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  1. Member
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    Here I am again with my 6 monthly question about scanning multiple photos.
    I have hundreds to scan. Has anyone come up with a method to speed up the process yet?

    Thanks again
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  2. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    Not really. But you may find a scanner that accepts your size of photos and can automate the process if it has a feeder for your photos. Most times, I just do it manually, one photo at a time.

    If you have big bucks, there are companies that can do this for you. But not cheap.
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    Originally Posted by redwudz
    Not really. But you may find a scanner that accepts your size of photos and can automate the process if it has a feeder for your photos. Most times, I just do it manually, one photo at a time.

    O.K. question #2

    What would you recommend for archiving personal photos to CD, JPeg, Tiff?
    And at what resolution
    Thank you again
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    I have never been able to obtain the scan quality that a company specializing in this service can achieve. The problem is not with my personal scanner but with debris. I clean the scanner bed so it is spotless, clean the photos with a soft brush to remove dust, blow them off with canned air and still the scanned image contains debris. Unfortunately, wiping the scanner and photos creates a static charge which attracts tiny airborn debris.

    At work, we sent out a bunch of 8x10 photos to a professional shop for digitization. The returned tiff and jpeg files were exceptional. Debris free. They have some way of keeping everything ultra clean and the result was superb. Very much worth it if quality is the most important factor.

    creakndale
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  5. aBigMeanie aedipuss's Avatar
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    try cleaning the bottom of the glass also. the screws are usually hidden and star drive, but once you can clean both surfaces you will get a better image.
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    "a lot of people are better dead" - prisoner KSC2-303
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  6. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    I usually scan my photos at 300 - 600dpi and archive them in .jpg format.
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  7. Member thecoalman's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by creakndale
    The problem is not with my personal scanner but with debris.
    Aha but it is your scanner, at least compared to the professional/semi-pro ones. They use Digital Ice or similar hardware technology in conjunction with advanced software filtering programs. Digital Ice is a hardware solution that cannot be duplicated with software. The first pass of the scanner is with infrared that locates physical defects on the surface of the image or negative like dust, cracks, fingerprints etc.. Not only does it automate the process of dust removal you're isolating where the issue is so you can localize the software filtering instead of applying it to the entire image. This preserves detail in parts of the image that don't require any cleaning, the issue with software filtering is it applies it to entire image. It can't differentiate between a fabric texture and real dust.

    They have consumer models with this technology and I know there is competing technology too. Last I checked which was proabaly a year or two ago scanners with this technology started around $350.

    Strictly on the software side try neat image: http://www.neatimage.com/

    Get few cans of "canned air" to blow off dust particles.


    What would you recommend for archiving personal photos to CD, JPeg, Tiff?
    And at what resolution
    JPG using 90% to 100% quality is sufficient however if you have the room or the budget go with with TIFF.

    Scanning resolutions vary by the size and detail of the original image, for a typical 6X4 image I'd go with 600DPI. For a 8X10 you can drop it down to 300DPI. For negatives or slides set it as high as the effective optical resolution of your scanner , note I said effective.
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    Originally Posted by aedipuss
    try cleaning the bottom of the glass also. the screws are usually hidden and star drive, but once you can clean both surfaces you will get a better image.
    I have some scans that have dust and debris on them. I don't have the original photos so can't re-scan.
    I have Photoshop Elements, and tried the noise reduction filter. But even set at 1 it degrades the photo quality.
    What can I do to eliminate that?
    Thanks
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  9. Mod Neophyte Super Moderator redwudz's Avatar
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    Most times, I just do the cleanup by hand on the individual spots. Takes a bit of time, but it's more effective than trying to filter the whole page.
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  10. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    JPEG compression algorithms continue to be perfected. In fact, I'm starting to find that TIFF from Photoshop can look worse than JPEG @ max quality setting. The JPEG is smaller file, of course, so double benefit.

