Today we are dropping our prices for the Professional Service scanning 35mm slides and negatives, the old price was £1-30 and today we're dropping the price to just 95p. OK, why?
Originally there were two differences between Home and Professional - the dpi level (originally 2000 dpi and 4000 dpi) and file format (jpg & TIFF). Then we decided to scan everything at 4000 dpi because the quality difference is staggering and we don't want to ship sub-standard products. That left just the file format as the difference.
In the last few months more people have been asking about the Professional level service but frankly they've been put off by the extra 60p we had been charging. So, we've decided to make the bigger files much more affordable. You'll get great quality uncompressed files that you can edit to your hearts content, then save either as TIFF or jpg files. We think an extra few pence for the Professional service is definitely worthwhile. We look forward to doing even more Professional scans from your 35mm slides and negatives.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Slide / Negative Scanner Amnesty
It's been busy this week with several enquiries about slide scanning and our Slide Scanner Amnesty.
Yes, the scheme is still in operation and each week we get one or two scanners to add to our junk pile. This week we've got devices from Plustek and Agfa, one of my particular hates. Although this is simply a unit badged up for Agfa it is built on a singularly tacky camera unit and a very poor light source. It's a marriage made in hell and Agfa should have known better. Anyway we're able to rescue a couple of people from rather poor purchasing experiences.
I'm not sure how much longer we'll continue with the Amnesty. It has been very popular and generates much publicity for us, along with a steady stream of calls saying are you still doing this? Yes, and we will do for the coming weeks. Probably.
Yes, the scheme is still in operation and each week we get one or two scanners to add to our junk pile. This week we've got devices from Plustek and Agfa, one of my particular hates. Although this is simply a unit badged up for Agfa it is built on a singularly tacky camera unit and a very poor light source. It's a marriage made in hell and Agfa should have known better. Anyway we're able to rescue a couple of people from rather poor purchasing experiences.
I'm not sure how much longer we'll continue with the Amnesty. It has been very popular and generates much publicity for us, along with a steady stream of calls saying are you still doing this? Yes, and we will do for the coming weeks. Probably.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
When is a square not a square?
Answer - when its a pain. Even when expressed politely it's hard to get it across to clients that their images are rarely square. I don't mean they should be described as "oblong" or "trapezoid", it's just that they are not quite square. Why? Typically it's a result of the way prints pop out of processing labs. Recently they've been using machines that have inside them giants rolls of photographic paper onto which they print your image, then a mechanical guillotine whips across the paper and your print drops into the output tray. Very, very close to square, but often not quite.
If you try to square off the print you have a problem, very often two edges are not cut truly on the square. Inside our scanner is a computer chip which has been given the job of managing the scanning process. As the print goes through the system receives a massive amount of data from which it has to construct an image scan. What does the poor algorithm do? First, it could chop away some of the image and create within your print a true square, discarding some data. I can just imagine the outcry "You've chopped off Uncle Harry's nose!" Put it back, immediately. Second, it could create a shape as close as possible to a regular one outside the image. No data is lost, a small grey / black strip is added; and that's the option Kodak went for. When I think about it that's the only sensible option.
So here's the deal. If you want not a trace of black infill, send us images with four 90 degree corners. Better get it dead right because we operate down to 1/600th of an inch.
If you try to square off the print you have a problem, very often two edges are not cut truly on the square. Inside our scanner is a computer chip which has been given the job of managing the scanning process. As the print goes through the system receives a massive amount of data from which it has to construct an image scan. What does the poor algorithm do? First, it could chop away some of the image and create within your print a true square, discarding some data. I can just imagine the outcry "You've chopped off Uncle Harry's nose!" Put it back, immediately. Second, it could create a shape as close as possible to a regular one outside the image. No data is lost, a small grey / black strip is added; and that's the option Kodak went for. When I think about it that's the only sensible option.
