Spent most of yesterday scanning some pretty ancient slides, old and in poor condition is a rotten combination. Thankfully our scanners have some built-in tools that help, notably Digital ICE which is fantastic at removing major dust and scratches. As I chugged through the pile my little heart sank every time I came across a Kodachrome because Digital ICE sadly doesn’t work on this type of film. Scanning 35mm slide, you come across a lot of Kodachrome.
Having a love / hate relationship with the film didn’t stop me feeling a pang of remorse when I read in The Times this morning that after a production run of 74 years Kodak are withdrawing Kodachrome. It seems Kodachrome dates back to 1935 and originally appeared as 16mm movie film but then made the transition to 35mm slide stock. Over 100 million rolls of Kodachrome are said to have been made, and in America a state park has been named after it. The Zapruder film of the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963 was shot on Kodachrome too. Somewhat oddly it seems to have been loved as much by professional photographers as by hobbyists. It must be one of the few truly global brand identities ranking alongside that of Kodak.
The Times quotes a 35mm slide as having 20 megapixels of data but they don’t give the source of that, interesting to me as that’s one of the highest figures I’ve seen for 35mm data capacity. Alongside the article is a glowing tribute to the quality, colours and warmth of Kodachrome, positioning it as the vinyl record equivalent of photography.
Paul Simon’s song “Kodachrome” made it to number 2 in the US pop charts in 1973, a song I still have on my iPod and often pops up on the radio. Apparently Dwayne’s Photo of Parsons, Kansas will process Kodachrome until 2010, at which point it’s a final goodbye to what must have been the world’s favourite film.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Totally Incorrect
When I saw a blog mentioned with the name of Totally Incorrect (www.totallyincorrect.com) I just had to take a look. I’m very glad I did, here’s why.
I’ve been asked to put together some slideshows for clients, two of whom wanted their weddings covered. David Holliday who writes Totally Incorrect also runs a wedding event / photography business called Unique Weddings, so on the main page of his blog he has a slideshow style clip promoting his service. As with any slideshow it’s a simple mix of photos and music. I just loved it, so I suggest you hop on over to totallyincorrect.com to take a look, but first let me explain why I liked it.
First, it works. If somebody did this of my wedding I know my wife and I would love it. We’d look at it time and again.
Second, there’s great inspiration in the shots David has taken. The still life of the bride’s shows, the table top with all the name labels. Would you have thought of taking those shots? I know the shoes my wife wore are important to her - 30+ years down the track they’re still at the back of the wardrobe.
What really hit me was the choice of music. The choice and David’s bravery in the way he uses it. To appreciate what I’m saying you’re going to have to watch all the way through to the very end to know what I mean. My choice for music would be classical, OK I can trot out some sort of logical justification for that but really nothing else ever crosses my mind. David’s choice isn’t classical, although it did sound to me as if it had classical overtones. Throughout it works, it’s a great choice but sorry I don’t know what the track is.
The bravery comes in at the end. He lets the track run through his images right into the very quiet ending. I bet 99.99% of us (me included) would have chopped out the quiet ending. That would be mundane, predictable and safe. David took a bold step and it really works. I bet if you ran that for the bride and groom you would hear their hearts beat as the clip ends.
It’s under four minutes. It’s great - and any one of us can learn from it. Go check it out NOW.
I’ve been asked to put together some slideshows for clients, two of whom wanted their weddings covered. David Holliday who writes Totally Incorrect also runs a wedding event / photography business called Unique Weddings, so on the main page of his blog he has a slideshow style clip promoting his service. As with any slideshow it’s a simple mix of photos and music. I just loved it, so I suggest you hop on over to totallyincorrect.com to take a look, but first let me explain why I liked it.
First, it works. If somebody did this of my wedding I know my wife and I would love it. We’d look at it time and again.
Second, there’s great inspiration in the shots David has taken. The still life of the bride’s shows, the table top with all the name labels. Would you have thought of taking those shots? I know the shoes my wife wore are important to her - 30+ years down the track they’re still at the back of the wardrobe.
What really hit me was the choice of music. The choice and David’s bravery in the way he uses it. To appreciate what I’m saying you’re going to have to watch all the way through to the very end to know what I mean. My choice for music would be classical, OK I can trot out some sort of logical justification for that but really nothing else ever crosses my mind. David’s choice isn’t classical, although it did sound to me as if it had classical overtones. Throughout it works, it’s a great choice but sorry I don’t know what the track is.