    Professional scanning isn't magic. It just costs money, takes patience, and requires an extremely clean work room. Buy a good scanner. If it's at the local walk-in electronics store, it is not "good". You'll need to special order something from Microtek, Epson or Kodak, one of the higher-end machines. They cost about $500. Use photo-wipe gloves for cleaning AND handling. Use high-quality "canned air", the good ones will NOT spew liquid like cheap junk at the local walk-in office store. Finally, you need to use special software to process. Usually this involved the scanner plug-in software, Photoshop CS3/CS4, and more plugins to clean (NeatImage is excellent). Another good program is DXO Optics, instead of Photoshop.

    Photo work is idiot-proof compared to video, that's for sure!
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  11. Member thecoalman's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by lordsmurf
    JPEG compression algorithms continue to be perfected.
    When compressing my image editor provides a side by side comparison of the original on the workspace and how the compressed image will look. To tell you the truth when using 90% quality or higher there is generally no difference between the two.
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    didikai,

    There are consumer scanners with photo feeders, but I never went that route, so I don't have any experience with how well they work. Most of the photographs I've scanned are old, curled, and brittle. It just seemed like something that could go horribly wrong.

    Other than that, I do have a few recommendations that may help you get the most benefit from your work.

    1) If you have a negative or slide version of the photo, always use that. Only use a print as a last resort. If you have to use a print, there's no point in using more than 600 dpi. Some years ago there was a heated debate if there was any benefit to using more than 300 dpi to scan prints. To my eyes, using the right upsampling algorithm on 300 dpi print scans produced results that were indistinguishable from 600 dpi scans, but just to be sure I'm not missing any possible detail, I use 600 dpi when scanning prints.

    2) It may just be a personal preference, but I would make sure the scanner driver isn't artificially tweaking the sharpness, contrast, saturation, etc. I would rather do those things by hand rather than let an algorithm make a decision for me that's very difficult to undo later.

    3) After all the work to scan in and fix the photographs, it seems a shame to degrade the image (even slightly) by archiving it using a lossy file format. I use BMPs because it seems most software knows how to work with them. TIFF is another good storage format, but only use the lossless "flavors". If you're trying to save space, you can use LZW compressed TIFFs for internal lossless compression, or use zip, or 7-zip to externally compress the files.

    4) I agree with thecoalman that Digital ICE can save you a lot of work, but it seems I always end up like redwudz:
    Most times, I just do the cleanup by hand on the individual spots. Takes a bit of time, but it's more effective than trying to filter the whole page.
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  13. Member thecoalman's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by VegasBud
    1) If you have a negative or slide version of the photo, always use that. Only use a print as a last resort. If you have to use a print, there's no point in using more than 600 dpi. Some years ago there was a heated debate if there was any benefit to using more than 300 dpi to scan prints. To my eyes, using the right upsampling algorithm on 300 dpi print scans produced results that were indistinguishable from 600 dpi scans, but just to be sure I'm not missing any possible detail, I use 600 dpi when scanning prints.
    "Depends". The human eye can only view about 300DPI at a standard viewing distance. If I remember correctly the standard viewing distance is about 15 inches. For example if you have 6X4 and are going to print a 6X4 then scanning anything above 300DPI becomes extra work. However if the 6X4 imge has enough infomation beyond the 300DPI and you ant to print a 8X10 with it then you will be getting something out of it.

    So the question really is how much information does a 6X4 hold beyond what the human eye can perceive?
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  14. Originally Posted by lordsmurf
    JPEG compression algorithms continue to be perfected. In fact, I'm starting to find that TIFF from Photoshop can look worse than JPEG @ max quality setting. The JPEG is smaller file, of course, so double benefit.
    When you look up the word 'nonsense' in the dictionary, there could be something there like; Stating that a audiovisual lossy compression technique applied to a image/video/audio file makes it look and/or sound better than the non-compressed file.


