Storage is cheap. Scan them at the highest possible resolution and include
multiple exposure scans, if possible. You don't want to have to rescan
everything, believe me! Get every bit of information that is available in
the slide or negative and save as DNG. Be sure your scanner is actually
scanning at 5400 dpi and is not interpolating, though. You need to be
scanning at the highest actual dpi that your scanner can do without
interpolating.
Hope this helps.
Tina
On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 4:41 PM, Jon Mitchell <olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
>
> One of the rare occasions when I come out of lurk mode, and it is to ask
> for
> the collective advice of the list ...
>
> For some time (OK, a few years !) I have been playing with a Minolta Scan
> Elite 5400 and a bunch of slides - some shot with my old OMs (obligatory OM
> content !). I am using VueScan to scan the files as DNG, and then
> importing
> them to Lightroom. Early tests had me weighing up file size vs image
> quality. Scanning at full resolution and colour depth (5400dpi and 48-bit
> RGB) produces file sizes of round 220 MB - so I settled on 2700dpi and
> 24-bit RGB, as this produced file sizes of around 20MB (about the same as
> the DNG files from my e330).
>
> My initial thoughts were that if I ever wanted to print something big, or
> get a really good quality scan, I could always go back and scan that
> particular slide or negative again at higher resolution. As time has
> started to go on, however, I have worried more and more about this. I am
> wondering if I should perhaps be getting every last drop of quality out of
> the slides & negatives while I still can ? My concerns centre around:
>
> 1) The scanner won't last forever. Good scanners seem to be getting more
> and more difficult to come by (I picked this one up 2nd hand, and that took
> some searching).
>
> 2) I recently inherited a huge stash of slides from my Aunt and my Father
> which I am going through and trying to scan and sort. Some of these are
> invaluable family photos, and whilst some are in remarkably good condition
> (some from the 60's look like they were taken yesterday !), some are
> showing
> signs of age.
>
> More recent tests (perhaps with a more critical eye, having gained more
> experience) show that the 5400 dpi scans do hold a good amount more detail
> (when zoomed in). More confusingly, the 48-bit RGB test scan has shown
> considerably more sharpness than the 24-bit RGB scan. This last point
> confuses me as I thought the bit depth was only concerning colour rendition
> - not detail.
>
> So the question really is, what do you guys do when scanning your precious
> slides & negatives ? I would particularly welcome the thoughts of those
> here who seem to spend or have spent a lot of time scanning - I'm thinking
> of Tina and Ken particularly (probably because they are prolific posters
> !),
> but I'm sure there are others.
>
> Thanks for any help and advice - not sure quite where to go with this at
> the
> moment.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jon
>
>
> --
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>
>
>
--
Tina Manley
http:// <http://tina-manley.artistwebsites.com/>www.tinamanley.com
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