The bravery comes in at the end. He lets the track run through his images right into the very quiet ending. I bet 99.99% of us (me included) would have chopped out the quiet ending. That would be mundane, predictable and safe. David took a bold step and it really works. I bet if you ran that for the bride and groom you would hear their hearts beat as the clip ends.
It’s under four minutes. It’s great - and any one of us can learn from it. Go check it out NOW.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
In Case of Fire?
What would you grab?
The American insurance company Chubb Corp. commissioned a poll which found that nearly half would grab a family photo album, while a fifth would reach for money. They surveyed 1,000 Americans and found that 13% would take a laptop, 7% would bring their pet and 2% would pack their jewelry.
One third of respondents said they don't store valuable documents in a fire-resistant safe or at an off-premise location. But 73% said they've cleared their roof or gutters of leaves and debris, and 70% have removed dead or flammable plants and trees from around their homes.
Still, a fifth said they haven't replaced the batteries in their smoke detectors.
The American insurance company Chubb Corp. commissioned a poll which found that nearly half would grab a family photo album, while a fifth would reach for money. They surveyed 1,000 Americans and found that 13% would take a laptop, 7% would bring their pet and 2% would pack their jewelry.
One third of respondents said they don't store valuable documents in a fire-resistant safe or at an off-premise location. But 73% said they've cleared their roof or gutters of leaves and debris, and 70% have removed dead or flammable plants and trees from around their homes.
Still, a fifth said they haven't replaced the batteries in their smoke detectors.
Friday, April 24, 2009
Battle of the Sexes?
Facing a long flight to New York recently I went into the bookshop at Heathrow to invest in a couple of books. Just as well I did, American Airlines promptly cancelled our flight so we had four extra hours to kill until Virgin could rescue us and we were on our way.
One of the books was “Fl!p” by Peter Sheahan. maybe it should be Flip but it’s Fl!p on the arty red cover. I don’t expect a modern business book to mention a photo scanning service, and this is no exception, but it does mention the different attitudes men and women have to photos. The suggestion was that men are content with digital images while women want a physical image they can hand around. Not sure that’s true but I can see where he’s coming from.
When we got back Laura, who’d been managing the show while we were away, said she’d had a call from a client whose scanned photos hadn’t arrived in the mail. I had a message to ring their home number, which I did. There was nobody in so I left a message on their answering service. I explained that I would create an extra copy of the CD with their scanned photos and mail it to them that day.
Next day I received two calls within minutes of each other. First, Mr Client who said he’d received a text message from his wife to say what was in the mail. Thanks, he said, for the second CD, but the original package had now turned up. However it’s very useful to have a second copy of the CD which he was going to send to his brother. CD, CD, digital images, thanks.
Then Mrs Client rang, so happy that her original photos hadn’t been lost. How worried she’d been when told they’d gone out a day or two earlier, how she’d fretted she might never see them again, what a relief the prints have now arrived. Prints, prints, prints, thanks.
OK, just one small example. But it does support Peter Sheahan’s suggestion, in this case the woman was keen to get the prints back, while her husband was happy enough with the digital versions.
One of the books was “Fl!p” by Peter Sheahan. maybe it should be Flip but it’s Fl!p on the arty red cover. I don’t expect a modern business book to mention a photo scanning service, and this is no exception, but it does mention the different attitudes men and women have to photos. The suggestion was that men are content with digital images while women want a physical image they can hand around. Not sure that’s true but I can see where he’s coming from.
When we got back Laura, who’d been managing the show while we were away, said she’d had a call from a client whose scanned photos hadn’t arrived in the mail. I had a message to ring their home number, which I did. There was nobody in so I left a message on their answering service. I explained that I would create an extra copy of the CD with their scanned photos and mail it to them that day.
Next day I received two calls within minutes of each other. First, Mr Client who said he’d received a text message from his wife to say what was in the mail. Thanks, he said, for the second CD, but the original package had now turned up. However it’s very useful to have a second copy of the CD which he was going to send to his brother. CD, CD, digital images, thanks.
Then Mrs Client rang, so happy that her original photos hadn’t been lost. How worried she’d been when told they’d gone out a day or two earlier, how she’d fretted she might never see them again, what a relief the prints have now arrived. Prints, prints, prints, thanks.