    When my grandfather asked me to scan a crapload of his old photographs, I wasn't too happy about doing the job, it's a lot of manual work. But I'm happy now that these photos are safely kept for the future.
    I scanned the photo's at 300 dpi and saved them in TIFF uncompressed format. This way they are at printing-press resolution and as high the resolution in consumer printers may become, you'll be safe. I mean, in this day in age when storage has become so cheap, why bother doing a half-assed job? So you'll have to fill up a few DVD-R's - In fact I got all my scans on a single DL DVD-R.

    BTW: another thing; saving to an uncompressed file allows you to make mistakes while you do the scanning, you can still edit them later, if your files are compressed, every edit you do you need to re-compress them and lose more quality.
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    thecoalman,

    Back when the print-scanning-resolution debate was raging, there was a post made by the head of the team that developed a HP scanner, in which he said there was no point in scanning at more than 200 dpi because of the silver salts used in color photo prints.

    I just now tried several variations of the keywords in google, and couldn't find that specific post, but google did find a wealth of information for two terms I remember from the post..."print grain index" and "chemistry of photography". That should give you a better starting point than I had when doing my own research (years ago), if you're interested in understanding why it occurs.

    I do remember that at the end of my research, I ultimately concluded that 300 dpi probably captured all the real information present in a print, and doubled it to 600 dpi just to make sure I was on the overkill side of the equation.

    For real world testing, probably any upsampling algorithm beyond bicubic could be used to demonstrate the lack of real (significant) data acquisition beyond ~300 dpi (for scanning prints).
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  16. I scan documents at 150dpi and photos at 300dpi then save as PNG,although JPEG at 90%+ looks good it's still lossy.
    Here is a good tutorial:

    http://www.scantips.com/
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    raffie,

    When lordsmurf said:
    JPEG compression algorithms continue to be perfected.
    I took it that he was referring to something like jpeg-hdr, which, even though it's lossy, still contains more real data than traditional lossless formats.

    While I certainly agree with you that uncompressed is, in an absolute sense, superior to compressed for archiving purposes, I can't entirely agree with the idea that it's impossible that:
    ...lossy compression technique applied to a image/video/audio file makes it look...better than the non-compressed file.
    The word "look" is the part that throws the idea off. A light level of compression may well appear (or "look") sharper and less noisy than the uncompressed version. It's something I've seen many times. There's no question that data was lost by compressing the image, but most people would actually find the compressed picture "looks" better.

    Other than that, I agree with everything you said.

    Edit:
    In this particular post, when I say "compressed", I'm more specifically referring to "compressed using a lossy format".
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  18. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    TIFF is an old method of storing data, the quality of a TIFF is not better than a JPEG. If you want to be anal-retentive about quality, then save in a truly raw format, such as DNG.

    For the record, a large part of my professional day is in photography, and has been for many years.

    Don't want to believe me? Fine. Do you know who Ken Rockwell is? Most of his early career, prior to photography, was spent in image R&D. He also takes the stand that TIFF is basically identical to JPEG, just not as efficient at crunching the numbers.

    I don't know what inferior software you're using that is making nasty JPEG images. Consider the current versions of professional software, such as Adobe Photoshop CS3/CS4, Adobe Lightroom 2, or DXO Optics Pro 5.3, amongst others. "Paintshop Pro" or the free crap that comes with your scanner ain't gonna cut it.

    A number of presses don't even take TIFF anymore, and most professional design/layout software (Quark, InDesign) expect JPEG as the first choice.

