uralmasha Posted May 22, 2006 Report Share Posted May 22, 2006 I am considering whether I should get a scanner to digitize old photos. I know very little about scanners, so I do not know what to look at. I want to: 1) scan the photos I have with a quality to print them later if needed 2) scan some negatives so that I don't have to order photos from them first 3) use later to e-mail documents, produce copies etc. I understand, that almost any scanner can suffice to (3), and I see quite a few models that have option (2). I already have a printer which I don't want to change, so all-in-one is not on the wish-list. I am willing to spend up to $180 (€150) on the device, thus the lower segment. My question is: which? How many DPI's should I opt for? 3200x2400 seems an awfull lot for me... Or do I want too much for two hundreds? Any experience would be much appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted May 22, 2006 Report Share Posted May 22, 2006 It really depends how serious you are. Even professionally scanned negatives cannot compare with a good DSLR so you are looking at quality vs price. obviously you don't want to spend 10k plus on a scanner so your's can't approach the professionals ... I would probably go for scanning some prints but get your negatives professionally scanned if they are important. It does of course depend on the quality of the photo's in the first place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted May 22, 2006 Report Share Posted May 22, 2006 Most digital pictures taken with a camera are about 2048x1536, so it's about a third more in terms of file size. Of course, you can resize them to smaller images if you don't want to print. The higher the resolution, the better the print quality if you do decide to print them. I don't know much about scanners myself, because the last one I had scanned at 600dpi max, and only worked on pre Windows 2000 machines so is useless now. Just thought I'd let you know about the resolution/image size the higher being better for quality. SCSI scanners are quite fast for scanning, but expensive too. I've used Epson ones of these at work. USB scanners might be OK too, but check Linux compatibility. Parallel, too slow and would take an age - if you can still buy them, not sure now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uralmasha Posted May 22, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2006 I only want to get old film strips and photos in. Since negatives are never used to be shown in albums to the quests that are staying for too long :-) , they seem to be in a better shape that the photos that I once printed (would not like to print them again only to throw away!) Anyways, anyone knows whether negatives can be scanned by any scanner? It looks like 3200x6400 resolution is the number that is intended for a 35-mm film, since in the specs I see that max.resolution is 12800 DPI (i.e. max. 2" n 6400dpi). What I last have gotten from a photo printing shop as a "free service" on a "Kodac Picture CD" really sucked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted May 22, 2006 Report Share Posted May 22, 2006 I use an Epson 1660 for scanning slides and negatives (generally at 2400 or more dpi) and it works very well. There are newer models and you can go to higher resolutions ( I can go up to 4800), but a slide at 2400 in PNG will be about 10MB and PNM nearly 20MB. JPG's are obviously much smaller. The scanner is well within your price range and should do all you want. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted May 22, 2006 Report Share Posted May 22, 2006 I only want to get old film strips and photos in. Since negatives are never used to be shown in albums to the quests that are staying for too long :-) , they seem to be in a better shape that the photos that I once printed (would not like to print them again only to throw away!) Anyways, anyone knows whether negatives can be scanned by any scanner? It looks like 3200x6400 resolution is the number that is intended for a 35-mm film, since in the specs I see that max.resolution is 12800 DPI (i.e. max. 2" n 6400dpi). What I last have gotten from a photo printing shop as a "free service" on a "Kodac Picture CD" really sucked. Yep the old photo CD's were terrible.... Here is the spec of a top end scanner http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/sc..._9000/index.htm 4,000-dpi true optical-resolution scanning, They seem to run between $2000-3000 ... so you can find a good photoshop and get it done on one of these if the photo's are valuable to you. I honestly don't think much of the combined ones, the DPI is usually interpolated etc. and the results I have seen haven't compared to a pro quality one. If you budget a decent midrange USB scanner for under $200 and spend any extra on getting the negatives done right I think you end up with a better overall product. Its the same for printing, you can pay a few bucks for a big enlargement or you can do the job right but it will cost you 20-30$ a picture for a decent individually color balanced picture... Ive done tests myself and the quick-photo type shops are inconsistent but if youre willing to pay you can get exceptional results ... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uralmasha Posted May 22, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 22, 2006 ok guys, thanks. I think I have an idea. So far I aim at Epsons with optial resolutin of 2400. I also made a search and found a few options to scan my old APS rolls (the films that always sits inside their cans). My first plan was to disassemble those cans, but Gowator, you have a point, and I'll have those rolls done by a photo studio B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted May 22, 2006 Report Share Posted May 22, 2006 ok guys, thanks. I think I have an idea. So far I aim at Epsons with optial resolutin of 2400. I also made a search and found a few options to scan my old APS rolls (the films that always sits inside their cans). My first plan was to disassemble those cans, but Gowator, you have a point, and I'll have those rolls done by a photo studio B) Yep the thing is i have my old ScanJet which is not great resolution but its fast and cheap... when you think of scanning a negative which is only less than an inch anyway then the scanners made to take A4 are just never going to be much use compared to one designed to have the full number of pixels on a negative... Basically if you scan say A4 for printing A4 then a decent resolution is 300 dpi and 600 dpi is great, most of the photo stuff is only 600 dpi anyway but its not so important on a big picture, when it matters is if you scan A4 and want to blow up to A3 or beyond.... However 2400 dpi should do you great, you can always reduce resolution and gain speed :D For the negatives just use the money you save trying to get a hybrid film/negative and get it done right .... Worst case you could end up destroying them in the APS cases anyway.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neddie Posted May 22, 2006 Report Share Posted May 22, 2006 Is there any special software for using with scanners (or negative scanners, if they work differently), or does it all work magically in the background? I'm guessing they're all USB now, but is there anything to look for in terms of compatibility? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted May 23, 2006 Report Share Posted May 23, 2006 sane/xsane will do all you need. I use it to scan negatives, slides, as well as flatbed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uralmasha Posted May 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2006 So I finally got a second-hand Epson 2480 Perfection. It has an option for slides, too, but I don't have the unit yet. Id does not scan slides as such without that unit (not even in windws). I downloaded the software -- iscan and "plugin" which is obviously firmware -- from Avasys site. The RPM installed w/o a problem. Then the xsane, kooka, sane-backends. It almost worked, I even saw the scanning screen in xsane, but the scanner did not response, only made strange noise. I tried adding/removing some cooker packages for (x)sane etc., in the end I found that the scanner was locked by the "transportation lock" button. After I unlocked it, it works. I can use iscan and kooka, but not xsane. Now it segfaults at the start, and I no longer remember what I did to screw it. Bad luck, but the iscan is pretty cool. If I were a dpreview site, i'd put the sig "recommended" on the epson scanners + avasys software. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uralmasha Posted May 23, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 23, 2006 PS a cute detail to amuse: at some point i gave up and grabbed the XP laptop. Before I could install anything the msi said: "please turn the firewall off" :-) I promptly ignored it, and rightly so. It took about 15 minutes to get all the software installed, and one shy attempt to connect at the end of it... I guess, that's pretty close to the average half-hour a Wndows user needs to get wormed. No wonder Epson supports linux :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
polemicz Posted May 24, 2006 Report Share Posted May 24, 2006 I used to use iscan, but have settled on xsane. The newer xsane (not in 2006) has a direct save to pdf that I often use for saving documents. I used to have to save to ps then create the pdf. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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