Need recommendation on scanner
May 10, 2020 11:16:01 #
I have thousands of B&W photographs many inherited from my parents and taken in the 1930s and the immediate post 2nd WW period. Plus huge number of colour photos taken from from the 1960s. Having made a estimate of the time and effort required to sort, digitise, catalogue and process in Lightroom I decided to buy an Epson FF-680W scanner. This will digitise batches of about 40 to 50 photos at the rate of one a second (300 dpi) or slightly slower at 600 and 1200 dpi. It will also scan, digitise and OCR documents and save them in a variety of formats including Word and as searchable PDFS.
I highly recommend it but it is pricey.
I highly recommend it but it is pricey.
May 10, 2020 11:18:31 #
CaptainPhoto wrote:
Yea - to rent the photo-slide scanner the cost for 3 Full Scanning Days: $325.00
5 Full Scanning Days: $450.00. Dang, you can buy the Epson for $220 and scan all you want and then sell it for $100. And your not constrained by 3 or 5 days.
5 Full Scanning Days: $450.00. Dang, you can buy the Epson for $220 and scan all you want and then sell it for $100. And your not constrained by 3 or 5 days.
A rented scanner can scan 900 slides per hour at 3000 dpi. How long would it take on a flatbed scanner? I have a V600 and love it for doing a few slides, but when you have over 4000 slides like I had a few years ago, the rented scanner is a bargain unless you're willing to spend the time and energy (and back ache) with a flat bed or camera setup. And just one hour on a rented scanner would just about pay for itself vs. sending slides out to a scanning service. The down side of rented scanners is that they don't remove dust spots, but a few bucks for an antistatic brush should take care of that.
May 10, 2020 11:47:42 #
EPSON V600 is the choice. I've been working on my stash of negatives, actually started just before COVID hit. I'm up to 8000 and counting. I've done primarily regular 35mm negatives, but also some 126 and 35mm slides; I'm going to tackle some 110 negatives after I make a jig to hold them properly. The attached photo is one I took at Watkins Glen ca. 1974. Some very minor adjustments in Picasa to get rid of dust, that's it.
May 10, 2020 12:04:25 #
cytafex
Loc: Clarksburg MA
MDI Mainer wrote:
In the real world, the main difference between the V600 and V850 will be the slide capacity. The V600 will hold 4 slides at a time; the V850 12.
You get Silverscan software with V850 which is far superior than Epson software and makes all the difference!
May 10, 2020 13:02:30 #
SAVH
Loc: La Jolla, CA
To all the Hoggers who have helped yet again with input that is not available now that our local photo shop is not open for in store discussions. I feel truly fortunate to have such a valuable range of opinions from which to make up my own mind. My biggest concern at this point is that I am not facile with "other" programs such as Silverfast. The directions never seem to be adequate for the beginner.
Thanks again to all!
Scotty
Thanks again to all!
Scotty
May 10, 2020 13:13:20 #
No matter what route you decide on my last bit of advice (from personal experience) is to edit and be selective in what you scan.
Although it's tempting to just try and scan everything; it reality not every image is a "keeper" whether it was shot with film or recorded on a digital sensor.
On a practical level, if you own the scanner you can take your time to learn and get comfortable with using it, with no pressure from a looming return date.
Although it's tempting to just try and scan everything; it reality not every image is a "keeper" whether it was shot with film or recorded on a digital sensor.
On a practical level, if you own the scanner you can take your time to learn and get comfortable with using it, with no pressure from a looming return date.
May 10, 2020 13:31:38 #
SAVH
Loc: La Jolla, CA
MDI Mainer - My thoughts exactly. I recognize that pre-selection may be the long part of this process. We have recently been going through our prints (thousands+) and have been successful in throwing away just over 50%. Of those, we will probably scan only 5-10% which will still be a major chore. We plan to do it over a long period of time but at least we can get started. Thanks for your helpful input.
Scotty
Scotty
May 10, 2020 13:37:55 #
cytafex wrote:
You get Silverscan software with V850 which is far superior than Epson software and makes all the difference!
May 10, 2020 14:08:43 #
dtsobel
Loc: West Hills California
there are film scanners from Braun, plustek and Pacific Image. Most of these are pretty inexpensive, most being in the 300-500 range.
Look at these. some have automatic spot removal. all would be faster to use then any flatbed scanners.
Nikon has a es-2 film scanner attachment where you use a 60mm macro for full frame cameras. I've been looking at medium format scanners so I've done some research
Look at these. some have automatic spot removal. all would be faster to use then any flatbed scanners.
Nikon has a es-2 film scanner attachment where you use a 60mm macro for full frame cameras. I've been looking at medium format scanners so I've done some research
May 10, 2020 14:32:37 #
dtsobel wrote:
there are film scanners from Braun, plustek and Pacific Image. Most of these are pretty inexpensive, most being in the 300-500 range.
Look at these. some have automatic spot removal. all would be faster to use then any flatbed scanners.
Nikon has a es-2 film scanner attachment where you use a 60mm macro for full frame cameras. I've been looking at medium format scanners so I've done some research
Look at these. some have automatic spot removal. all would be faster to use then any flatbed scanners.
Nikon has a es-2 film scanner attachment where you use a 60mm macro for full frame cameras. I've been looking at medium format scanners so I've done some research
They are doing slides and prints so these are pretty useless.
May 10, 2020 14:36:52 #
JeffR
Loc: Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
SAVH wrote:
Thank you very much. Are you able to annotate each file with information once scanned? If so, does it appear with the scanned photo or somehow separately on an adjacent line?
Scotty
Scotty
If you want to add comments to your photo, visible when you view the photo, then that's a separate step from scanning and you would accomplish it through an editing program. I use Photoshop Elements 2019 to do this: Image/Resize/Canvas Size to add a bit of white space to the bottom of the image where I can type my comments.
May 10, 2020 14:41:38 #
JeffR wrote:
If you want to add comments to your photo, visible when you view the photo, then that's a separate step from scanning and you would accomplish it through an editing program. I use Photoshop Elements 2019 to do this: Image/Resize/Canvas Size to add a bit of white space to the bottom of the image where I can type my comments.
Just did a post in Photo Gallery using this technique for adding name and date for my mother.
May 10, 2020 15:39:46 #
Leave the dust and hairs on the slide. It gives the “nostalgia “ aspect to the image just as scratches and skips to your vinyl records. Why must we always have perfection? I guess that’s why God gave us plastic surgery, Photoshop, and so on and so on. SHEEEEEESH! 
May 10, 2020 16:18:48 #
Evidently a lot of folks are planning to use this down time for scanning -- since the thread started both the V550 and V600 have gone "out of stock" on the Epson site!
May 10, 2020 17:10:05 #
MDI Mainer wrote:
Evidently a lot of folks are planning to use this down time for scanning -- since the thread started both the V550 and V600 have gone "out of stock" on the Epson site!
That's certainly true in my case! My Epson scanner has seen some pretty heavy duty use in the last several weeks. :-)
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