    Get with the times, folks.
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  19. I've heard good things about the Kodak S1220 for this type of project. We use lots of different types of industrial scanners at work (including a few Kodak models that cost about 30k new) and some of the guys that use the majority of them reccomend that Kodak model for scanning photos. It's about $1400.
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  20. Many cheaper scanners are not air tight so dust get into the box and sit on mirror and the sensor so one has to clean the inside every now and then. I chose Epson because at the time was the only scanner that had auto naming so you start with a prefix then it just goes up. It so time consuming to name each photo when you are doing a lot of them. Feeder helps too but with photos of different size it is a hassle and it gets jammed too. I set as much as I can on the flatbed scanner and preview then choose one at a time to scan. One other method I have used, I setup a camera on the bottom of a tripod and shoot macro photos, it is not easy to get the perspective right but it is much faster. Actually this was the method used before scanners became popular.
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  21. Member thecoalman's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by MOVIEGEEK
    I scan documents at 150dpi,
    Unless they are color a good format for that is <gasp> .GIF GIF excels at images where you don't need color depth for both file size and clarity. You can get perfect reproductions of text documents.
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  22. Originally Posted by lordsmurf
    TIFF is an old method of storing data, the quality of a TIFF is not better than a JPEG. If you want to be anal-retentive about quality, then save in a truly raw format, such as DNG.

    For the record, a large part of my professional day is in photography, and has been for many years.

    Don't want to believe me? Fine. Do you know who Ken Rockwell is? Most of his early career, prior to photography, was spent in image R&D. He also takes the stand that TIFF is basically identical to JPEG, just not as efficient at crunching the numbers.

    I don't know what inferior software you're using that is making nasty JPEG images. Consider the current versions of professional software, such as Adobe Photoshop CS3/CS4, Adobe Lightroom 2, or DXO Optics Pro 5.3, amongst others. "Paintshop Pro" or the free crap that comes with your scanner ain't gonna cut it.

    A number of presses don't even take TIFF anymore, and most professional design/layout software (Quark, InDesign) expect JPEG as the first choice.

    Get with the times, folks.
    For the record, I've had an education in Graphical Design. 3 years in college and 4 before that. Thats 7 years of studying Quark XPress & Indesign plus 2 working with them. And if you'd EVER mention using JPEG as your source for printing you'd be laughed at. Hard.

    I really don't think you understand the basics of compression techniques. TIFF stores image data either uncompressed or in a LOSLESS compressed manner, much like a ZIP file. No matter how long ago it was that this standard was agreed upon, all it is is a container for the LOSLESS image data. Nothing that goes to a printing press is compressed, not even losless, preferably. Not in a professional environment. JPEG may look good on a computer screen, I'm not argueing with that, and I guess that yes, it is subjective. However when u take the job on yourself of scanning a load of photos and then save them to JPEG, you throw away much data, some quality, and any later editing capabilities unless you dont mind REcompressing & losing quality even visible on a monitor.
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    Since Dx0 Optics Pro has been mentioned, I would strongly urge anyone even remotely considering installing this piece of software on a computer to first thoroughly investigate it's use of "Pace Interlok" to protect it's bug plagued software.
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  24. Canon stand alone scanners can scan multiple pictures with white border at the same time. According to canon, the application can separate them into their own files.

    It did not work very well when I try mine. Maybe a newer canon can do a better job.

    I scan my photo into 400 or 600 dpi 97% jpeg files.
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    Thanks again one and all for the various advice and opinions.

    Didkai
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  26. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by raffie
    For the record, I've had an education in Graphical Design. 3 years in college and 4 before that. Thats 7 years of studying Quark XPress & Indesign plus 2 working with them. And if you'd EVER mention using JPEG as your source for printing you'd be laughed at. Hard.
    Then you're still a newbie compared to me. In fact, I've been doing this more than twice as long as you have, and I'm a photographer on top of it. TIFF is only "uncompressed" within a certain context. It's all relative. There's a number of "uncompressed" video codecs that operate much in the same way. If you want the best "uncompressed" format, then use a RAW format.

    If you're not going RAW, then please use JPEG. You're basically screwing yourself by using the deprecated TIFF format. Photo labs, layout artists -- it will be more and more difficult as time goes by. I already dealt with all this crap in the 1990s, when people clung to their WMF's and CGM's. That was a huge pain in the ass for a number of years, as people transitioned in TIFF and Illustrator/Freehand (and EPS). Even EPS and TIFF is really unused now, in print. We're starting to see GIF go away some too, upended by a combination of Flash and PNG.

