We've been asked by a potential client if we can offer scan in JPG 2000 or JPEG 2000 format. The answer is yes.
If you'd like your jpgs as JPEG 2000 then just ask. We've always been able to supply this format for medium format and print scans, now we're extending this to cover all scans. Just ask, we'll do the rest.
The later jpg format offers better resolution on compression compared with "ordinary" jpg files.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Nikon SF-210
I've ben asked about our experience in 35mm slide scanning using the Nikon automatic slide feeder attachment, SF-210. Typically the question comes from someone who's frustrated with their unit, or wanting justification for spending over £500 on a bit of plastic having already spent the best part of £1,000 on a scanner.
The problem is slide jams. Yes, they happen to us too. The best preventative measure is to watch and listen to the unit, you can hear it as it struggles to feed a slide. Nimble fingers can help it on its way.
The best way to prevent jams is to get the gate adjustment correct via the knurled knob on the side of the slide feeder. Sort your slides so you have a batch of the same thickness and you'll be well on the way to smooth scanning.
Decent plastic mounts scan well, cardboard less so but generally OK. The worst are bent cardboard or card that has become "fluffy" over the years, the thicker card does catch on the mechanism.
People focus on the mechanics of the feeder and yes jams cost us time too. But what costs us more time is the rather hopeless way Nikon's sacnner software handles jams. Resetting that takes much longer and its a noticeable thorn in the side of smooth 35mm slide scanning.
The problem is slide jams. Yes, they happen to us too. The best preventative measure is to watch and listen to the unit, you can hear it as it struggles to feed a slide. Nimble fingers can help it on its way.
The best way to prevent jams is to get the gate adjustment correct via the knurled knob on the side of the slide feeder. Sort your slides so you have a batch of the same thickness and you'll be well on the way to smooth scanning.
Decent plastic mounts scan well, cardboard less so but generally OK. The worst are bent cardboard or card that has become "fluffy" over the years, the thicker card does catch on the mechanism.
People focus on the mechanics of the feeder and yes jams cost us time too. But what costs us more time is the rather hopeless way Nikon's sacnner software handles jams. Resetting that takes much longer and its a noticeable thorn in the side of smooth 35mm slide scanning.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Concentrate
Sometimes clients ask for advice - the most frequent topics are creating slideshows and assembling photo albums. I had their questions in mind when last weekend we vistited friends (that's not the Royal we, they're more my wife's friends so we went together).
"Would you like to see our photoalbums?" Genuinely I could say yes, and two Bonusprints albums were pulled off the coffee table. I started to flick through the images. Oh dear.
First impression, this is boring. Each page had been crammed with photos, consequently each one was the same size and very square. Now square is hard to compose for, and that did nothing for the images.
Second, this is a mess. What they'd done, and I can see it seemed like a good idea at the time, was get bound all the photos they'd taken this summer. They'd taken a trip to St Petersburg, there was some family celebration, a weekend away in Lille, and a relative held a retirement party. And more.
My brain was in overload, it was just image after image, we jumped from one location to another, from a Russian square to a marquee in Reading. I quickly lost the thread of what was going on. OK, it's easy to criticise but how would I have done it better.
Just concentrate - on one subject. Our Trip to Imperial Russia would have made a great album, and the viewer would experience the warm glow of knowing each page helps you explore a brilliant holiday. They had enough shots to fill an album and I suspect if you go to St petersburg you'll be hard pressed to take a bad photo. Then selectively invest in a few enlarged images. Go on, throw caution to the wind and have a single image on one page. That would have made a big impact.
What of the second album? I'd say the same should apply. Have one album, albeit smaller, for the events they'd taken shots. I would have skipped old Fred's retirement bash, but a few snaps of their kids over the summer would have been worth flicking through.
Next time I open iPhoto to compose a photoalbum I'm going to go for the event, the whole event, nothing but the event.
"Would you like to see our photoalbums?" Genuinely I could say yes, and two Bonusprints albums were pulled off the coffee table. I started to flick through the images. Oh dear.
First impression, this is boring. Each page had been crammed with photos, consequently each one was the same size and very square. Now square is hard to compose for, and that did nothing for the images.
Second, this is a mess. What they'd done, and I can see it seemed like a good idea at the time, was get bound all the photos they'd taken this summer. They'd taken a trip to St Petersburg, there was some family celebration, a weekend away in Lille, and a relative held a retirement party. And more.
My brain was in overload, it was just image after image, we jumped from one location to another, from a Russian square to a marquee in Reading. I quickly lost the thread of what was going on. OK, it's easy to criticise but how would I have done it better.
Just concentrate - on one subject. Our Trip to Imperial Russia would have made a great album, and the viewer would experience the warm glow of knowing each page helps you explore a brilliant holiday. They had enough shots to fill an album and I suspect if you go to St petersburg you'll be hard pressed to take a bad photo. Then selectively invest in a few enlarged images. Go on, throw caution to the wind and have a single image on one page. That would have made a big impact.
What of the second album? I'd say the same should apply. Have one album, albeit smaller, for the events they'd taken shots. I would have skipped old Fred's retirement bash, but a few snaps of their kids over the summer would have been worth flicking through.
Next time I open iPhoto to compose a photoalbum I'm going to go for the event, the whole event, nothing but the event.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Kodachrome RIP
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.
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.
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.
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