Print Scan
Print Scan Picking The Best Slide Scanning Service Simply defined, a digital image is any image taken from a computer, scanner, or digital camera. Digital cameras create these images using a CCD chip...
Print Scan
Picking The Best Slide Scanning Service
Simply defined, a digital image is any image taken from a computer, scanner, or digital camera. Digital cameras create these images using a CCD chip, which is composed of many small light sensitive cells arranged to divide the pictures into rows and columns of smaller sub areas, and scanners function almost the same way. Slide scanners contain one row of light sensitive cells, and a motor that moves the row down the slide, creating columns that form the total image grid.
Why Is It Better To Scan Slides As Opposed To Scanning Prints?
Scanning film and film slides, generally speaking, produces higher quality images than simply scanning prints. The main reason for this is because scanning the film or slide is, in a sense, using the original image to make a copy, while an already developed print is more of a second generation copy, which will in turn produce a third generation copy once it is scanned.
Film also contains greater detail and contrast, since most film is capable of at least 3,000 dpi, compared to 300 dpi for color photo paper. A film scanner allows for enough quality image pixels to be scanned, as opposed to a standard type of scanner, and thus can produce more detailed, higher quality images, particularly when it comes to creating larger sized prints.
Scanning Slides
When it comes to your precious memories, it makes sense to trust a professional slide scanning service, but there may be times when you want to scan some of your slides on your own, and if so, here are some tips to help you insure optimal results:
1. Make sure that you own a printer with slide scanning ability, and if not, scanners can be purchased online or through office and electronics store.
2. Make sure that any software that was included with your scanner is installed, and that all of your electronic components have been properly calibrated. Keep in mind that scanning slides manually can take a long time, generally three to four minutes per slide.
3. Create a folder for each set of images that you want to scan. You can create folders based on category, occasion, the name of a person, or any other identifier you choose. Make sure that you have pressed the correct button for either color or black and white images, and be sure that you are scanning the correct side of the slide. This can be confusing, and depending on the slide scanner that you are using, paying attention to the orientation of the slide is one way to help make sure you are scanning correctly.
4. Carefully stack your slides on one side of your scanner, making sure not to stack them too close to the edge of your table or desk. With a flatbed scanner, it is usually possible to load multiple slides at once. With a specially designed film scanner, you will probably have to load and scan each slide one by one.
5. Always crop your photos before scanning, via your scanner preview mode. This is very important, since most people make the mistake of cropping their originals instead.
6. Enable Auto focus mode before scanning.
Keep in mind that slide scanning is an often complicated process and that it may take a few attempts before you are able to achieve optimal results.
About the Author
Find more information about scancafe and its uses in photo restoration by visiting our website.
Turn your Old Photo Paper Prints Into Modern Digital Format Albums
Although digital cameras have been around for a few years and are becoming more and more popular many of us still have a large number of older film camera paper prints, slides and negatives. Most people keep their paper prints and negatives at their homes and only use digital formats for new photos they shoot with their new digital cameras. In this article we will discuss converting your old paper prints into digital format.
Photos are usually kept at home in one of three formats:
There are many advantages to digital photography. Having your photo album in digital format allows you to easily print paper copies either at home or using a printing service, to view your photos on your computer, to share photos with friends and family and maybe most importantly to practically archive your photos for eternity. So if digital format is that good why not convert all those old photos from traditional paper and negatives to digital? Here is how:
There are different considerations when converting from paper to digital. Professional photographers spend a lot of time and money on this process. For most amateurs and consumers very simple methods can be used which are both cheap and easy. Scanning paper prints and negatives requires different equipment and considerations. For most home users scanning the negatives is not necessary.
Scanning paper photos prints
Photo paper prints are easy to scan. You can choose to scan them yourself at home (purchasing a scanner that can do the job is usually cheap and costs less than a $100). You can also choose to mail them (or hand them) to a professional scanning service that will scan them for you and mail you back the originals and a DVD with the digital scans (such services include www.digmypics.com, www.digitalpickle.com, www.britepix.com and many more)
There are pros and cons to scanning at home or using a professional service. If you have a small number of photos scanning at home is easier. If you have plenty of photos using a service might be easier but you can end up spending more money. In addition mailing your one and only hardcopy of your photos is a risk since they might get lost.
If you are going to scan at home consider the following:
Scanning negatives and slides
Scanning negatives and slides is harder than scanning paper prints. In most cases it is easier and maybe cheaper to use a professional scanning service (such services include www.slidescanning.com, www.myspecialphotos.com, www.pixmonix.com and many more). If you want to scan at home your standard flat scanner will not be good enough. In most cases you will need to spend money on purchasing a film/slides scanner. Those scanners are more expensive than the flat paper scanners. Negatives and slides are small high resolution sources and thus require scanning at higher DPI than paper prints. In most cases 2400DPI or higher should be used.
The considerations for scanning negatives and slides are similar to scanning paper prints. If you need to scan just a few negatives or slides speed and ease are not important but if you're going to scan hundreds or more you should spend more money on scanners that can feed the negatives or slides automatically or can just load a roll of film and scan it.
The good news is that in most cases scanning negatives is not needed at all. For most amateurs and consumers scanning home photo paper prints is more than enough and scanning the source negatives is a not needed. It is recommended of course to keep the negatives in a safe place. You can use the digital scans for future prints or just for viewing on your computer screen and sharing with your friends and family.
In conclusion scanning your photo paper prints is easy. You can do it yourself at home or you can use a professional scanning service. You can convert all your memories into digital format with a small investment and make sure that you can enjoy those photos and also keep them in their original quality for eternity.
About the Author
Ziv Haparnas is a technology veteran and writes about practical technology and science issues. This article can be reprinted and used as long as the resource box including the backlink is included. You can find more information digital photo printing printing and photography in general on printrates.com – a site dedicated to photo printing