I am trying to construct a "digital path" for getting my old film images into my digital workflow when I realized I can't open a TIF file in Bibble!
Of course, the scanned image is in TIF so I have to convert it to JPG to get it into the same workflow in Bibble as most of my other images! However, this workflow is headed for the web, so the extra conversion is really not a big deal, but this missing feature caught me off guard....
Hi Ed,
I'm glad to hear that there are others out there "struggling" with similar issues <smile>.
For the last 3 years, I've been gearing up towards scanning a few thousands of slides and negatives (color and b&w) and archiving them using a DAM system. I have made many starts only to discover that some steps of the workflow I was using were less than acceptable. So each time, I have suspended the work until such time I could gather some more energy and find some better suitable tools. Actually the real reason might have been procrastination, who knows? <smile>.
Anyway, here is where I am at right now:
Originally I wanted to handle each slide/negative only once, hence scan them at the highest quality using the RAW scan feature of VueScan, which I use. Due to the time it takes doing that, and the disk space used (about 160 MB per frame), I have been reconsidering this. Maybe it is a better idea using the light table first and finding out which slides require greater care/quality. But identifying focusing and shake/blur issues looking at a slide (even with a loupe) is not always possible. So I end up scanning many slides which were ripe for the bin to start with. The solution would be setting up the good old projector and looking at the pictures on the projection screen. But this introduces yet another step (load cartridges, setup projection room, sit and look at the slides, mark and remove rejects, unload cartridges, put away projector/screen, etc) , thus yet more reasons for me to postpone things. But I guess this is the only sensible way of doing it.
Another issue I came up against was the numbering of the scanned image. I wanted to syncronise the frame number of each photo roll with the number of the scan in the computer. This is a huge hassle. It only works well when the whole roll is scanned in one go without skipping any frames. But considering the fact that I don’t want to scan bad pictures, I then had to identify and input the numbers manually for each scan session. I guess I’ll stop doing this now. I am leaning towards identifying each roll uniquely and reflect this in the scanned images. Afterwards, if I need to find a particular slide physically, I just need to look at 36 slides at the most which makes much more sense to me right now.
OK, the works. I scan using a Canon FS4000US film scanner, which can scan at 4000 dpi. I prefer using the VueScan software above anything else (believe me, I have tried working with SilverFast but it was less flexible, delivered similar results while being much more expensive). I also compared the FS4000US with a borrowed Nikon 5000 side-by-side. The scans of Canon were just as good, if not better. So I stayed with Canon. The only advantage of working with a Nikon 5000/9000 would have been the availability of a batch scan module for slides.
The scan resolution I use is 4000 dpi, at a bit depth of 48-bits plus 16-bits for the infrared alpha layer. This IR layer is used by either VueScan or Photoshop to remove dust and scratches. I save the scanned image as a RAW tiff file, which is a file with the RGB layers plus the Alpha layer. There are no corrections applied such as gamma or exposure or sharpening, it contains the raw scan data only. I also save at the scan time a processed jpg and tiff version of the image, using medium dust/scratch reduction and white balance correction. The scan is actually done once, but the processing can be done many times based on the RAW file.
The tiff file then goes into the Lightroom and/or Lightzone, which can process it as if it were a camera RAW file.
Very recently, VueScan has added the possibility of saving the RAW image as a DNG file. This is rather nice since I can now also use the ACR 4.1. You could then use almost any other RAW converter out there.
Well to make a long story short, I can ramble indefinitely like this but I should stop now I guess. Please ask any questions if you want to hear more <smile>.
I’ll post some examples of my Velvia scans elsewhere since I don’t want to take away the attention from your beautiful picture <big smile>. It really is a very good picture and as Asher wrote, reminds me of the BTTF series, of which I am a fan coincidentally.
PS: The examples have now been posted
in this thread.
Cheers,