Photo Scanners

[didikai]

I have a few thousand photos I want to scan and make DVD / VCD slideshows of.
Can I get some advice on which scanner / software would make this task as painless as possible

Thanks

[kschang]

A scanner with auto-feeder (ADF), but those costs more than plain scanners.

[Prot]

As painless as possible would be to have someone else do it for you. You have to weigh the cost of the equipment (and time) against what a company would charge you to do it. They could just do the scanning, and you could put together the slideshow yourself.

[olyteddy]

If your final product is a screen, perhaps a camera and copy stand would be quicker than a scanner.

[vitualis]

Most painless in time (but not cost), is to get someone else to do it for you -- most photo labs will do it for a (exorbitant) fee.

Regards.

[d_unbeliever]

any scanner, scan the pictures by four, cut and separate them using photoshop cs autocrop and cut can't remember the feature of photoshop cs where you can specify the folder that contained your pictures to be cut and crop automatically, then use proshow gold or memoriesontv to make slideshows and burn them to vcd/dvd. the only difficult thing there i think is placing the pictures on the scanner by four. everything else is a breeze.

[mattso]

any scanner, scan the pictures by four, cut and separate them using photoshop cs autocrop and cut can't remember the feature of photoshop cs where you can specify the folder that contained your pictures to be cut and crop automatically, then use proshow gold or memoriesontv to make slideshows and burn them to vcd/dvd. the only difficult thing there i think is placing the pictures on the scanner by four. everything else is a breeze.

I think scanning 4 at a time would create further hassle (having to separate them? Not sure if Photoshop "auto-separates"?).

I would scan them singly (making sure they're all orientated the same way), then load as a batch process into Photoshop to autocrop/straighten, & whatever filtering/sharpening you may want. Let it run for a few days & nights! :P It will output finished pics into folder of your choice.

Also I would scan straight into .jpg format, not .bmp or .tif, for quicker loading into Photoshop. Maybe someone else can recommend a suitable dpi for scanning? I know 72dpi looks fine on my TV for DVD menu backgrounds...

Maybe someone else can also recommend a good slideshow-creating program. I haven't tried out DVDSlideshowGUI yet, but it's free & worth a good look at.

The real hassle is the scanning. If money's no problem, get someone else to do it. Otherwise... make sure you've got heaps of beer in the fridge!

[ozymango]

First, what everybody else said.

Second, if you decide to do this yourself at home, I can tell you what I've used to scan over 1,000 photos (over quite a long time, but in big chunks of solid work-time the same):

* Epson Perfection 3200 scanner. Because my final goal was printing, not just TV display, I needed high-resolution for all my images (and wanted to enlarge some relatively small photos), so you may not need a scanner with quite the resolution of this one.

BUT a very nice thing about this scanner (and similar scanners) is that is has a USB2.0 and a Firewire connection. So this'll scan at much higher speeds than scanners that only have a USB 1.0 connection, especially at higher resolutions. For a few photos, it might not be that big a deal but over several hundred, you might really appreciate the time savings.

* Photoshop for editing images. But this also may be overkill for your needs. Me, I'm working with a lot of images that need color correction, "restoration" of huge tears and scratches, all sorts of photos and prints that really benefit from "clean up." But if your photos are in reasonably good shape and you just need to to a quick scan of each, pretty much any scanner's included software will do ya just fine.

* For slideshows, I love ProShow Gold ($69, I think). You can just drag and drop all your photos, add music and titles easily, make a DVD just like that. So I like it 'cause it's disgustingly easy and fast to use.

Again, I'm scanning a lot of photos ranging in condition from "excellent" to "why is everybody blue?", and I need to send these to a book printer eventually so I've got honking huge .tif files. So my needs may be overkill for what you're looking for, but you certainly can do this. But however long you think it'll take, double it and add one!

[Steve Stepoway]

Also I would scan straight into .jpg format, not .bmp or .tif, for quicker loading into Photoshop.

If all you are doing is a video slideshow, that's probably fine. If you also have the intention of ever going to print, remember that JPEG is a lossy compression. Every time you uncompress, edit, and re-compress you will loose a little quality. It may not be noticable, but try it with 1 slide first. Uncompressed formats, though big, guarantee that you don't loose anything. If you use JPEG, use a quality setting of 85% or 90% (some scanning apps default to 75%; I'd rather use a little more disk).

