Author Topic: Format to use? (Read 3237 times)

Spanky · « **on:** Wednesday, December 09, 2009, 22:31:06 PM »

I know Blueblaster will reply with a very knowledgeable answer to this but I figured I would add to the forums post count so here goes...

I'm scanning old photos (will be from developed paper and film negatives) to get them in a digital format for archiving instead of letting the paper fade and whatnot. I'm going through the formats: jpg, tiff, gif and png. I read a little and it appears that PNG is like FLAC where it finds like areas and compresses them instead of compressing the actual data, PNG is compressed lossless? Am I right on that? I'm thinking out of those options that PNG would be my best bet as TIFF can get ridiculously large and JPG is well... lossy.

Dialects · « **Reply #1 on:** Wednesday, December 09, 2009, 22:52:42 PM »

Assblasters knows shit about this.

Either way -- TIFF is the way to go.

You don't want to compress a photo that, as time goes by, "auto-compresses" -meaning, it loses quality- itself on real life.

Scan it as soon as you can, and save it as a TIFF.

I suggest:
Size/Canvas: A4 PaperSheet
DPI Choice: 72 (Monitor) / 300 (Print)
Do Not Allow the Scanner to Alter Contrast/Brightness Levels!

Buayga!

Spanky · Quote from: ELiZ on Monday, February 16, 2015, 09:57:26 AM

I was thinking a lossless format but now I'm thinking that these are pictures that were developed by someone and have aged, gotten dust on them and faded. I don't think a lossy format would hurt it that much. I know for most of the pictures I'll be scanning I will be also scanning the film negatives which I would carefully clean and use a lossless format on definitely.

I just scanned a regular photo at 2400 DPI and into PNG format and it came out just shy of 240MB which is gonna be unacceptable. I Googled and it seems a lot of people recommend at least 300 DPI so I did a second scan at 600 DPI and JPG format and it came out at about 1.5MB.

I want to do PNG but Windows Live Photo Gallery can't "autofix" in PNG format, only JPG I think. I know this isn't a "proper" thing to do but I do plan on keeping up to 4 versions of the same photograph (film negative, fixed film negative, developed scan, fixed developed scan) thus leaving me with absolute originals. These pictures were not taken by professionals with professional equipment, some are probably even disposable cameras so the quality, focus and coloring might not be great. There's also a pretty significant quantity and using Photoshop to fix the photos seems to be tedious and Windows Live Photo Gallery seems to do a pretty alright job with it's autofix.

I'm still in the trial phase, I haven't broken out the main pictures nor cleaned off the scanner but I do know that I will keep original scans un-modified and at least 600 DPI.

Dialects · « **Reply #3 on:** Wednesday, December 09, 2009, 23:30:15 PM »

The 2600 DPI you're pulling off is sizing the image at 6x4.

You can either do it that way, or to properly guarantee quality, pick an output of a A4 Papersheet 300DPI.

I took Photography and this was widely spoken over.

I wouldn't suggest things in the blue.

But then again, my name is Dann.

-Delta- · « **Reply #4 on:** Wednesday, December 09, 2009, 23:47:11 PM »

Spanky, you should use .raw files. The Gimp can't handle them, but I'm sure Photoshop can.

Spanky · Quote from: ELiZ on Monday, February 16, 2015, 09:57:26 AM

Quote from: Dann on Wednesday, December 09, 2009, 23:30:15 PM

pick an output of a A4 Papersheet 300DPI.

Totally not an options in my import/scan stuffs.

This would be what I'm working with:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/464376/12-9-2009%208-46-20%20PM.png

I should probably see if there's a free open-source program that scans properly and detects errors and re-scans that part kinda like cd burning/copying.

*EDIT*
VueScan? Anyone heard of it?

BlueBlaster · « **Reply #6 on:** Thursday, December 10, 2009, 01:50:12 AM »

Ive heard of Vuescan. Pretty good if I remember, I tried it but found out it doesn't work with multi-functional faxes, silly me =)

BTW the website was broken for a bit earlier and it looks like my post didn't get through.

Dialects · « **Reply #7 on:** Thursday, December 10, 2009, 04:04:32 AM »

VueScan is alright.

Check whether they allow output settings to be altered.

Clearly, the software scanner you are using is...that.

Spanky · Quote from: ELiZ on Monday, February 16, 2015, 09:57:26 AM

Looks like VueScan is known pretty decently. I'll try it out.

Spanky · Quote from: ELiZ on Monday, February 16, 2015, 09:57:26 AM

Ok so here's my process that I worked out. I scan with VueScan at 600 DPI, save as TIFF into a "Originals" folder, edit in Photoshop (levels, despeckle, crop, etc...), save as PNG. This way I have an archived TIFF and a fixed up PNG of each image. You can view a sample image below from a photo class I had wayyy back.

Keep in mind this image was shot, developed and printed by me (poorly as I was a novice), stored for over 4 years in various unsafe spots and now scanned:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/464376/Scan-091210-0003.jpg

BlueBlaster · « **Reply #10 on:** Thursday, December 10, 2009, 23:26:47 PM »

HA! It looks like it went through some rough places =)

Good to see youve found your procedure =D

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Author Topic: Format to use? (Read 3237 times)

Spanky

Format to use?

Dialects

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-Delta-

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