Archive for the ‘Slide Scanning News’ Category

Why Photo Scanning? Key principles to Outsource Photo Scanning

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Photo is important. It always delivers the message of happiness. It is helpful to rememorizes our past. But to keep photo safely is difficult. One another problem is to store the photos. You have to check for storage place where environment doesn’t do any damage to you photo. The solution is slide scanning.

Photo scanning help you in various ways:

• It is one of the most powerful ways to save storage space for your photos. By scanning, it gets converted into digital and requires very less space.

• It becomes portable. So you can easily carry the photo wherever you want to.

• Through scanning, it becomes very safe. Scanned photo can’t be damage easily. So you can be worry free about you photo and focus on important work.

• You can access them very easily.

You can do photo scanning at your own, but it requires setting of dpi, resolution and professional touch. To get all those you can outsource project to scanning services provider which have excellence in scanning photos. Here question is about which point consider for outsourcing.

Check the bellow mention checkpoints while outsourcing photo scanning:

Specialist: You can outsource to a company having specialist to scan photos. This type of company will carry out best quality scanned photo to you. A Specialist can enhance you image clarity with consideration of other important points.

Quality: You have to check the quality they deliver. You can view their sample posted online and can get idea about the quality of company’s work.

Promptness: You have to discuss with offshore photo scanning company about time frame of project.

Formats: Check the formats they offer you for photo scanning. Outsource only if company offers proper output format as per your requirements.

Structured Information: You must check that the company you are going to outsource is providing organized output. If not then it is not recommended to outsource any scanning work for photo.

Cost: Price is having less importance when photo scanning comes into the picture. But it has to be economical. Outsourcing can be beneficial to you as you get high quality with cost benefits.

If you search out, you can find some company in industry are offering free trial service. Just post a sample project and get better idea about their quality, promptness and service support.

The How To On Taking a Better Photograph

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

Taking better photographs is a combination of proper technique, talent, and experience. Once you have shot your best work, you should consider sending your pics to a company that specializes in digital photo printing services, digital photo restoration, and 35 mm negative slide scanning, in order to obtain digital quality prints, even if a digital camera is not your preferred medium. Photo printing, restoration, and scanning services also give you the option of purchasing a CD of your photographs, which can be an invaluable backup resource in the event that your original files, film, or prints are lost or damaged.

One thing that photo restoration and 35 mm slide scanning services notice is that most people stand too far away from their subject, and since most photos are taken with digital cameras nowadays, this problem is becoming more prevalent. Before digital cameras, professional camera men used the term shoe leather zooms, when describing their photography techniques, meaning that if they wanted to zoom in on the subject, they just walked closer. Even if you are utilizing an antique camera, or a drug store disposable, you can improve your photographs, just by getting a little closer to your subject before taking the picture.

It is important to focus on your subject, and less important to focus on the really pretty flower or interesting tree next to it. It may sound obvious, but you would be surprised if you knew that amount of crowded shots that the average digital photo printing service company sees in a week, let alone a day. In other words, going along with the first tip, do not be afraid to get closer and make the subject, not the background, the focus of the picture. Take a look through the photo archives, particularly those of family portraits, and you will see that more often than not, the subject, (or subjects) was always the focal point of the shot, regardless of what was in the background.

You should think of the viewfinder of your camera as being divided into three columns and three rows, and position your subject in a way that will cover as many of these blocks as possible. Often, the only real distinction between a professional photograph and an amateur one, according to digital photo restoration and slide scanning pros, is the placement and size of the photographs subject. At the risk of sounding redundant: do not be afraid to move in for that close up.

What about film scanning?

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

The good answer for creating large images to print is to use a film scanner to scan the film instead of the prints. These are often called slide scanners, but they scan both slides or negatives. Most are for 35 mm film.

Scanning film is better than scanning prints, because in the first place, scanning the film is using the original image, but the print is a second generation copy. Making a copy of a negative onto photo print paper is like making a copy of a music CD onto a cassette tape. The cassette tape is not so bad, it is very usable, but it sure is not a CD. We would not choose the cassette tape as the master to make yet another copy if the CD were available.

