Any recommendations for those who digitize 35mm negatives or prints inexpensively?
 

Well, for better or worse I've determined that I did my best work at the tail end of the film era. The dream sabbatical and all the best trips occurred from 1996 into 2003, when I made the switchover. Maybe I was just more disciplined with film, or maybe I traded compact size for functionality gradually afterward.

In any event. I've got hundreds if not thousands of negatives it'd be nice to digitize. Does anyone do that cheaply? India? Bangladesh? Any recommendations?

I also have most of the prints, though some processors like Wolf did better than others and quality is uneven. I bought a home unit at Kohl's and did a few, but it's as tedious as washing dishes and there's a yellow-brownish tint when doing negatives that maybe someone else's super-duper unit has a way to correct. Prints are generally in good shape.

Am neither a professional nor a perfectionist with this, so would be looking for low cost and better than could be done at home. Does anyone do that?

search around google with this....or visit a local camera shop. Google found this one http://www.digmypics.com/NegativeSca...oaAiV6EALw_wcB

I have also beaten this idea around for 15 years. I have 5,000 slides. But the problem is the cost to convert. e.g. the above link quotes $.69 to $0.89 per frame!
That's $4,000

I have seen gadgets that you attach to DSLR. It's tedious, but the cost is right.
I'll do that one of these days.

I haven't done all my old ones yet. I simply bought a scanner capable of 9600dpi, not a dedicated slide converter. What I've seen of the dedicated slide converters is that they're cheap and low quality.

My eyes can't detect any flaws in the color representation but my color vision isn't the best. If you want to be sure it's right get an IT8 target (you must buy one, don't consider any DIY approach!), good scanning software will have a calibration option where you scan the target and it prepares a calibration file for the scanner. I've also seen a similar approach for calibrating printers--it prints a pattern, you then scan that pattern with a calibrated scanner and it produces a calibration file to ensure correct printing.

The tedious part is making sure everything is aligned before you scan. If you outsource it I would worry about people using software to correct the skew--that costs you image quality.

I've not been happy with the outcome but that's because I've seen how much the old shots have deteriorated (most of what I've scanned is 30+ years old), not because of anything I did wrong.

I have an earlier version of this Wolverine unit - https://www.amazon.com/Wolverine-Res...dp/B01MRCNSJT/ - and it works like a champ. Scanning takes a few seconds, and the scanned image is plenty big to allow post-processing using any photo editing software.

Examples -

Gloucestershire, 1973

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...36d126cc46.jpg

Alaska, 1981

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...ec146b5174.jpg

I've used Scancafe to scan a couple of orders of negatives so far. They run various sales almost every other week or so, so the prices can easily end up being about 20% or more lower than what they have listed on their site. They do ship your stuff to India to do the scanning (you can pay more to avoid that). I've been satisfied with what I've gotten back from them. I wouldn't be surprised if they put their value packs on sale on black friday, they have in the past.

I actually bought a Nikon Coolscan 5000 a while back that I'd started to do this on my own. After some initial work to get the right settings, the results were good, but the process was time consuming and tedious to say the least. The plus was I got a higher dpi scan than what scancafe provides unless you pay extra (their default is a jpg at 3000 dpi, you can pay more for tiff or 4000 dpi scans). I need to get around to selling the Coolscan off, these days it's actually worth more than it was when I bought it.

It doesn't even say what it's resolution is!

English isn't their strong suit.
The biggest problem I have with scanned slides (aside from crud on the film) is the scanner picking up all the grain, e.g. this old image from New Brunswick -

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...2cc2c46caf.jpg

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5bee0855d3.jpg
https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...f49355fc40.jpg
https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5e2d644ddb.jpg
Thanks for responses so far. Here's what I got from the Kohl's unit, off of negatives of photos taken in Thailand in 1992. Pretty bad, no?

I saw the 20 megapixel bit--but what does that translate to in DPI?

I too have a large collection of old slides and negatives that I am currently in the process of digitizing. I first started trying to do this about 10 years ago using a flat bed scanner with a slide adapter. It was very tedious work and the results were not all that good. I then tried an inexpensive slide scanner and that was somewhat better but not the quality I wanted. I also tried one of the cheaper devices that has a slot for negatives and slides with a backlight and captures the image in a single exposure much like a camera would do. Again the quality of the image was not as good as I wished, but advances in technology might have made those type scanners better. I then purchased a Plustek Optifilm 7300 slide and negative scanner and I was much better satisfied with the results. The downside of that scanner is that it does not have infrared dust removal capability. I spent hours cleaning up dust spots and specs on the scanned images. I traded it in on a Plustek Optifilm 8200i which has about the same specifications and does have IR dust removal built in. Either way you choose, be aware that it is a time consuming and tedious job to scan and then process the image for satisfactory results. Whichever method you use, I strongly suggest you find a way to clean the slides and negatives first. There are tutorials on the internet with some good suggestions on how best to do that. On slides that have a build up of dust and grime, I use PEC 12 Archival Photographic Emulsion Cleaner available from some photo shops and Amazon. It is expensive but a little goes a long way and it can save hours of tying to clean up the image after the scan. I have added one slide and negative I have scanned. The autumn photo is a Fujicolor negative taken in 1993 and the Grand Canyon photo is a Kodachrome slide taken in 1983. By the way, Kodachrome can be difficult to capture, but the Optifilm scanners handle it very well.https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...889148f464.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...bd5412820f.jpg

DPI is a metric more suited to printing than scanning; however an older post I saw somewhere says my version of the Wolverine unit (the current one is rated at 20mp, mine is - I think - 12 mp) says it was the equivalent of 4000 dpi, so the current one... maybe 6667 dpi? Don't know if it's linear. Certainly it's way higher than any printer can manage, and unless you're blowing up a (35mm equivalent) image to some giant screen or poster, or cropping the bejeezus out of it then blowing it up, then standing three feet from it, you're unlikely to sense a difference between a 1000 dpi and a 4000 dpi image. Like I say, I've found the limiting sharpness factor to be the grain in the slide/negative.

There's evidently a large body of literature comparing the likes of Kodachrome 25 (which for many was the gold standard of film resolution) to digital equivalents. Most go off into deep weeds over contrast measurements, digital compression ratios... yada yada. For me, I just wanted a way to archive something like 10,000 images before the dyes on the slides fade or the silverfish eat all the mounting cardboard.

Following up a discussion in the Black & White: A lost art form? thread regarding scanning services as well as a post earlier by cardsqc , here's some of the repair work that ScanCafe does on old slides:

https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...cec0fae677.jpg

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...8287c46f76.jpg

Image taken in Spain back in 1988.

David

Could you set things up so you can scan the slides boom boom boom and not stop to look over each result and deliberate about processing each one before going on to the next? Would this approach save a lot of time?

Thanks for sharing. The bottom image (I assumed it was repaired) shows better WB (White Balance). In fact quite good!
BTW, is it possible for you to post the resolution of the final image (x:y in pixels)?