jimcrna wrote:
In need of good quality scanner.Have thousands of photos to be culled and scanned. Yes tried the search tool but no current info. Any help appreciated. Thanks in advance. I have, will be getting, a new Mac 27 inch computer soon.
If you are working with prints, get a high quality flat bed scanner such as Epson V600 or V800.
If you are working with negatives and slides, particularly 35mm format or smaller, I'd recommend instead a dedicated film scanner if you need or want higher quality. Some flatbeds can do a presentable job scanning negs and slides, too... though there will be a limit to how large you can make quality prints from them. A dedicated film scanner will produce better (and much larger) files. I have made 16x20" prints from 35mm scans done with my Nikon 4000ED. At it's highest quality settings, it produces 16 bit TIFF files that are 130MB.
If working with negs and/or slides, the next question is what format? If 35mm (or smaller), there are reasonable cost ($400 and less) scanners available from Pacific Image and Plustek. Older Minolta, Konica-Minolta, Nikon and Imacon are great, too, if you consider buying used.
Medium format film scanners are available if working with 120 or 220 film. But those are considerably more expensive. Might be able to use a flatbed instead.... definitely can if it's large format film such as 4x5 or 5x7. Look for a flatbed which has a means of illuminating the negs or transparencies from behind... otherwise, if it's a "reflective only" flatbed scanner, the dynamic range will be poor.
Look for a scanner using Silverfast AI software for the best quality. That software is available for many different scanners, but is expensive when bought separately (around $500!). It's bundled with some scanners and can be a really good value when bought that way. There are "LE" or "light" versions and better "Studio" versions of Silverfast AI.
You mention "thousands" of images to scan. Each high quality scan takes time... some minutes to complete. If it's neg film strips, some scanners can auto feed those to be able to scan multiples in succession. If uncut rolls of negs, some scanners can also feed those.
If it's mounted 35mm slides you're working with, there are only a few scanners that can work with those in batches. I use an older Nikon Coolscan with an accessory slide feeder that can handle up to 40 slides at a time. I set it to run at night... go to bed and get a good night's rest... then get up in the morning to review the results over my first cup of coffee. Dedicated film scanners that can do batch scanning are expensive. You can easily spend $1000 to $2000 on one.
BTW, consider used. People buy a scanner, use it to digitize all their images, then sell off the scanner when the job is complete. They often can recoup much of their purchase cost doing that. You might be able to do the same, as there continues to be demand for film scanners, as well as a healthy market of used ones. Buying used is just a little bit tricky, only because you have to be sure of compatibility, availability of software and hope that no service is needed on a scanner that has been discontinued for some years and is no longer supported by the manufacturer.
I saw this with my Nikon scanner. Great quality, but no customer support for an 18 or 19 year old model like it. When I updated computers I also had problems with connectivity and compatibility of the original software that was provided (and worked well... on older computers). I was able to work around those. Could have spent the money for Silverfast AI (still available for my scanner model), but I opted instead to use less expensive Vuescan, which works and is okay although it's rather basic compared to the OEM software or Silverfast.
The following are a few scans (various slide films) done with my Nikon 4000ED (internet resolutions and sizes don't really do them justice)...