Scanning Old Photos to Digital Format

Squeaksoutloud

Hi all,

Hoping to get my new years resolutions under way in the next while. Got my SLR camera and taking some lessons in it in February. Hooked!

My other resolution is to scan in all the old family photographs so I can put them on a disc and send out to all the family. Having had a quick look at what we have I would say that at least 70% of the photographs are a standard 35mm print film with negatives still in the packet sleeve. If they don’t have the negatives then they are the standard sized photo print (6 x 4?). The rest are made up of odd sized photos and a good few of those Kodak Advantix type films from a few years back which vary in size. Don’t think there is any negatives for them just the film. Some I don’t even have that.

I guess my work is going to involve mostly scanning negatives and some scanning of original photographs where that is not possible.
I have read through some of the threads here and am still slightly confused. As it will hopefully be a once off job I would be happy enough getting a second hand scanner off adverts.ie or buying a scanner up to the region of €200 and selling it on again.

I am guessing that the most suitable option is the Canon Canoscan 8800F which I could prob stretch to if can sell it for a decent price after.

http://www.connscameras.ie/canon-canoscan-8800f/4960999455365pd.html

Something I don’t want is the results from the Irish Times scanner offer as discussed here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055407517&highlight=film+scanner

Any advice greatly appreciated bearing in mind that this is just for the family and my budget. Can anyone recommend my best options i.e. avoid the Aldi negative scanner, get a dedicated negative scanner and scan the rest using standard scanner at home while using Adobe Photoshop File>Automate>Crop and Straighten, something cheaper than the Canon 8800F.

Thanks.

DaireQuinlan

damienkeane wrote: »

Any advice greatly appreciated bearing in mind that this is just for the family and my budget. Can anyone recommend my best options i.e. avoid the Aldi negative scanner, get a dedicated negative scanner and scan the rest using standard scanner at home while using Adobe Photoshop File>Automate>Crop and Straighten, something cheaper than the Canon 8800F.

Even the 8800 will only give you so-so results with 35mm. The scans will be okay for small prints and web use. There really isn't anything cheaper that will do an even remotely acceptable job. Another problem is the APS film. AFAIK there isn't a scanner anywhere that comes with a carrier for APS so you'd have to jimmy one up yourself somehow to scan it. A better bet might be where you have just the negatives, to throw them (35mm and APS) into some minilab and get lab scans of them (low-res, shouldn't cost too much ?) and where you have the prints use the canon to scan them.

Sniipe

I have a HP scanjet (with negative scanner incorporated) and I did the same thing that you did. It can take really high resolution pictures. But with over 4000 pics I soon brought that resolution down to something more managable. I would give my scanner 2 thumbs up.

I recommend doing some preparation work before hand. Ensure that all your negaives/pictures are clean (I didn't do this and some of my pictures had to be rescanned). Also have some cleaning agent on hand for the scanner as the glass can get dirty with that many photos. I wouldn't recommend a dedicated film scanner from maplin. I tried that and it was a load of rubbish.

davmigil

Another option is to get your hands on a macro lens and scan them in that way.

I am using this technique to scan in old slides and negatives. It's a slow process, but not as slow as using a scanner. Quality is reasonable to good (for my purposes anyway). Plan to get the better ones printed up in a photo book.

My set up is an inexpensive light box (flat surface back lit with 5500K light). Sturdiest tripod I have. I frame the slides with a little bit of mount showing and take the picture at f8 (seems to give a good balance of speed and quality on the lens I am using). Afterwards I crop (and straighten if necessary) the images in photoshop (and clone out any blemishes etc.).

If possible use the mirror up setting on your DSLR and set it to a few seconds delay to minimise any camera shake (which will be really obvious at this scale).

I found DIY PhotoBits3.1 camera control handy to remotely trigger my Nikon and download the images straight to a laptop (can view them upclose and check for camera shake and exposure problems).

Negatives a bit trickier as need to import them to photoshop and invert them (keyboard short cut 'i') to see the result.

Good luck!

ps I think (please check this out first!) that on APS film when you get it developed the negatives get sent back to you in the APS film cartridge. You should be able to open/unspool these to get at the negatives

Sniipe

davmigil wrote: »

Another option is to get your hands on a macro lens and scan them in that way.

I am using this technique to scan in old slides and negatives. It's a slow process, but not as slow as using a scanner. Quality is reasonable to good (for my purposes anyway). Plan to get the better ones printed up in a photo book.

My set up is an inexpensive light box (flat surface back lit with 5500K light). Sturdiest tripod I have. I frame the slides with a little bit of mount showing and take the picture at f8 (seems to give a good balance of speed and quality on the lens I am using). Afterwards I crop (and straighten if necessary) the images in photoshop (and clone out any blemishes etc.).

If possible use the mirror up setting on your DSLR and set it to a few seconds delay to minimise any camera shake (which will be really obvious at this scale).

I found DIY PhotoBits3.1 camera control handy to remotely trigger my Nikon and download the images straight to a laptop (can view them upclose and check for camera shake and exposure problems).

Negatives a bit trickier as need to import them to photoshop and invert them (keyboard short cut 'i') to see the result.

Good luck!

ps I think (please check this out first!) that on APS film when you get it developed the negatives get sent back to you in the APS film cartridge. You should be able to open/unspool these to get at the negatives

Wow that seems cool ; I'd like to see that process in action

DaireQuinlan

davmigil wrote: »

ps I think (please check this out first!) that on APS film when you get it developed the negatives get sent back to you in the APS film cartridge. You
should be able to open/unspool these to get at the negatives

Yeah APS spools the film back into the cartridge after development. You can jimmy a little plastic tab and reel it back out again without difficulty.

http://www.camerahacker.com/extract_APS_film/index.php

Although the quality of APS scanned on a flatbed will be even more marginal than 35mm. Its about 50% of the surface area of a 35mm frame IIRC

cardol

I'm scanning old photographs too, but until recently my scanner worked with no problems. But today, when I tried to use it I got the following error message:

Cannot operate!
1. Please check whether the scanner connects to the computer.
2. Make sure that the scanner connects to the power and the LED is on.
3. Note that you cannot connect the scanner to the bus power device.

When I OK that I get:

TWAIN error!
Failed to open the Twain driver.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled my scanner twice, using the supplied CD and have had all the pop-ups saying "Found New Hardware", "Your new hardware is installed and ready to use", etc. Control Panel - Add Hardware tells me the device is working properly, the Hardware Update Wizard tells me it could not find a better match for my hardware, and Windows Update cannot find any updates I need. I have rebooted several times throughout all the above steps. At one point I got a message saying to ulock the scanner but it is already unlocked. But just to make sure, I locked and then unlocked but still get the above error messages.:rolleyes: I've tried everything I can think of.
Can anyone think of anything else I could do. Apart from throwing it out the window.:mad:
Thanks

cardol

Just to say the above issue has been resolved so I no longer require answers to this:) I installed software from the Installation CD from a folder called WinXP which semed to do the trick