In the second place, film has greatly more detail and contrast available. Without quibbling about the numbers, most film is capable of over 3000 dpi, compared to only about 300 dpi for color photo print paper. The 35 mm film is a smaller original, so it must be enlarged more, about 4 times more than a scanned 6×4 inch print, to get the same image size at the printer. However the film and film scanner has well over 10 times more capability to do it.

Image size and memory cost can be quite huge when slide scanning film, because you are realistically able to scan at very high resolution. The huge size is the entire point, for example to create enough pixels to print full page size. You will want at least 128 megabytes of memory, and more is better. But a film scanner definitely does allow acquiring enough quality pixels to scale to print a large image.

For example, a full frame 35 mm color negative scanned at 2400 dpi will be about 3400×2200 pixels, and about 22 megabytes. Scanning at 2400 dpi and printing at 300 dpi allows enlarging that printed image 8 times more than the original film size (2400/300 = 8). Scaling by 8, so that the 1.4 x 0.9 inch film size (36 x 24 mm) prints 8X larger gives 11.2 x 7.2 inches. It will look great in regard to detail if printed at 200 to 300 dpi (assuming the printer can handle it). Scanning film originals can support this level of detail. Scanning a 6×4 inch photo will not.

Let’s quickly review scaling again, to make the point about large images, and to make sure the simple arithmetic is understood. The basic fact is that dpi means “pixels per inch”. The main point is that the image size in inches is computed from the image size in pixels, using resolution to space those pixels on paper.

The ratio of (scanning resolution / printing resolution) gives the enlargement factor. If scanning at 2700 dpi, and printing at 240 dpi, then the printed image is 2700/240 = 11.2 times larger than the original film. We can adjust the printed size by varying the printing resolution, maybe 200 or 300 dpi instead of 240 dpi.

Saying the same thing another way to make sure it is clear: If we scan 1.4 inches of 35 mm film at 2700 dpi, then we get (1.4 inches x 2700 dpi) = 3780 pixels. If we print 3780 pixels at 240 dpi on paper, then that image size is (3780 pixels / 240 dpi) = 15.7 inches. 15.7 inches is 11.2 times larger than 1.4 inches. Large images in pixels are needed to print large images in inches.

For example, to print 8×10 inches at 240 dpi requires (8 inches x 240 dpi) x (10 inches x 240 dpi) = 1920 x 2400 pixels. It takes (1920 pixels / 0.9 inches) = 2135 dpi to create this image from 35 mm film (full frame, so even more if it is cropped).

We do need large images to print large at high scaled resolution. Film scanners will give us those large images while retaining very good image quality.

What Is The Best 35mm Slide Scanning For Older Slides

Friday, October 2nd, 2009

The 35mm slide scanning is a boon for people who were born well before the advent of digital era and have stocks of 35mm slides and negatives stored away in cupboards, garages, attics or under the stairs with lots of memories captured in them. The purpose for doing so is to re-live and commemorate those precious moments again on special occasions and family gatherings. However, that seldom happens and the negatives and slides are left untouched for years. This is mainly because it is just not that easy to recover and set up the 35mm slide projector and the screen. Well, today you don’t have to go through such troubles every time you want to share the forgotten memories with your friends and family.

With the advancement in the technology, you can now very easily resurrect your older slides and negatives by using a 35mm slide scanning. A negative and slide scanner allows you to convert your older slides and negatives into a digital format that can then be stored on your PC. You can easily share these saved files with your friends, relatives and family members in different ways like you can email them, post them on social network sites like Myspace or Facebook, burn them to CDs or DVDs, or just get them printed in different sizes and formats.

So, if you have loads of 35mm slides and negatives, and want to restore them so that you can share them with others then you should get a slide and negative scanner. That brings us to the important question – “What is the best 35mm slide scanning for older slides?”

Well, there are lots of models and brands of slide scanners that are available in the market. Fundamentally, they can be classified in two categories – dedicated slide scanner and multi-purpose flatbed slide scanner. The difference between the two is that the dedicated scanner can only scan slides and films while the flatbed one cannot only scan slides and films but also documents and photos.

Some of the leading brands you can choose from include Cannon, Nikon, HP, Epson, Kodak, Polaroid, Olympus, Microtek, Minolta and Leaf. The scanners from are available in different price ranges from low to high end. However, focusing only on the price and brand won’t help you get the best. You also need to consider the features, quality and the use of product before buying one.

