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"Along Those Lines"
4/5/2002 - Archive
Digitizing Photographs, Slides, Negatives, and Home Movies, Part II
Last week's "Along
Those Lines . . ." column, focused on considerations for the project of
digitizing your collection of historic family photographs, slides, negatives,
and 8mm home movies. As you observed, there are a number of items you need to
assess as you plan the scope, extent, and possible expense of the project. These
include:
What will you be digitizing?
What condition are they in today?
What do you plan to do with the digitized materials?
Will the images need to be manipulated?
How do you plan to store the images?
What do you plan to do with the original materials?
In this week's column, let's investigate each of the items you may want to digitize,
what equipment really is involved with digitizing each category of materials,
and where to learn more.
Scanner Resolution Basics (Or 'The Dreaded Math')
The simplest of digitization projects involves photographs. All you need
is a simple flatbed scanner that will allow you to scan the photo and save it
to disk. Handheld scanners may seem easier to work with but actually the results
you get will be far less than satisfactory in the long run. The scanner you
want to use will scan at a minimum of 300 dpi (dots per inch). The greater the
number of dpi measurement, the higher the resolution of your image—and also
the more disk space it will take to store the image.
Another consideration will be the depth of resolution. Don't let the math here
put you off; it's just a part of the explanation. Resolution depends on the
dpi I mentioned, and the color saturation is measured in terms of 'bit depth.'
A black-and-white photo or grayscale image does well at 8-bit depth, but you
require at least 16-bit depth for color, and 24-bit depth for extra-fine resolution.
Certainly you can improve the resolution by scanning at a higher dpi setting,
such as 600 dpi, 1200 dpi, or even higher if your scanner can support it. And
by adjusting the bit depth, you can also make an image crisper. However, remember
that the higher the dpi resolution and bit depth are, the longer each physical
scan by the scanner will take.
There is a formula for calculating the size of the file that results from the
setting on your scan. The formula is:
File size = (height x width x bit depth x dpi squared) / 8 / 1024
A 300 dpi scan of a 3" x 5" black-and white photo (8-bit) would be 10,800,000
bits of data. Divide that by 8, which is the number of bits to a byte of data,
and then divide the results by 1024, which is the equivalent of one kilobyte
(or 1K) of data. Your resulting file size for this photo would be 1318K which
we got using the above formula.
(3 x 5 x 8 x 90,000) / 8 / 1024 = 1318K
Not so bad. A 600 dpi scan of a 3" x 5" color photo (16-bit) would be 86,400,00
bits of data. Divide that by 8 and the divide the result by 1024, and the file
size for the color photo will be 10,547K.
Photographs
Back to the photographs. You will want to set the dpi and bit depth scanner
settings according to the type of photo and the dpi resolution you want. (Some
scanners simply ask you whether the subject item is black-and-white, color,
text, or mixed. Read your scanner manual for optimum setting preferences.) Then,
simply run your scan. The scanner will display the result. You can crop it or
otherwise tweak the image, and then save it to disk. If your scanner allows
you to save the image in .JPG format (discussed last week), you can do so there.
If it only allows you to save in .TIF or .TIFF format, save it that way and
then you'll probably want to use your graphics program to re-save it as a .JPG
file for E-mailing, Web pages, and other uses.
Slides and Negatives
Slides and negatives are a little more complicated. You certainly can use a
conventional flatbed scanner to digitize them. However, slides are usually in
a mounting and because the film isn't making direct contact with the platen
glass and because there's no light behind it, the image you obtain may be fuzzy.
Negatives likewise are challenging because they come in different shapes and
sizes, and you want to get a clear image of them. Enter the scanner accessories.
The Hewlett-Packard Company is one manufacturer
of quality consumer scanners, and their ScanJet and PhotoSmart products get
good consumer reviews. You certainly can use a conventional HP ScanJet, for
instance, with the ScanJet Slide Adapter. This little device allows you to insert
a 35mm slide, place the device on the platen glass, and scan the slide. Their
ScanJet 5370C Series is great for many negatives using the add-on Active Transparency
Adapter (XPA), which is another piece of hardware connected to your scanner.
The XPA allows you to insert a strip of negatives and scan them. Pretty clever!
Their PhotoSmart S20 scanner, retailing at approximately $499, is made to order
for all your scanning needs, though. It scans 35mm negatives, positives, slides
and photos, with up to 2400 dpi resolution. All of the HP scanners come with
graphics software to help you obtain the sharpest images possible.
