Digitizing slides, negatives and 8mm film

[heyduke]

ahhh took a practice retirement day off again today... started converting all my 35 mm slides into digital photos so I can toss the old slide projector...

 

[REWahoo]

ahhh took a practice retirement day off again today... started converting all my 35 mm slides into digital photos so I can toss the old slide projector...

I have a huge box of slides I need to convert to digital. Earlier today DW ordered this for me as a birthday gift. Hope it works as well as the reviewers say it does.

 

[heyduke]

I have a huge box of slides I need to convert to digital. Earlier today DW ordered this for me as a birthday gift. Hope it works as well as the reviewers say it does.

the one i used went up to 3600 dpi but you really need to clean them well first before scanning... i was overall disappointed with the scans but i now have digital images and have tossed both the slides and the projector.

 

[RonBoyd]

I have a huge box of slides I need to convert to digital. Earlier today DW ordered this for me as a birthday gift. Hope it works as well as the reviewers say it does.

That should do fine. Several (5+) years ago, I had the same problem as well as having many more "negatives." I purchased a Microtek i900 primarily because it was the only scanner, at the time, that didn't have a sheet of glass between the lens and the positive/negative. It also scans 14" sheets of paper and the old large (up to 8x10) negatives -- of which I had quite a few. Now I have two (well, 1½) 1TB hard drives filled with digital images. Then came all that expense involved in cataloging such a collection. Have fun.

 

[heyduke]

my next real challenge is digitizing old 8mm film strips.... ideas?

 

[REWahoo]

If you are talking about 8mm home movies, the simplest solution is to project them on a good screen and use your digital video camera to capture the images. Not the most high-tech solution, but significantly less costly than paying a pro to do it.

 

[RonBoyd]

my next real challenge is digitizing old 8mm film strips.... ideas?

I have been struggling with this for years. The best (read cheapest) solution I have found would be to project the film onto a screen and then record it with a digicam. (or, for that matter, directly into the digicam.) Unfortunately, I can't find a projector for my Super 8mm film and mine needs a bulb.

The next cheapest (read very expensive) is to pay a service to do it. (use Google).

I would welcome any and all suggestions.

 

[FIREd]

What a timely thread! I started digitizing my 35mm slides and negatives in 2001 or 2002 using a HP photosmart S20 scanner. Yesterday, as I was cleaning my office closet, I found another bunch of Kodachrome slides to digitize and had to reconnect my old but trusty S20 to the computer. Works like a charm.

 

[FIREd]

That should do fine. Several (5+) years ago, I had the same problem as well as having many more "negatives." I purchased a Microtek i900 primarily because it was the only scanner, at the time, that didn't have a sheet of glass between the lens and the positive/negative. It also scans 14" sheets of paper and the old large (up to 8x10) negatives -- of which I had quite a few. Now I have two (well, 1½) 1TB hard drives filled with digital images. Then came all that expense involved in cataloging such a collection. Have fun.

How to you catalog your collection? Do you use a particular software?

 

[RonBoyd]

How to you catalog your collection? Do you use a particular software?

You should start by purchasing "The Dam Book." Better advice cannot be found anywhere else.

I use Portfolio.

 

[heyduke]

no software for me ... just cataloging the old fashioned way... new folder... rename folder... add photo ... rename.. photo ... repeat till done

 

[RonBoyd]

no software for me ... just cataloging the old fashioned way... new folder... rename folder... add photo ... rename.. photo ... repeat till done

And how do you name all this so that when get, for example, over 100,000 images you can quickly find that photograph of devils Tower that you believe you shot in 1969? And then how about 500,000 images?

 

[FIREd]

You should start by purchasing "The Dam Book." Better advice cannot be found anywhere else.

I use Portfolio.

Thanks for the tips. I'll look into it. Right now I use an offline HTML website to catalog my pictures. It works pretty well, but I'd like to find something a bit more straight forward.

On a side note, I just received my first photo book from Shutterfly and all I can say is wow, what a great way to immortalize my pictures!

 

[Katsmeow]

For literally years I've had all these photos I was going to organize, videotape I was going to transfer to the computer and edit and so on. We hope to soon sell our house and downsize and I had a lot of this stuff and realized I was likely not getting around to it.

So I researched and found www.digmypics.com and sent them my photos, some APS canisters, film negatives and video tapes. They scanned it all in, color corrected and enhanced the photos. I had color pictures from over 40 years ago that were very faded but the scans look great.

They can also do the 8mm movies. I inheritied a box of them that my dad took when I was a child. I haven't sent those in yet.

