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I have been putting a few shows together with images from a digital camera. The whole process is new too me but I have been quite pleased with the results I have obtained. Nothing like those I have seen on the forum downloads but I have to start somewhere! Now I would like to try to convert some of my slide av shows that I have collected over a long time.

I am not sure about the resolution used when scanning for use in Pictures to Exe. I have a Canon film scanner with a maximum resolution of 4000. Is there any advantage in scanning at this setting over one of 1000. As you will have guessed I am pretty new to this digital era I am coming too late in life to it but enjoying it just the same. So any help in getting my slide on to Pictures to Exe would be appreciated. I am using version 4.48 version I am afraid version 5 is way out of my league. I had enough trouble getting the hang with what I have!

No doubt there are experts out there wondering what I have been doing all this time. As I said digital has come a little late in life for me so spare a thought for those of us struggling with but enjoying the new media. I do enjoy reading the comments even if most of it is way over my head!

Thanks to all who took the time too read my rambling

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Currently I live in a third-world country with no resources other than what I get shipped to me, so my situation skews my answers. I too have an Epson 3490 and am generally pleased with the results. Not very fast, but it works.

If I was faced with a large job (more than 30 slides) and could find a service to do the scanning for me, I would certainly go for it. My time is worth money. Having just gone through scanning over 700 slides myself I certainly would have liked finding someone else to do it but I'm all there is here. :)

On factor in the "do it yourself" or using a service decison that I find important for me, is by the time I have scanned all of those slides, the pictures are no longer fresh and exciting to me and lets face it, it's a tiring process so I may not approach the rest of the presentation as excited as I once was.

Another factor is whether you are creating a slideshow AND archiving the slides. If so, 1024 by 768 is most likely not enough. On a batch of particularly important slides, I scanned them in at 1223 by 8191 (9600 DPI for the Epson). Overkill I know, but these slides are from the 1960s and starting to show problems.

My two cents.

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Here's my take on it.

If you are going to spend the time and effort to scan images from 35mm negaitve or transparency, you should go ahead and scan them at a dpi which will recover all the detail possible from the slide or negative within reason. By within reason, I mean that an expensive drum scan at a bit over 5,000 dpi "might" still pull a bit of extra detail from the transparencies or negatives "if" ond only "if" the originals were done with very fine grain media. In the case of "average" or "typical" 35mm frames, there is little probability that scanning at over 4,000 dpi would be of any value, but scanning at lower resolutions will not get all the latent detail in a properly focused original on fine grain film or transparency.

The problem is that since there is a good deal of time and effort involved, why not create a digital original which you can later print at whatever maximum size the individual frame will allow considering subject matter and grain?

You can "always" resample the images down for your slideshow to whatever pixel count you need or want, but you can't go the other way (interpolate) and get any more detail and quality than in the original scan.

Just my $02 on this...

Best regards,

Lin

I have been putting a few shows together with images from a digital camera. The whole process is new too me but I have been quite pleased with the results I have obtained. Nothing like those I have seen on the forum downloads but I have to start somewhere! Now I would like to try to convert some of my slide av shows that I have collected over a long time.

I am not sure about the resolution used when scanning for use in Pictures to Exe. I have a Canon film scanner with a maximum resolution of 4000. Is there any advantage in scanning at this setting over one of 1000. As you will have guessed I am pretty new to this digital era I am coming too late in life to it but enjoying it just the same. So any help in getting my slide on to Pictures to Exe would be appreciated. I am using version 4.48 version I am afraid version 5 is way out of my league. I had enough trouble getting the hang with what I have!

No doubt there are experts out there wondering what I have been doing all this time. As I said digital has come a little late in life for me so spare a thought for those of us struggling with but enjoying the new media. I do enjoy reading the comments even if most of it is way over my head!

Thanks to all who took the time too read my rambling

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I agree with Lin, better to scan at the highest resolution possible, this will give you much larger images from which you can then down size to the more usual image size of 1024 x 768 pixels.

Ron

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I agree with Lin, better to scan at the highest resolution possible, this will give you much larger images from which you can then down size to the more usual image size of 1024 x 768 pixels.

Ron

For 35 mm slides downsize to 1024 by 682 pixels - 1024 - 768 will result in some cropping of the original image - sorry if I am telling you how to suck eggs!

