scanner such as a > Nikon 8000 or 9000 would get the most detail in a "home" film scanner. > (Will not scan prints, however). Lot's of $'s in this case ($1,850 at > B&H for the 9000 ED). Beyond that, drum scanners can be bought for a > lot more $'s. $1800, wow! I know scanners can be expensive, however I'm not looking to run a business out of this purchase and besides which my budget will a little lower then that, like up to around £200 ($300-$350) range. Thanks again! SignatureRegards, JasonB To reply replace NoSpam4me with blueyonder >> This is slightly off-topic here, so apologies if there's a better >> group to ask this question. [quoted text clipped - 18 lines] > Thanks all for your comments, I think my search will be narrowed down to > a couple of Canon CanoScans or Epson Perfection scanners. Well, I've done it! I went out and bought an Epson Perfection 4490 Photo scanner today. So far I'm quite impressed with it abilities. I particularly like the flexibility it offers with all of the adapters that get included in the box. I've scanned in a couple of medium format negatives and the quality is superb. The only downside is that the adapter only holds 2 medium format negatives and a single scan on two frames is taking around 8 minutes at 1200dpi. What I'm finding now though is that my computer seems to be memory bound, not that I'm surprised by that, just that I was hoping having 1GB of RAM would provide enough working memory. I'm wondering now if maybe I should upgrade the RAM to 2GB? Any thoughts on that? SignatureRegards, JasonB To reply replace NoSpam4me with blueyonder I bought a Canon 8400F earlier this year and have been scanning slides and prints and have had excellent results, the software that came with it is very good and easy to use. > This is slightly off-topic here, so apologies if there's a better group to > ask this question. [quoted text clipped - 15 lines] > resolution. Is it worth getting a scanner with a firewire interface as > well as USB 2. |
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