OK, just one small example. But it does support Peter Sheahan’s suggestion, in this case the woman was keen to get the prints back, while her husband was happy enough with the digital versions.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Jar Gallery
I like photo prints just as much as anybody, without prints we wouldn’t have a major chunk of our business which is indeed scanning prints for people. But I do like the idea of sharing photos and scanning is very much about being able to share - often across continents.
Prints are there to be enjoyed, yet all too often they live in obscurity at the back of a drawer. I really liked this idea and I’m not too proud to admit I came across it on an American website - using glass jars as photo frames. So I dug out an old marmalade jar, thankfully it had been through our dishwasher (Brentwood Council won’t recycle dirty glass) and just slotted a print inside it. I was lucky as the print immediately slipped neatly into the flat side of the jar, no scissors and trimming needed. I put the jar on the window sill and it took on life with the light behind it.
I then took the photo out and turned it round, of course you want the opening of the jar down to stop it trapping the dust (don’t you?). I was quite pleased with the result, for no cost and about five minutes time. I think if I’d dug out three or four photos I could have made a nice family group. Perhaps if your could line a jar with some protective plastic you might be able to make a decorative and useful present.
When the children were younger I think they’d have enjoyed making cheap but appreciate presents for grandparents, or perhaps this could be one of those primary school projects for Mother’s Day.
Prints are there to be enjoyed, yet all too often they live in obscurity at the back of a drawer. I really liked this idea and I’m not too proud to admit I came across it on an American website - using glass jars as photo frames. So I dug out an old marmalade jar, thankfully it had been through our dishwasher (Brentwood Council won’t recycle dirty glass) and just slotted a print inside it. I was lucky as the print immediately slipped neatly into the flat side of the jar, no scissors and trimming needed. I put the jar on the window sill and it took on life with the light behind it.
I then took the photo out and turned it round, of course you want the opening of the jar down to stop it trapping the dust (don’t you?). I was quite pleased with the result, for no cost and about five minutes time. I think if I’d dug out three or four photos I could have made a nice family group. Perhaps if your could line a jar with some protective plastic you might be able to make a decorative and useful present.
When the children were younger I think they’d have enjoyed making cheap but appreciate presents for grandparents, or perhaps this could be one of those primary school projects for Mother’s Day.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
DPI - How much is enough?
From time to time we get asked about something called “dpi” - dots per inch. It’s a technical measure of how much data is used to convert a physical (analogue) image into a digital file. In some ways its easy to answer but often it gets very technical.
The easy answer is “enough”, and if you’re not technically minded feel free to click away now.
For the more geeky among us our basic print scanning service can deliver 300 dpi, 600 dpi or 1200 dpi. Let’s start with the original photos that we scan, they are printed at what is in digital terms 300 dpi. If you want to view images on a computer or TV scanning at 300 dpi will give you a more than acceptable result and will load pretty well in a photoframe. If you make reprints of the file at or a bit bigger than the original the image will be fine.
At 600 dpi you have a much bigger file, if you remember your geometry it’s four times bigger so that will be tougher to load into a photoframe, somewhat slower to load on a PC or DVD player but will deliver prints capable of being enlarged.
What about 1200 dpi? Yes, we can offer this but there’s a big “but”. We’ve done tests, as have a few clients, and in viewing terms on PC, TV/DVD, on Apple TV or similar photo streaming systems, there is no benefit. Technically your files will be 16 times bigger than those at 300 dpi giving you a big jpg file. It’s slow to load and hard to handle. Compared to scanning speeds of 300 dpi or 600 dpi at 1200 dpi you think the scanner has broken down it goes so slowly. For that reason we would typically charge more for 1200 dpi photo print scans. Frankly, it’s not worth the bother.
Yet if you look elsewhere you’ll see we offer very much higher dpi rates with jpg and tiff files when scanning negatives. How do we reconcile this? Well it’s all to do with the size of the original. Take a 35mm slide or negative, that’s very small so to get a decent size image or print a degree of enlargement is necessary. If we scanned that at 300 dpi it wouldn’t enlarge, so a four times enlargement would still only be a modest print (around postcard sized) and you’d need 1200 dpi for that. For that reason our Home slide and negative scanning runs at 2,000 dpi.
Is there a maximum? Well many people have suggested that the maximum amount of data that can be extracted from a 35mm slide or negative is 4,000 dpi. Nikon, one of the foremost names in photography and the maker of our 35mm scanners offer a maximum of 4,000 dpi on both their 35mm and medium format scanners. So that’s why we don’t go beyond 4,000 dpi.