Dave

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For 35 mm slides downsize to 1024 by 682 pixels - 1024 - 768 will result in some cropping of the original image - sorry if I am telling you how to suck eggs!

Dave

I agree with you Dave, but the idea of producing a large high resolution image from the scan, is that you can CROP out that part of the image that you want to keep. Most images have some surplus around the borders that can be 'lost' in the crop.

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I agree with you Dave, but the idea of producing a large high resolution image from the scan, is that you can CROP out that part of the image that you want to keep. Most images have some surplus around the borders that can be 'lost' in the crop.

Ron,

To be honest I prefer the 35mm 3:2 ratio to the standard p.c. 4:3 ratio and it's what the D70 shoots anyway. I've only made 3 slideshows in 4:3, the other 20+ are 3:2, not counting 30 years of dual projection.

On a slightly different note your v5 tutorials are excellent - I've mastered Scrolling, panning and zooming thanks to them .

Dave

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Sutherland,

I am with you all the way when it comes to a large stock of slides and going digital !

I have quite a few analogue av's which I have converted. If there are a lot of slides it is a monumental job with a scanner. My solution was to get a digital slide copier which attaches to the front of my digital camera ( A Konica Minolta A200). I find if they are photographed with a daylight input ie. in a bright window, the results are really good. A very bright slide with any burnt out parts are difficult, but then those sort of pics are difficult to scan also. If. like me, you have lots of slides the copier is much faster. I set up the camera on a tripod pointed at the window and once you have all the camera settings ok you just click away.

I think the benefits of digital when you have to carry the gear around is tremendous. I have a digital projector and a good laptop and the results on a large screen are splendid. When you get round to using digital images from the camera it is even easier and better.

With regard to the latest offering from WnSoft. Although you can do just about anything except pan and zoom in 4.48 version 5 will also do all that 4.48 does. Be not afraid ! If an old codger like me can manage to cope with v5 then you certainly can ! You don't have to use all the bells and whistles but there are many features with regard to multiple pictures etc which are much easier in v5.

Good luck,

Alan in NE England

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Hello Alan,

I like the idea of using a slide copier, but my only experience was with an older copier (very cheap) with o Nikon 35mm film camera and the resultant slides were not up to much! What copier do you use and would it fit on to a SLR type digital camera, or just a 'point and shoot' fixed lens job?

Ron

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Ronnie,

I got my digital copier from Imatronic. It says on the box that it is Japanese made. It fits onto the front of the A200 which is 49mm thread. A 49 - 52mm adaptor fits the copier. I have no idea how it would go with an SLR (which I do not have). The Minolta lens is a 28 - 200 built in zoom, you zoom in to the slide carried in a two slide carrier. You can also of course zoom further in to "crop the slide". If you use the highest settings on the camera (even RAW) you get quite a respectable image. As I said in my first reply a slide with burnt out areas does not go very well, but then I don't think they scan very well. A chum with a Nikon SLR and I had a good look at some copied slides and then scanned them to see any difference. In both our opinions the results were fine for av purposes. And it is miles quicker !

Hope that helps. Immatronic might advise re SLR's?

Alan inNE England.

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  • 4 months later...

I have searched the forum and do not see this question answered and decided to tack it into this thread for lack of a better place since it is along this subject.

Can anyone out there give me the procedure for converting a scanned B&W negative to a positive, using photoshop, for printing or using in a slide show?

Thanks,

Howard

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I have searched the forum and do not see this question answered and decided to tack it into this thread for lack of a better place since it is along this subject.

Can anyone out there give me the procedure for converting a scanned B&W negative to a positive, using photoshop, for printing or using in a slide show?

Thanks,

Howard

The scanner should have converted to a positive if you chose the settings for scanning a negative. However, it's very simple in Photoshop. With the negative image on screen, click on Image/Adjust/Invert, or simply press Ctrl_I. Both methods will turn your negative into a positive. You will probably have to use Levels or Curves to correct the tonal balance after the invert step.

Colin

PS: I don't think Curves is available in Elements, if that's what you use, but Levels is fine.

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Thanks, Colin,

After posting, I went back to my Photoshop 7 and chanced upon the invert choice. It worked. My scanner does not have a choice to indicate I am scanning a negative so it has to be converted in photoshop. I probably need to look into a special scanner that will do a better job.

The negatives are about 65 to 75 years old, but are in fairly good shape. Old family photos.

Howard

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