One of the important aspects you need to consider when buying a scanner is the purpose for which you are going to use it. If you simply want to scan the older slides that you have, then a low end product will do. On the other hand, if you are a photographer who takes pictures regularly, then you should opt for a mid-range product. However, if you run a publishing and printing business that requires you to scan huge quantities of films and slides, then you should certainly need a high-end product.

The resolution of the scanner is another thing that you should consider. The higher the resolution is, better the end product will be. The software that comes along the scanners is another important feature that you need to look for. Make sure that it will help you to accomplish your tasks like scanning, storing and editing easily.

Selecting a best 35mm scanner for older slides not only depends on pricing and brand name of the product but also its features and purpose. Go for one that fits in your budget and fulfills your needs.

How Image Scanning Service is Beneficial to Business?

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

Images are very important in any business. Customer gets the idea about the look of the product through images. To sell any product, only configuration is not enough. The look of the product is also matter for high selling. There is high chance of sell when you present the product more attractively. If you will fail to do such, you will surly loose the business.

If you scan the product images with normal scanner at lower dpi (dot per inch), you can not give professional look to the images. Ultimately, you can not convert your visitor to customer. To convert them, your product images must look professional and clear.

Image scanning service will help you out. Through this slide scanning service, you can get the clear and professional digital images which offer better idea about your products. If visitor found your product attractive, their conversion chances become higher.

Let’s check where you can use digital images and how image scanning service is beneficial to your business.

Catalog Enhancement: Digital image is very much helpful for catalog. This increases the value of your catalog. If product images are looking attractive in catalog, there are more chances of conversion/order. You will receiver more customers if catalog deliver the best representation of real products. So scanned images are beneficial to convert more customers.

Online Availability: Image clarity is very much required when it concern with online selling. If you want to sell any product online, you have to worry about the product image clarity. Without clear image, no customer is going to buy product. So High quality digital Images help your business to grow online. You can get high quality digital images through image scanning service.

Efficient Business Presentation: To persuade any big clients, you have to prepare a good presentation. High resolution images make the presentation better. If you show a presentation with low quality images, client surly decline your proposal. So here also clear and high quality images play vital role for creating a good image of business and products.

This is how image scanning service is beneficial to business. It is most important that you must hire a reputed and good scanning company for scanning needs.

A Digital Scanning Solution – Digitize Your Scanning Process Now!

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

In the event that you’re starting to hunt for a digital scanning solution and you could use some advice on which one to buy, then you just have to listen to some good advice on the subject that will ensure that you purchase the right scanner for you. The use of a compact scanner can actually revolutionize your daily and weekly data-handling routine, for example, when keeping critical material is a factor. Before buying a portable scanning solution, it’s highly recommended to browse the information that follows.

As is true of every high-tech product you might encounter, transportable scanners have been developed to be easy to learn and to get comfortable with. Compact scanners are great for a variety of scanning needs such as business cards and receipts that have accumulated, various records and licenses… In just a few short moments portable scanners offer exceptional pixel resolution in a format to meet your every need. In today’s market, the cost of a digital scanning solution is both smart and affordable whether you are buying it for personal or business use.

According to many users, the best thing about these handheld scanners is the great convenience of them whether you’re at home, at work, or on the road. Each scanner is equipped with a custom slide scanning program that will allow you to obtain impressive results from pictures and text and save them in your choice of a variety of formats. As an example, an id card scanner has the ability to pull out the images and data, including the photo, signature, and all the text of the id and then sort it into useable data fields, into an external document, your clipboard, or any appropriate application.

Before committing to a digital scanning solution here are several factors you need to keep in mind: (1) what will your scanner’s main purpose be? (2) search the internet for scanners you think might fit your needs; (3) compare the technical specifications of each scanner; (4) be sure that the manufacturer has a good name and see what past customers have to say about it; (5) find out about freight charges and returns.

Photo slide scanning

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Photo slide scanning plays a very important part in the process of photo restoration. Photo slide scanning provides a workable foundation for restorers to work on photos that need work, without having to alter the original photo in any way. When an original photograph is tinkered with, there is great risk for irreparable damage to occur to the photograph.