Basically they did a much better job of this than I would have done and they did it much faster (I've had some of this in my to be done pile for 15 years).

 

[REWahoo]

[-]Cost?[/-]

Oops. I see it here: DigMyPics Pricing

 

[FIREd]

For literally years I've had all these photos I was going to organize, videotape I was going to transfer to the computer and edit and so on. We hope to soon sell our house and downsize and I had a lot of this stuff and realized I was likely not getting around to it.

So I researched and found www.digmypics.com and sent them my photos, some APS canisters, film negatives and video tapes. They scanned it all in, color corrected and enhanced the photos. I had color pictures from over 40 years ago that were very faded but the scans look great.

They can also do the 8mm movies. I inheritied a box of them that my dad took when I was a child. I haven't sent those in yet.

Basically they did a much better job of this than I would have done and they did it much faster (I've had some of this in my to be done pile for 15 years).

Great ressource! I might give them a try for some of my more precious pictures.

 

[Katsmeow]

Cost varies depending on what you have done and the quality you want. I did the 300 dpi photo but not the lowest cost batch scanner. For videos you can just get them as an DVD or as editable files. So just varies depending on what you want to do.

Here is a link to their pricing:

DigMyPics Pricing Scanning Slides Negatives Prints Reels Video Tapes to CD or DVD

For photos and negatives one nice feature is you can view the scans online and delete 30% of them and not have to pay for them. This was helpful when having a batch of negatives or APS canisters scanned. I could scan them all and then delete the photos that weren't very good.

 

[walkinwood]

If you need to scan color negatives, or are using a flat-bed scanner to scan in photographs, look at vuescan.

I found that it does a great job of getting the right colors from negatives. It also has some batch scanning features that help speed up the job. The interface is not the most intuitive.

Also, decide what you want to do with the scans. If your primary purpose is to view on the monitor and share on the internet, you don't need to scan at extremely high resolutions. I used 1200 bpi for negatives/slides and am quite pleased with the results. Photographs work well at 300bpi.

 

[RonBoyd]

If you need to scan color negatives, or are using a flat-bed scanner to scan in photographs, look at vuescan.

I second that recommendation. Ed Hamrick, the publisher, is a photographer. He is also one of the more customer service individuals I have ever run into. I have used this product for about ten years now and have had nothing but pleasant experiences with him

Another plus is that if you purchase the most expensive version ($80 and cheap at twice the price), you never ever have to pay for an upgrade -- it's been about 5 or 6 upgrades for me.

 

[TromboneAl]

And how do you name all this so that when get, for example, over 100,000 images you can quickly find that photograph of devils Tower that you believe you shot in 1969? And then how about 500,000 images?

My system works pretty well, with very little organizing effort. Each year has its own folder. There are subfolders such as family, scenery, miscellaneous, music, surfing, biking, etc. I try hard to name the files so that they will be easy to find later.

I can usually find a photo without too much trouble. If I can't find it with a general filename search, I can guess at the date and the folder.

I also keep the original un-photoshopped version every photo taken. When a photo card fills up (say 250 pictures), I burn it to a DVD labeled with the date before deleting the photos.

 

[Katsmeow]

I am using Photoshop Elements to organize photos. It has a function to look for and tag people. After awhile it is quite adept at "recognizing" them. Saved me a lot of time. I also have a subscription to the photoshop.com website and all my photos are backed up there automatically so don't have to worry about losing them and can access them from anywhere.

I made photobooks from Shutterfly a few years ago that were really great and not expensive. I am getting interested in the digital scrapbooking and recently bought the Polaroid My Memories software.

 

[ERD50]

iPhoto includes tons of ways to organize your photos, including face recognition.

-ERD50

 

[Rustic23]

Wahoo,
Let us know how the Wolverine works out. I have a huge box of negatives that I have wanted to convert.

 

[NW-Bound]

I bought a flat-bed scanner, an Epson V200, which came with a frame for mounting 35mm negatives for scanning. I do not have any slides, just color negatives from pre-historic days.

The scanned images were terrible, as seen on the PC screen. I wonder if there is something wrong with the scanner, or if that is all it can deliver.

Does anyone have this model? Or any other model? Please share your experience with scanning 35mm color negative film. Thanks.

PS. This scanner does a fine job of scanning the usual printed paper or photo color prints.

 

[FIREd]

iPhoto includes tons of ways to organize your photos, including face recognition.

-ERD50

I know, iPhoto looks awesome, but it's only available on MACs... Apple got me first with the iPhone, then the Apple TV, so it's only a matter of time before I succumb to the MacBook...