Steve

[LloydAZ]

I have a few thousand photos I want to scan and make DVD / VCD slideshows of.
Can I get some advice on which scanner / software would make this task as painless as possible

Thanks

If you still have the negatives, Epson makes a nice scanner that will scan in a group of negatives and seperate each one into individual images. Look for the "Epson Perfection 4490 PHOTO." It's a nice fast way to get an entire roll of film scanned in at once.

[mstone321]

I have been very happy with the scans from my HP Photosmart S20 scanner. It's USB-1 only. It can handle 35mm negs, slides and prints up to 5"X7". It's quite old, so finding one used should not be too much of a problem. I got mine used for a very good price.

It only does one scan at a time, even with a strip of negatives.

The results are very satisfying with very good colour rendition.

A great tool for me. It's in constant use. No, mine's not for sale......

http://www.photo.net/equipment/hp/scanner/photosmart-slide-scanner

Matt

[mattso]

But if your photos are in reasonably good shape and you just need to to a quick scan of each, pretty much any scanner's included software will do ya just fine.

I think his problem will be to batch-straighten/crop all his photos (he wouldn't want to do this manually!). Not sure if scanner software will do this? Hmm. Does the Gimp support "actions"?

[ozymango]

I think his problem will be to batch-straighten/crop all his photos (he wouldn't want to do this manually!). Not sure if scanner software will do this? Hmm. Does the Gimp support "actions"?

hmmmmm ....

As luck would have it, here at work we have an old HP Scanjet 5200C and the included software ("HP Precision Scan") will "recognize" the edges of photographs (white boundries) and automatically (if you so desire) scan just that part. But it's kinda hit-and-miss, I just tried it with a couple of magazine pictures and one picture, it did great, and the others, it cut off about a third of the frame. Because of insignificant contrast between the frame and the surrounding white page, I think ...

But this is an old scanner and old software, something else might behave much more accurately. My Epson scanner does a great job with slides and negatives, because it uses "holders" that position the film precisely, and the scanner software "looks" to find the edges, and so can do a very good job about automatically configuring the size.

But of course slides and negatives are a constant size, so the "sensing" component for size doesn't need to really look for anything like the edge of a photo, light/dark borders like that.

I like the idea of an automatic feed scanner and there's one down the hall that's not in use, I wonder if I can borrow it for an experiment? If I can, I'll get back to you on how/if it works!

[d_unbeliever]

@mattso yea scanned 4 pictures at a time. just record your 20+ clicks (autocut, autocrop, autostraight, save each picture to a new file,etc.) and save them into a new action. now you can separate, straighten and/or crop your scanned 4 picture with just one click. place your new action in a batch so it can separate and do all the correction you need in your 1000+ 4 scanned pictures with just 2 or 3 click of a mouse.

i did scanned my 1000+ old pictures 4 at a time, save them in folder and let my new recorded action and the batch feature of photoshop cs to do all the dirty work for me with just 2 to 3 click of a mouse. in photoshop cs most of your repetitive actions or clicking of a mouse can be recorded into just one click of a mouse. i did that year ago so i can't remember the exact ps terms and steps anymore

[stantheman1976]

I don't know if you guys consider HP scanners high quality, but I have a Scanjet 4370 that cost $100 and makes scans that look identical to the original to me. Plus it can scan multiple images and save them as separate files. The borders aren't perfect, so you need to crop them a bit usually, but that doesn't take long. I use the Iamge Zone software that came with the scanner. I used it to back up all my family photos and store them on an external drive in case of another event like Hurricane Katrina.

[masterpug]

epson flatbed scanner perfection 3590 WITH seperate purchase of
24 photo batch scanning lid attachment (just change out lids for project
then change back if like..nothin to it). 24 up to 4x6 photos at a time is
sweet...and amazing quality! love it...hope you give it a try. lid only
available from epson website.

[didikai]

epson flatbed scanner perfection 3590 WITH seperate purchase of
24 photo batch scanning lid attachment (just change out lids for project
then change back if like..nothin to it). 24 up to 4x6 photos at a time is
sweet...and amazing quality! love it...hope you give it a try. lid only
available from epson website.

But isn't this still a manual feed?

[kschang]

Yes, but it's MUCH faster than opening and closing lids bazillion times. It's like feeding a photocopier's autofeeder.