Just a quick note to say thanks to all those who rang to say 1Scan.co.uk website was down.
Yes, it was planned although it did take longer than I’d hoped. It’s part of our plan to add photobooks to our offerings and I know this bit of pain will be worthwhile.
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Why Aperture 3 from Apple MATTERS
You may not have noticed but Apple have just announced a new version of their photo organising / editing software, Aperture. You might not use but this is important, I’ll tell you why.
Apple is a market savvy company. Just look at the iPod, those cool MacBook laptops, all that brilliant placement in trendy films and TV shows; Apple knows technology and what people want. So when their flagship product includes a raft of new features it’s worth taking a closer look. Two areas are, in my opinion, are really interesting for you and me, “ordinary” photo collectors and photographers.
Like me you’ve got photos (digital) that you’ve taken recently, another batch that you took using film or slides that you’ve had digitised. Then there might be some family photos you’ve inherited, plus all those you’ve been sent by family members - 1,000 - 2,000?
What’s on them? Yes, loads of landscapes but mainly people - faces. That means that the main questions you ask are who? and where? To help you answer these questions Aperture now offers two features, facial recognition and geo-tagging.
Facial recognition is simple in concept but difficult to implement. The ideal is that you take one image and add the name of the person in the photo. Apple’s software then scans through your image library and identifies all other photos of that person either alone or in a group. Think how long it would take you to do that by hand. Work your way through your key family members and in a couple of hours all your portraits are “tagged”. That means you can quickly identify all the photos in your collection of the people who are nearest and dearest.
Geo-tagging means you can drop your images onto a map and Aperture makes a note of where that photo was taken. Again, a quick and effective way of adding vital data.
Put the two features together and you can brilliantly answer all those who and where questions.
Just now Apple are ahead of the wave when it comes to feature rich photographic applications, but expect it to appear in more products in the coming months.
Apple is a market savvy company. Just look at the iPod, those cool MacBook laptops, all that brilliant placement in trendy films and TV shows; Apple knows technology and what people want. So when their flagship product includes a raft of new features it’s worth taking a closer look. Two areas are, in my opinion, are really interesting for you and me, “ordinary” photo collectors and photographers.
Like me you’ve got photos (digital) that you’ve taken recently, another batch that you took using film or slides that you’ve had digitised. Then there might be some family photos you’ve inherited, plus all those you’ve been sent by family members - 1,000 - 2,000?
What’s on them? Yes, loads of landscapes but mainly people - faces. That means that the main questions you ask are who? and where? To help you answer these questions Aperture now offers two features, facial recognition and geo-tagging.
Facial recognition is simple in concept but difficult to implement. The ideal is that you take one image and add the name of the person in the photo. Apple’s software then scans through your image library and identifies all other photos of that person either alone or in a group. Think how long it would take you to do that by hand. Work your way through your key family members and in a couple of hours all your portraits are “tagged”. That means you can quickly identify all the photos in your collection of the people who are nearest and dearest.
Geo-tagging means you can drop your images onto a map and Aperture makes a note of where that photo was taken. Again, a quick and effective way of adding vital data.
Put the two features together and you can brilliantly answer all those who and where questions.
Just now Apple are ahead of the wave when it comes to feature rich photographic applications, but expect it to appear in more products in the coming months.
Monday, February 8, 2010
Scanning Time?
We're often asked how quickly we can scan a batch of photos, invariably the answer is much, much quicker than even the most dedicated traditional scanner operator. Let's take a batch of 500 photos, and a decent scanner being operated by someone familiar with the scanner and its software. Every time a scan is made the lid has to be lifted, photo(s) placed on the glass, and then the scan(s) made and the digital files saved.
If it takes as little as 1 minute per photo that gives a simple elapsed time of 8 hours and 20 minutes. If you add in a few minutes each hour to rest those straining eyes you could easily be talking about 10 hours. Very few people will sit scanning for that length of time, and probably don't have the time anyway. If you could manage a couple of hours a day you’re looking at a week of lost evenings or a solid weekend of grind. Even the most dedicated family member or photo hobbyist will find this a tedious burden.
From recent experience 500 photos isn’t a massive library. Last Thursday we were given a batch of 1100 photos that need to be scanned ready for our client on Tuesday. Yes, it has been done - it was polished off on Friday. DIY that would have been some 17 to 20 hours of work for a busy Mum with a young family. I’d suggest that a scanning bill for £110 is a modest price to avoid all that grind and lost family time.
If it takes as little as 1 minute per photo that gives a simple elapsed time of 8 hours and 20 minutes. If you add in a few minutes each hour to rest those straining eyes you could easily be talking about 10 hours. Very few people will sit scanning for that length of time, and probably don't have the time anyway. If you could manage a couple of hours a day you’re looking at a week of lost evenings or a solid weekend of grind. Even the most dedicated family member or photo hobbyist will find this a tedious burden.
From recent experience 500 photos isn’t a massive library. Last Thursday we were given a batch of 1100 photos that need to be scanned ready for our client on Tuesday. Yes, it has been done - it was polished off on Friday. DIY that would have been some 17 to 20 hours of work for a busy Mum with a young family. I’d suggest that a scanning bill for £110 is a modest price to avoid all that grind and lost family time.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
APS Film Scanning
I still shake at the memory - a couple of years ago a client asked us to scan about 50 APS films. We had never scanned APS before but I knew Nikon offered an adaptor that converted our Coolscans into APS film scanners.
So at some considerable expense I bought one.