What if the client is adamant in wanting a 4,000 dpi scan of an A4 sized print? I can’t think why it would be wanted or needed but we’re service business and in the final analysis the customer is always right.
The easy answer is “enough”, and if you’re not technically minded feel free to click away now.
For the more geeky among us our basic print scanning service can deliver 300 dpi, 600 dpi or 1200 dpi. Let’s start with the original photos that we scan, they are printed at what is in digital terms 300 dpi. If you want to view images on a computer or TV scanning at 300 dpi will give you a more than acceptable result and will load pretty well in a photoframe. If you make reprints of the file at or a bit bigger than the original the image will be fine.
At 600 dpi you have a much bigger file, if you remember your geometry it’s four times bigger so that will be tougher to load into a photoframe, somewhat slower to load on a PC or DVD player but will deliver prints capable of being enlarged.
What about 1200 dpi? Yes, we can offer this but there’s a big “but”. We’ve done tests, as have a few clients, and in viewing terms on PC, TV/DVD, on Apple TV or similar photo streaming systems, there is no benefit. Technically your files will be 16 times bigger than those at 300 dpi giving you a big jpg file. It’s slow to load and hard to handle. Compared to scanning speeds of 300 dpi or 600 dpi at 1200 dpi you think the scanner has broken down it goes so slowly. For that reason we would typically charge more for 1200 dpi photo print scans. Frankly, it’s not worth the bother.
Yet if you look elsewhere you’ll see we offer very much higher dpi rates with jpg and tiff files when scanning negatives. How do we reconcile this? Well it’s all to do with the size of the original. Take a 35mm slide or negative, that’s very small so to get a decent size image or print a degree of enlargement is necessary. If we scanned that at 300 dpi it wouldn’t enlarge, so a four times enlargement would still only be a modest print (around postcard sized) and you’d need 1200 dpi for that. For that reason our Home slide and negative scanning runs at 2,000 dpi.
Is there a maximum? Well many people have suggested that the maximum amount of data that can be extracted from a 35mm slide or negative is 4,000 dpi. Nikon, one of the foremost names in photography and the maker of our 35mm scanners offer a maximum of 4,000 dpi on both their 35mm and medium format scanners. So that’s why we don’t go beyond 4,000 dpi.
What if the client is adamant in wanting a 4,000 dpi scan of an A4 sized print? I can’t think why it would be wanted or needed but we’re service business and in the final analysis the customer is always right.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Photo Security
I was scanning photos and listening to BBC Essex yesterday and was struck by an item on the awful fires in Australia. An Essex woman was desperately trying to contact her brother and his family who lived in one of the worst hit areas, naturally she feared the worst.
The tale had a happy ending, the BBC managed to track down the lost brother who was safe and well. Brother and sister had spoken and the brother was interviewed about his experience. What struck me was what he said he’d picked up the moment they got the instruction to evacuate his house immediately. First was a leather jacket (to help protect him from the fire) and third was “important documents”.
Second was his family photos. From a personal and professional perspective I can understand that, but I also have conversations with people planning to digitise their family photo archive, people who would find it hard to assemble all their photos in several hours. So what we would we, thankfully away from the risk of bush fires, do if faced with flood or someother British disaster?
I can smugly say all my photos are safely backed up online thanks to Apple and MobileMe. Digital files can be recovered instantly, even if I lost my computers as long as I could get internet access I could download my jpgs and re-instate my photo library. You could do the same, but you have to act now.
The tale had a happy ending, the BBC managed to track down the lost brother who was safe and well. Brother and sister had spoken and the brother was interviewed about his experience. What struck me was what he said he’d picked up the moment they got the instruction to evacuate his house immediately. First was a leather jacket (to help protect him from the fire) and third was “important documents”.
Second was his family photos. From a personal and professional perspective I can understand that, but I also have conversations with people planning to digitise their family photo archive, people who would find it hard to assemble all their photos in several hours. So what we would we, thankfully away from the risk of bush fires, do if faced with flood or someother British disaster?
I can smugly say all my photos are safely backed up online thanks to Apple and MobileMe. Digital files can be recovered instantly, even if I lost my computers as long as I could get internet access I could download my jpgs and re-instate my photo library. You could do the same, but you have to act now.
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