So here's the deal. If you want not a trace of black infill, send us images with four 90 degree corners. Better get it dead right because we operate down to 1/600th of an inch.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Flipshare
Over the last three years I've got a lot out of my little Flip video camera. Dead easy to use and instant movie sharing via the Flipshare service.
Until Cisco killed the product and the sharing service. But, there's a replacement - Givit. They're also offering a painless migration from the old platform to Givit, along with a free basic account.
Until Cisco killed the product and the sharing service. But, there's a replacement - Givit. They're also offering a painless migration from the old platform to Givit, along with a free basic account.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
Kodachrome Slide Scanning
Having been scanning slides for over eight years I don't get very excited any more, but this last week has been out of the ordinary. Ever since we started Kodachromes have been an issue. The first big order we got was 800+ photos (did them on a flatbed, took two weeks) and the second was a large batch of Kodachrome slides for a client in Scotland.
Ever since the results with Kodachrome slides have been less impressive that we've got from any other material - even Ektachrome 35mm slides. The two main problems have been an excessive blue colour cast in the scans, and the inability to apply Digital ICE which removes dust and scratches. So we've been forced to ship overly blue and dusty scans.
Of the two issues the blue has worried me the most. I've tried various methods to beat the blues, using Photoshop and latterly Aperture to speed up the re-balancing of the images. So we whip through slide scanning and then hit the buffers on that colour cast. Although Kodak called all that product Kodachrome, in reality there were many different recipes for that slide material, 20+ as I recall. Finding a single preset to catch them all defeated me, you need to adjust each frame and that takes an age.
So, this weeks excitement is this. We can now scan Kodachrome slides - 35mm Kodachrome slides and m/f - without the blue cast. I ran through 200 last week, taken from several batches both my own slides and slides supplied by clients, and in every case the blue cast was removed. Importantly for us as a slide scanning service it was done by our new software, at production speeds.
I also tackled the issue of no Digital ICE with Kodachrome. Yes, breathtaking, we can now apply dust and scratch removal to Kodachrome. The results amazed me, I'd got into the mindset that this would never be possible, but yes we can now do it. I have to say a bit of a word of caution, this process still needs a bit of tweaking, but compared to where we were before there's no comparison.
Next week we have some more work to do, the process to automatically number slides as we scan them is flawed so that needs tweaking and setting up a batch takes much longer than is the case when we use Nikon's software. When we've beaten those issues we'll be able to offer clients a whole new dimension in Kodachrome slide scanning. Then you can be excited too.
Ever since the results with Kodachrome slides have been less impressive that we've got from any other material - even Ektachrome 35mm slides. The two main problems have been an excessive blue colour cast in the scans, and the inability to apply Digital ICE which removes dust and scratches. So we've been forced to ship overly blue and dusty scans.
Of the two issues the blue has worried me the most. I've tried various methods to beat the blues, using Photoshop and latterly Aperture to speed up the re-balancing of the images. So we whip through slide scanning and then hit the buffers on that colour cast. Although Kodak called all that product Kodachrome, in reality there were many different recipes for that slide material, 20+ as I recall. Finding a single preset to catch them all defeated me, you need to adjust each frame and that takes an age.
So, this weeks excitement is this. We can now scan Kodachrome slides - 35mm Kodachrome slides and m/f - without the blue cast. I ran through 200 last week, taken from several batches both my own slides and slides supplied by clients, and in every case the blue cast was removed. Importantly for us as a slide scanning service it was done by our new software, at production speeds.
I also tackled the issue of no Digital ICE with Kodachrome. Yes, breathtaking, we can now apply dust and scratch removal to Kodachrome. The results amazed me, I'd got into the mindset that this would never be possible, but yes we can now do it. I have to say a bit of a word of caution, this process still needs a bit of tweaking, but compared to where we were before there's no comparison.
Next week we have some more work to do, the process to automatically number slides as we scan them is flawed so that needs tweaking and setting up a batch takes much longer than is the case when we use Nikon's software. When we've beaten those issues we'll be able to offer clients a whole new dimension in Kodachrome slide scanning. Then you can be excited too.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)