Slow going this. Takes about 10-12 minutes per image, once you get the settings right. And that has to be done each time you either insert a slide or run a new strip of negatives.
Item 1 scan started 4/10/06 7:46:44 PM Item 2 scan started 4/10/06 7:58:18 PM Item 3 scan started 4/10/06 8:09:29 PM Item 4 scan started 4/10/06 8:22:41 PM Item 5 scan started 4/10/06 8:34:55 PM Batch scan completed 4/10/06 8:48 PM
I am working through a set of B&W images I took in 1992/93. I found out about a Habitat for Humanity house being built by a coalition of women’s groups, and decided to document it, if possible. Since the work was done on Saturdays, I showed up camera in hand for most of the project and took lots of pictures. At 36 negs in a page, I have 10-15 pages to work through. I’ve completed 35 scans, filling 1.5 Gb of disk.
I will likely post them up in my gallery here, but I am thinking of using iPhoto’s bookmaking feature and seeing if I can make something interesting there. If so, I’ll send copies to the groups I can find from the original coalition.
The scanning, as noted goes slowly. I am using a Nikon LS-50 (Coolscan V) and it works well, if the software lets it. The Nikon scan software is pretty poor and not made for automating. Each new piece of media requires you to adjust settings, even if they are just reusing saved settings. How hard is it to default to 14 bit scans rather than 8? Or B&W monochrome instead of RGB?
I took a look at Vuescan but it only saves as JPEG and I want to archive these as TIFF. So that scratched it off the list. I also looked at SilverFast/SilverScan and it looks promising but complicated. It offers more filetype options, but I didn’t get on with it at first.
Taking the day off from it tomorrow, I hope, to picnic at the Skagit Valley Tulip festival.