For scanning 35 mm slides, I got a dedicated film scanner (Minolta Dual
Scan III). I've been told that film scanners can better capture the colour
and resolution in slides. After doing a side-by-side comparison with an
Epson flatbed (with film holder in lid) at a friend's photo store, we could
see slightly more resolution and truer colour with the Minolta in poster
size blowups, but the Epson did surprisingly well. Some things I've
learned:

1. Dust is the enemy. When you do hi-res scans, you discover just how dirty
your slides really are, even after careful cleaning. You can use
dust-reduction software, but it always reduces resolution. Only the
infrared "digital ice" capabilities of the higher-end scanners can get
around this. Next time, I'd go with the low-end Nikon scanner, just for
this feature. The scanner hardware is a fraction of the total project cost.
2. Let's see, 5000 .tif images at 35 Megs each....is that 175 gigabytes?
Anyways, it's a lot of files, and you need to be superorganised about
naming them and managing directories. Or invest in software that helps do
this. I use iPhoto, but it's starting to groan under the weight of 2000
images. You can use .jpgs instead, but they degrade every time you save
them--not good for archiving.
3. And I thought I was done after taking the picture! There are a multitude
of settings for scanning, and a multitude of post-processing tweaks. I've
found Photoshop (Elements) to be the most useful software, after trying
some other things. For some good scanning tips, go to:
www.guides.sk/scantips2/index.html#menu
4. A film scanner holds several slides at once, and has batch routines to
speed things up, but it can still take half an hour to clean, load,
prescan, focus, adjust exposure, scan, crop, correct, and save each image.
I thought I was going to capture all my slides at highest quality, and do
away with the physical transparencies--Hah! Now I'm down to pitching out
slides that don't meet my new, higher standards, scanning at PhotoCD
settings, but most importantly priorising what I'm going to scan first.
5. Everything is always okay in the end; if it's not okay, then it's not
the end. Oops, wrong group.

Doug Hoy
Canada Science & Technology Museum

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