When people handle their pictures and negatives, they do many things, unintentionally, that are very harmful to them, and most do not even know they are damaging their photos. Photo scanning can produce corrected copies of old photos and photos that have been damaged.

Photo scanning can help with restoring photos that have been damaged by common wear. Besides sticking fingers all over the pictures, there are more than fingerprints that can slowly destroy your paper memories. Pictures are actually made of gelatin and tiny silver particles. This makes them susceptible to bug infestation, mold, mildew, and humidity.

Unfortunately, many things that are made for use with pictures are the very things that hasten their disintegration. Photo scanning can give you a picture that is free from the damage that has occurred to your originals. Many picture boards, cardboards, and most glue contain an acid that slowly eats away at the pictures. Even the chemicals that are used to develop the film from negatives are to blame for the eventual demise of these photographs. Photo scanning can give you corrected duplicates of your original, damaged, photos.

Photo scanning can correct sunlight induced fading damage. Most people are commonly aware that sunlight will ruin photographs. Even pictures that were never intentionally put in the sun can still show damage, even if the sun hit the picture for a few minutes each day.

Photo scanning can provide a smooth replacement for a sticky, corroded picture. Never use rubber cement to adhere photographs to anything. The acids in rubber cement will ruin the picture quickly, cracking the emulsion and paper backing. Rubber cement contains sulfur, which reacts with the silver that sentences pictures to certain death!

Scrapbooking and photo album hobbies have become very popular ways for people to store and share their photos. It is best to use pictures that have undergone photo scanning for these projects, with the original pictures stored properly. You should not use originals in these albums, but the photo scanning copies work well. Do not use the photo albums that have the self adhesive pages covered by clear plastic film.

The glue, again here too, is acidic. Never display your pictures in vinyl sleeves. The sleeves are made out of a certain type of plastic that will cause both color and black and white photos to fade. However, if you find pictures that are dear to you that have fallen victim to any of these damaging mishaps, photo scanning can make it all better, and can even make your pictures better than they originally were.

Creating Digital Albums From Old Photos

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Since digital cameras came into the market, most people use digital formats for new photos, and there are people keeping older film camera paper prints, slides and negatives. We will show how to convert them into digital formats.

Paper Prints

Sizes 4X6 and 5X7. If they are kept too long, tend to lose their quality, the paper might turn yellow, bend and colors faded.

Slides

Are similar to negatives but projecting photos on large screen.

Negatives

Are processed film usually 35mm roll which hardly used unless to develop new paper prints.

Want to know how to convert all those old photos from traditional paper and negatives to digital? This is easy to copy and a better way to keep the photos in the computer for long time. For amateurs try simple, easy and cheap methods. Professional photographers will spend time and money on this process scanning and requires different equipment.

Scan paper photos prints on a scanner yourself, is a cheaper way, unless you want to send to a professional scanning service that will scan and mail them back the originals and a DVD with the digital scans. Sometimes, it’s a risk to take, mailing the only hardcopy of your photos.

The Resolution is measured by the number of dots per inch, if you are going to scan it yourself. Usually the scanner can scan at 1200DPI or more. The higher the resolution the slower the scan and bigger photo file size. If the higher resolutions scan is at 300 to 600 DPI, you get better results.

When you buy a scanner check the scanning Speed, which is measured by number of scans per minute and check the speed at the DPI you’re going to use. Speed is important if you are using more than hundreds photos. For better results, scan at the lowest resolution possible, 300-600DPI is good enough.

Photo feeding is not an issue if only small number, but for more photos make sure that the scanner is fast and easy loading. A good scanner will automatically load stacks of photos, feed and scan them for you.

Scanning negatives and slides is harder than scanning paper prints, so a professional scanning service is easier and cheaper. Standard flat scanner will not be good enough; you need a film/slides scanner. Negatives and slides are high resolution sources and require scanning at higher DPI than paper prints. In this cases 2400DPI or higher should be used. So scanning home photo paper prints is good enough but scanning the source negatives is a not needed.

You can see how easy to photo paper prints by yourself rather than using professional slide scanning service. For a small investment, get an expensive automatic scanner which has all the functions to convert your original quality memories into digital format, for you and your children to enjoy.

Plus you can keep these photos stored safely on DVD hard drive or online where you can never loose them. And you can share your photos with the world faster then you can say cheese!