It did three frames before giving up the ghost. I got a second, that did better, almost reaching the end of a film before expiring. The third scanned a couple of films (rather slowly I thought) before it too headed to the great APS graveyard. Nikon, Amazon and their pro supplier in London were very good about it but I ended up wishing we’d never agreed to scan the things in the first place. So I removed APS from our shopping list of capabilities.
As soon as you do that you know the demand will come back even if just to torment you, as it has, consistently. Finding a solution has been very difficult, APS is virtually a dead technology and dedicated APS scanners are yesterdays news. So we scratched our heads and we’ve come up with a solution.
So APS film scanning is back on the 1Scan film scanning menu, and our APS price list. And we now smile happily when APS cartridges arrive in the mail.
So at some considerable expense I bought one.
It did three frames before giving up the ghost. I got a second, that did better, almost reaching the end of a film before expiring. The third scanned a couple of films (rather slowly I thought) before it too headed to the great APS graveyard. Nikon, Amazon and their pro supplier in London were very good about it but I ended up wishing we’d never agreed to scan the things in the first place. So I removed APS from our shopping list of capabilities.
As soon as you do that you know the demand will come back even if just to torment you, as it has, consistently. Finding a solution has been very difficult, APS is virtually a dead technology and dedicated APS scanners are yesterdays news. So we scratched our heads and we’ve come up with a solution.
So APS film scanning is back on the 1Scan film scanning menu, and our APS price list. And we now smile happily when APS cartridges arrive in the mail.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Photobooks
No, we don’t do photobooks - at the moment. But wait ...
Earlier today I met a company that produces photobooks, and I was blown away. They’re a gem of a team, a fantastic blend of traditional book publishing, craftsmanship and decades of attention to the detail of making high quality books.
Yet here they are grabbing new technology in the shape of top quality digital image printing and combining it with their book building tools. It’s a fantastic combination and the books are superb.
I’d love to be able to offer our clients - and those for our free photo scanning service - the opportunity to get their scans made into top quality photobooks. So watch this space.
Earlier today I met a company that produces photobooks, and I was blown away. They’re a gem of a team, a fantastic blend of traditional book publishing, craftsmanship and decades of attention to the detail of making high quality books.
Yet here they are grabbing new technology in the shape of top quality digital image printing and combining it with their book building tools. It’s a fantastic combination and the books are superb.
I’d love to be able to offer our clients - and those for our free photo scanning service - the opportunity to get their scans made into top quality photobooks. So watch this space.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Alternatives to Scanning
Had a call from a potential client asking for advice - she had some precious photos that a relative wanted to take overseas. Naturally she was reluctant to let them go, but couldn’t afford the cost of Royal Mail Special Delivery both ways and scanning. What could be the alternative?
We came up with a couple of ideas. First take the photos to a local photocopier and use that to make copies. It’s quick, low cost and if the copier is decent the reproduction should be passable. Obviously this doesn’t deliver digital images it would produce a copy of the images which could be taken abroad safely.
The second option would be to use a digital camera to take a photo of each page of the album. A decent camera will focus quite close so you will get a photo of a photo. The key to getting a reasonable result is having a good camera and getting the lighting right. This cold winter light should give a decent result.
We came up with a couple of ideas. First take the photos to a local photocopier and use that to make copies. It’s quick, low cost and if the copier is decent the reproduction should be passable. Obviously this doesn’t deliver digital images it would produce a copy of the images which could be taken abroad safely.
The second option would be to use a digital camera to take a photo of each page of the album. A decent camera will focus quite close so you will get a photo of a photo. The key to getting a reasonable result is having a good camera and getting the lighting right. This cold winter light should give a decent result.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Nikon Woe Gone
The Nikon medium format scanner arrived, and has gone.
It was dead on arrival. That’s the risk you take with secondhand equipment but luckily the vendor was one of the decent people on eBay and we were able to resolve the issue very quickly. But that’s not what I wanted to say. While it was here I contacted a Nikon authorised repair shop and asked for a ballpark figure for fixing it - this is the story.
The unit powered on and went through its POST (power on self test). Green slow flashing lights to begin then a short series of rapid green flashes before returning to solid green. I have been told by the Nikon repair man that any pulse of rapid green flashing during POST indicates a fault. Flashing at the end indicates logic board issues.
My computers could tell a Nikon Coolscan 8000 was attached but nothing could be done to bring it to life.
The Coolscan 8000 has a main computer board holding its logic and that was most likely the cause of the failure. To replace that would cost some £350, plus, £100 labour plus shipping / transport there and back. Oh, and don’t forget VAT now back up to 17.5%. So the repair bill could easily be over £500. That’s not far short of what these units sell for on eBay anyway. Compare that with the cost of a comparable top-flight Epson and draw your own conclusion, I did.
It was dead on arrival. That’s the risk you take with secondhand equipment but luckily the vendor was one of the decent people on eBay and we were able to resolve the issue very quickly. But that’s not what I wanted to say. While it was here I contacted a Nikon authorised repair shop and asked for a ballpark figure for fixing it - this is the story.
The unit powered on and went through its POST (power on self test). Green slow flashing lights to begin then a short series of rapid green flashes before returning to solid green. I have been told by the Nikon repair man that any pulse of rapid green flashing during POST indicates a fault. Flashing at the end indicates logic board issues.
My computers could tell a Nikon Coolscan 8000 was attached but nothing could be done to bring it to life.
The Coolscan 8000 has a main computer board holding its logic and that was most likely the cause of the failure. To replace that would cost some £350, plus, £100 labour plus shipping / transport there and back. Oh, and don’t forget VAT now back up to 17.5%. So the repair bill could easily be over £500. That’s not far short of what these units sell for on eBay anyway. Compare that with the cost of a comparable top-flight Epson and draw your own conclusion, I did.
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