Canon is another company, which offers specialized
scanners for photographs, slides and negatives. Their Cano Scan FS2710 and FS2720U
Film Scanner products boast high quality, again at about $499 or more.
The venerable Kodak produces film scanners in all price ranges, with its RFS3600
35mm Film Scanner retailing at $895.
You may also want to investigate other high-end, professional style scanners
at Flatbed-Scanner-Review.org.
Under the directory at that site are links to reviews on 35mm slide and film
scanners. However, unless you have a massive collection of materials to be scanned,
or plan to start a business, most of these scanners may be out of your price
range.
NOTE: Make sure the scanner and graphics software are compatible with your computer's
operating system and that you have enough memory to run them.
Again, you can pay anything you want to for a scanner. The Hewlett- Packard
models, with the accessories they offer, provide a good value and great result
for your money. (And no, I don't get a commission!)
Graphics Software
As I mentioned before, most of the scanners come with a graphics software program
of some sort. The most-wanted features will include: the ability to open .TIF
or .TIFF files and save them as .JPG; picture cropping and resizing; rotation
of pictures in ninety-degree increments; the ability to work with brightness
and contrast; the ability to convert color pictures to grayscale; and the ability
to superimpose text for labeling. And if you are working with negatives, the
software should have the ability to reverse negative to positive for black-and-white
and/or color, depending on your collection. A good basic graphics program can
be obtained free or as inexpensive shareware at TuCows (www.tucows.com)
and Download.com (www.download.com). Other
commercially available packages with lots of great features are Jasc Software's
Paint Shop Pro (www.jasc.com) or CorelDRAW
(www.corel.com), which also is available
for the Apple user.
Storage Media
You will need to decide how you want to store all this wonderful digitized data.
At first, when you scan the images, you probably will want to save them to your
hard disk. Later, you can choose where to ultimately store them. A Zip disk
has nothing to do with file compression. The Zip drive is a product name, and
it is manufactured by the Iomega Corporation (www.iomega.com),
uses a high- density removable diskette that stores the equivalent of seventy
floppy disks. If you don't have a Zip drive in your computer today, you can
have one installed or purchase an external Zip drive and a peripheral card to
install in your computer. Iomega also makes a much higher capacity Jazz drive.
Shop around for the best price on a Zip or Jazz drive; the competition is stiff
and you can find bargains.
While the Zip or Jazz disk offers you high capacity storage on a diskette-like
product, you might be considering putting your digitized pictures on a CD. There
are many recordable CD-ROM drives, which allow you to record (or burn) data
onto them. Some allow you to burn and read disks, and they're referred to as
CD-R drives, and some allow you to burn and read and also rewrite disks, and
they're referred to as CD-RW drives. Most drives come with some software to
facilitate copying and burning data. Again, Iomega makes excellent CD burners,
and there are other excellent brands as well. Whatever you do, ask the salesperson
to explain the speeds for the processes and consider buying the best you can
afford.
Home Movies
Your family's home movies add another dimension to the family history. Unfortunately,
though, no one makes 8mm and 16mm film movies any longer, and the projector
accessories, such as bulbs and take-up reels, are only available through specialty
companies on the Web or at places like eBay and Yahoo! Auctions.
You will want to carefully consider what kind of conversion you want done with
your movies. Few people have the equipment and expertise to transfer their movies
to another medium. While one reader told me she and her husband project their
movies in a dark room and use their camcorder mounted on a tripod to film the
images, this method probably will provide a less satisfactory result than if
done by a professional. Look for a professional company and inquire into their
references. Decide in advance whether you want your movies transferred to videotape,
to CD-ROM, or to DVD. The latter may be your best long-term choice, but it all
depends on how you want to use the media. Remember that using a CD-ROM means
you'll need some sort of viewer software installed on the CD as well. Be sure
and ask about your options.
Preservation 101
Your family photographic memories are an important component of your family
history. Whether you like it or not, your genealogical work comes with a responsibility
and an obligation to help preserve these materials. Why not consider the possibilities
of furthering the life of your important photographs, slides, negatives, and
home movies by digitizing them. Check your local community college for inexpensive
course offerings on digital photography and scanning. Search the Web for information
about scanning tutorials. There are lots of resources available to you. You
just need to start planning your project.
Happy Hunting!
George
George G. Morgan would like to hear from you at atl@ahaseminars.com
but, due to the volume of e-mail received, he is unable to answer every e-mail
message received. Please note that he cannot assist you with your individual
research. Visit George's website at ahaseminars.com/atl
for information about speaking engagements.
Copyright 2002, MyFamily.com. All rights reserved.
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