craigmullins
(regular)
Sun Jun 22 2008 06:11 PM
converting photos to digital

I have lots of photos, developed and the negatives. I want to have them digitally, I know I can scan them, although not sure what dpi I need to use. Is there some way of redoing them digitally from the nagatives? I tried scanning some but the quality was not very good.

Got a digital camera now, so only need this for my older ones.

Thanks

Craig.


greysts
(regular)
Sun Jun 22 2008 06:46 PM
Re: converting photos to digital

You can scan the prints using a normal flat bed scanner. To get reasonably good results for viewing on a computer screen you should use a setting of around 400dpi.

To scan negatives you will need what's known as 'light box' because a normal scanner uses reflective light to get the image. You can't do that with a negative. Some flat bed scanners have a light box built into the lid which is normally covered by a piece of card or plastic when doing normal scans. That card is withdrawn, the negatives put in a special holder and the light in the lid shines through the negative to produce the scan. You have to tell the scanning software that you are doing negatives else it will still try to do a normal scan.

Because the negative is so much smaller than the print you will need to use a far higher magnification. I normally use 2400dpi but it is possible to go much higher. The problem with greater magnification is the possibility of picking out any dust or dirt on the negative so everything must be very clean.


putasolutions
(regular)
Sun Jun 22 2008 09:31 PM
Re: converting photos to digital

Which scanner have you got? as greysts mentions any scanner can do it, all you need is a transparent media (materials) adapter, also known as a transparency adapter. Some manufacturers include a basic one in the kit, or if you have a lot to do and want a high quality job, then you might want to consider this

greysts
(regular)
Sun Jun 22 2008 10:17 PM
Re: converting photos to digital

I used this one to do about 400 slides.

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