Scanning pictures

[RhinoZ]

Hi Ya Folks,
A couple of questions that I hope I've placed in the right forum. My apologies if not.

I'm on vacation and one of the projects that I HAVE to do is scan a years worth of pictures. My wife has family all over the place and I usually send a few good picture scans to them once in a while, but I've been lazy lately so I'd like to catch up.
My question are :
1) What is the best way to scan pictures? Scan them one at a time? Or as many that fit on the scanner then cut and paste them using Adobe photo deluxe?
and..
2) What kind of software photoalbum you guys use to store and view your pics.
Thanks

[UtwigMU]

IMO, it's better to scan more at the time.

Cut them up in pics, retouch, adjust colours, save in lossless format (such as .tiff).

Adobe Photodeluxe is limited.

If you need .jpgs, Photochop can batchprocess (save to .jpg) images in given folder.

IMO just burn them to CDs and use ACDSee or similar.

[dshumake]

I feel that it depends on your system, the pictures, and the scanning software. If the pictures are all similar in color, hue and contrast--on a powerful system you could scan them all at once then cut them apart. This is especially true if you are planning on making enlargements of the pictures and scanning at 1200 dpi. At 300 dpi a 24 bit scan of a 8x10 is around 20 MB, 600 is 80 MB and 1200 would be 320 MB.

If your scanner is by Microtek, their ScanWizard software will allow you to select multiple areas and modify each one separately. Within Photoshop, once you press the scan button all the scans regions you set up scan and are imported separately as individual pictures in photoshop.

To get the best image quality you have to edit each picture separately it depends on your software. Do you have to do a preview scan every time if you only select one picture of three on the scanner?

Once you decide what you need and how the software works go from there.

As to viewers I have been using ACDsee and Cumulus. The advantage to ACDSee is it is easy to use. Select the folder and images are displayed. In Cumulus, after it is set up and your pictures have been archived it is fast and the pictures do not have to be rerendered.

I am planning on trying out ST thumbnails http://www.softfields.com ($25.00) and ThumbsPlus http://www.cerious.com ($50.00 for nonpro, $89.00 for pro version).

dshumake

[RhinoZ]

So no one uses a "photo album" type of program? Or are they any good ones?
I use acdsee also for my pictures, and I like it. Never heard of Cumulus, but if it's like (older versions of) thumbs plus where it creates an index file of all the pictures to speed up the process of displaying the pictures than that was the reason for switching to Acdsee.
It looks like I will be scanning pictures one by one.
I'll let you know how it goes.
Thanks

[az]

Try Photoshop Album, though I've heard this is a quite simple program..

AZ

[VJ]

As for the scanning process, for scanning multiple pictures at once, I put different ones on the glass at one time, but do not scan them all at once.

Basically, it first is a glass-positioning fase, followed by several scan fases...
(my scanner is an Agfa, which doesn't allow the selection of multiple areas as the Microtek)

I don't really use special software to classify things though... (perhaps I should.. )


Jörg

[Drizzt]

Rhino, best choose is to use a scanner with the "load tray"

[UtwigMU]

Scanning mutliple pics at once (whole area) is cool as long as you disable auto adjustment and adjust pictures manually latter in Photoshop or similar.

[Wulfman]

I start to repeat myself: 4images is a nice gallery-system.

mfg
wulfman

[Drizzt]

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF05a/15179-64195-215155-15202-215155-77360.html

[az]

Do these automatic feeders support thick photo paper?

AZ

[Paddy]

On a related note: How do people archive their pics... I have 1500 or so that I need to try and sort through....

[RhinoZ]

Wow,
This sure takes a while. I've done about 87 scans from about 6 packs of film, and boy does it take up some room
Haven't had a chance to look at photo album programs, as all I did was scan.
But I have a Photoshop 7 question. A friend "lent" me his copy and he is away on business so I can't ask him. How do you adjust the white and black levels using the historgram tool and save the pic. I can call up the tool but it won't let me adjust the levels. Also how do you remove red eye. Iin my old Photoshop it was a click away and it was pretty decent.
Thanks

[Tjalfe]

Originally posted by Paddy
On a related note: How do people archive their pics... I have 1500 or so that I need to try and sort through....

I just sort them in appropriate sub directories, put them on CD and view with acdsee.. works great for me

[dshumake]

Originally posted by RhinoZ
Wow,
This sure takes a while. I've done about 87 scans from about 6 packs of film, and boy does it take up some room
Haven't had a chance to look at photo album programs, as all I did was scan.
But I have a Photoshop 7 question. A friend "lent" me his copy and he is away on business so I can't ask him. How do you adjust the white and black levels using the historgram tool and save the pic. I can call up the tool but it won't let me adjust the levels. Also how do you remove red eye. Iin my old Photoshop it was a click away and it was pretty decent.
Thanks

To adjust the white and black, ctrl-L (or Image/Adjustments/Levels...) then slide the triangles. Using the histogram doesn't work.

For redeye removal there are multiple ways. The simplest would be to select the eye with the circular marquee then deselect any bright spots you want to retain with the alt key and mouse the cursor should now appear as a cross hair with a minus sign. to make the final image look better select a feather of a few pixels depending on size and then press ctrl-U (Image/Adjustments/hue/saturation) lighten the red to a grey using the sliding pentagon on the lightness slider, then use the saturation slider to make the grey a more natural black.