Slide Scanning Tips

Monday, September 28th, 2009

One of the best tools that photographers and those in the printing business can ever have today is the slide scanner. With this device, storing and printing images are made faster and easier than before.

For those who have already bought a reliable film and slide scanning, congratulations as you’ve taken the right step. But for those who are still contemplating on what to purchase, make sure to get a dedicated 35mm film scanner especially if a major part of your project focuses only on slides and films. Unlike a flatbed scanner, getting a specific film or slide scanning will be an advantage to you in terms of scanning speed and fast transfer of images to your computer.

Now before you start your work, preparing your materials is very important. When you’re ready with what you need, everything will just move on smoothly and you’ll finish your work in less time.

Clean first

So get those slides you’re going to work with and organize them accordingly on your desk. The first thing you’ll need to do is to make sure that they’re clean and free from dust. These tiny particles may not be visible to your eyes but they can be captured by the scanner and then visible on the images stored on your computer afterwards. Even though a software that came with your purchase of the scanner can help you get rid of dust on your slides, do it manually beforehand just the same.

Sort next

Nothing can make your work quicker than being organized. This means you need to group your slides according to what you want such as by date, by location of the images you’ve taken, by film type or mount (thickness) type, by orientation or by other factors. When you are able to do this, then you won’t have a hard time locating your images on your computer as well.

Grouping your slides scanning according to thickness will be very helpful as you won’t need to adjust the setting for the film type every time you scan.

Right resolution

Remember to scan your slides and negatives at the right resolution which is estimated at 300 dpi. When you do this, you are assured of high quality digital images and prints should you wish to have a hard copy later on.

The higher your resolution, the longer the scanning time needed. This also means large files but the benefit on the images you’ll get is far greater than negative scanning at a low resolution.

Image format

Save your scanned images in the right format if possible. For small scans, BMP is okay for Windows and TIF for Mac users. If you’re scanning large files, use the compressed TIF for both Windows and Mac operating systems.

Always back up

Images take up lots of space on your computer. And the more you scan and edit, the larger the files you will have. In this case, it would be best that you back up your files by copying them to an external hard drive, a CD or DVD perhaps to free up your PC’s storage space.

35mm Slide Converter – How it Works

Monday, September 28th, 2009

If there’s one photo printing gadget that benefits both the digital SLR camera users and those who still prefer to use the traditional film, it has to be the slide and film converter. With this device, there is always a way to turn even your old negatives into quality digital images and have them printed as if they were just taken recently. What seem not feasible in the past is now very much possible, thanks to the ever dynamic and advancing technology.

Many of these slide and film negative scanners have the capability of converting the images into Jpeg files and scan several slides at a time. And with a USB port that can easily be connected to the computer, transferring of images is really fast. A Windows software normally comes with any purchase which allows users to edit and resize their photos.

Using a 35mm slide converter is quick and easy. Make sure that you read the manual before doing anything else. There are some scanners that will require the installation of a driver and software on your PC before you can connect the two devices. If this is so, you will have to configure certain settings such as the color, resolution, the number of slides to be scanned at a time and whether you’ll be using a slide or negative.

Being a small sized gadget, you can place the scanner on any flat surface such as a desk. The next step is to insert the USB cable to your computer before switching on the device. Now you need to get the slides from their frame and place them into the slide cartridge. You have to be careful, though, when handling them so as not to leave any fingerprint and make sure that they’re free from dust and dirt as well. After that, insert the slide cartridge to the scanner and check the images first according to your preference. Once you’re okay with the exposure, you can then push the scan button to capture your image.

Slides can actually be scanned at different resolution levels. In other words, you can adjust the resolution to the size of the image you want printed and to your specific purpose such as for photo sharing on the internet through email, social networking sites or for making videos. Just remember that the bigger the size you want, the higher will be the resolution required. An important thing to keep in mind as well is to always preview your images before negative scanning to save time.

The slide converter can scan old film negatives and slides up to 1,829 dpi and save them as Jpeg files. What’s for sure is that your images will be stored in its original form and you can do whatever you want with them using your computer. You can either email them and share with your friends, print them for souvenir purposes or for gift giving to your loved ones or you can even turn them into movies which you can pass on to the next generation. This is the beauty of digital technology.