    If we REALLY want to get complicated, we could start discussing colorspaces, calibration, and bit depth. But that's probably overkill for the OP -- if it's not already. The only other thing I can think of is that I'm in the USA. Maybe some countries are still behind pace a bit? I don't know.

    Again, it's 2008. It is what it is. And these days, it's JPEG.
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  27. Member thecoalman's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by lordsmurf
    We're starting to see GIF go away some too, upended by a combination of Flash and PNG..
    GIF shall bite the bullet when people stop using IE6, it doesn't support PNG with alpha channel or GIF would have been gone long time ago. I still have 35% of the people visiting my site that use IE6 .
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    The one good thing about Vista is that, amongst consumers, it is finally pushing IE6 out. I've seen a dramatic decrease in IE6 use in the past 6 months, with more and more IE7 and IE8 use.
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    To anyone who's reading this because the name of the thread is "Scanning photos", and that's what you're interested in...do yourself a favor and save your scans in any non-lossy file format. By doing so, you retain all the original data you scanned in.

    If, or when, you need a smaller file size to put the image on a web page, include it in an e-mail to aunt Gertrude, etc., you can create a jpeg version for that purpose from your high quality, edit-friendly version. Just be aware that jpeg will always cause some degradation, whether you can see it on your screen or not. That's why it's called a "lossy" format. Using the highest quality setting retains a more accurate representation of the original image, but produces the largest jpeg file size. The more you drop the quality setting, the smaller the jpeg file gets, and the more degraded the image.

    An image should only be saved in jpeg file format once, and only if you need a smaller file for some specific reason. Jpeg compression artifacting is cumulative. Every time you save an image in jpeg format, the compression artifacts (degradation) increase, and regardless of what some software claims to be able to do, jpeg artifacting is irreversible. You can partially minimize how apparent it is, but you can't undo it. If you're curious why this occurs, put "jpeg artifacting" (without the quotes) into google.
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    lordsmurf,

    When referring to scanning photos, as performed by most (if not all) people, the option to (re)edit should be left open, and jpeg isn't a suitable format in that context. It's not debatable that saving in jpeg format introduces compression artifacts. The Joint Photographic Expert Group which developed the jpeg format never claimed otherwise. It was this criticism of the original format that led them to develop other "flavors", but those were only thinly accepted/supported by software developers. Consequently, while other variants do exist, the term "jpeg", as commonly used, refers only to the original, lossy format. Keeping that in mind, each time you open a jpeg file, edit it, and then re-save it as jpeg, the artifacts increase. At a certain point, the artifacts get so bad, the image becomes worthless. I'm pretty sure the people reading this thread would really like to avoid that.

    I doubt you would advise people to use mpeg for anything but the final output version of a video, so it doesn't make sense that you would recommend treating a still image any differently.

    Also, you're mixing in photographic options that aren't relevant in a discussion about scanning. For example, raw files are camera specific ways of storing the camera sensor's raw data in the (approximate) state it exists before the conversion to rgb channel data. As such, the only raw file format that could possibly be of any use in scanning would be dng, which is basically an extension of tiff, but not anywhere near as compatible with existing software as if you just used tiff.

    One last thing...since you used photographer Ken Rockwell as an "expert witness" for why jpeg is superior, I should point out that Ken Rockwell's choice of jpeg as a preferred file format is a direct result of his philosophy of photography. Throughout his website, he makes it very clear that he considers post processing of photographs to be a crutch for incompetent photographers. In his technique, all processing is performed in-camera by the camera settings he uses. When the photos come out of the camera, they're reviewed, selected, then shipped off to the clients. If a photo requires post processing, he discards it. If his workflow included post processing for increased flexibility and control, he wouldn't be advocating jpeg for a do-it-all format.
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