Scanner vs Digital

[Paul Templar]

There has been quite a lot of talk lately about scanners vs. digital I personally have had no dealings with digital, because of the cost it would take to replace the quality of photograph I get from my 35mm camera.

I have already made many enquiries about the top rated digitals around, and each informed me that their top range digital camera would compare favourably, or maybe slightly better than my Minolta, but the price I would have to pay for it, could buy me a new car. So, I'll stay as I am until as such time the prices fall dramatically. Okay, that said, let me turn to scanners.

You can get excellent results using print photographs and scanning them into your computer. Let me reiterate about the photographs, the photographs them selves have got to be top quality in order for the scanner to reproduce the image properly. So here is my step by step guide to how I scan photo's to upload to websites and the like.

Most of my photographs that I scan in are 8" by 6" and the rest are 7" by 5", I wouldn't go any lower than these sizes to scan in.
I set my scanner to 600dpi (dots per inch) then scan the photo into either Adobe Photoshop or Paint shop Pro. Once the photo is in the computer the size of it is huge, about 17mb big. Too big to upload anywhere, but the quality is very good. Now, I save that first to my HD. As a bitmap, not jpeg. So I always have the original scan. Next I reduce the image size in Paint shop Pro
In resize I use percentage of Original and put that to 30% I tick resize all layers and tick maintain aspect ratio, then press OK. Then next job is to go to image- noise- and despeckle. Once this has been accomplished, I turn my attention to the image sharpness and brightness/contrast sections. When these are correct, I use Gamma correction, this moves RED GREEN & BLUE all together. What in effect you are doing is altering brightness in a way, but keeping the colours together. When I think the photograph is okay, I save it as a jpeg ready to upload to my website. So now I have gone from a 17meg photo to one which is around 150 KB mark. Quite a considerable difference in photo size you will agree, but the quality is as the original, hardly any loss from the main 17MB picture I save to my HD. Once I have all photographs done this way from a roll of film, I transfer the originals from my HD to CD. For future use. Here's a photo which started out life as 17.5meg now only 161.5KB
Photo was taken using Minolta X300s 35mm camera -28mm wideangle lens - f22 for 2.5 seconds
http://members.trainorders.com/shamus/Beaver3.jpg
Always remember to look around the layout and make sure nothing unwanted like cigar ends, ashtrays, screwdrivers etc are in the photograph, - Ooops, forgot the dog.

http://members.trainorders.com/shamus/BadgerCreekd.jpg



[This message has been edited by Paul Templar (edited 28 January 2001).]

[Colonel]

Paul,
Fantastic pictures of your layout including the dog lol. do you have more pictures of your layout?

------------------
Regards

Paul #1-Moderator & Member number 50
http://www.iconbazaar.com/people/sleuth.gif SPAD Investigator #1
ICQ 61198217
http://users.bigpond.net.au/railroad2000

[Paul Templar]

Thanks Colonel, you asked about more photo's, okay, I'll upload another for you. To see more on the same lines, here's my website
http://www.badger-creek.co.uk

Here's the inside of my sawmill at night.
http://members.trainorders.com/shamus/sawmill1.jpg





[This message has been edited by Paul Templar (edited 28 January 2001).]

[rsn48]

WOW!!

[watash]

I get the little box with red X ! Rats.

------------------
Watash #982
"See you in the Pit" http://www.trainboard.com/smiles/092.gif

[Ironhorseman]

That's all I get here too watash?? What's going on here???


------------------
Bill (#16)

"Get Goosed on the Yreka Western"

[dbn160]

Paul

Some of the crew at Trainboard could see
your photos here -- some of us got the red
"X" in a box -- what's the trick to viewing
your photos??

**********

As it turned out Paul's server was down.

You should now be able to access his homepage
at this URL
http://www.badger-creek.co.uk

********************

Don Brown
Tucson AZ USA



[This message has been edited by dbn160 (edited 28 January 2001).]

[Paul Templar]

The only problem is DAMN HOST SERVER is on the blink, did this last week, come in here the expensive way.

PHOTO's now up another way

[This message has been edited by Paul Templar (edited 28 January 2001).]

[Alan]

I had a box pop up with my trainorders user name and password on it, when I clicked ok, the pictures loaded http://www.trainboard.com/smile.gif

Clever, eh? Dunno how it does that http://www.trainboard.com/confused.gif

Great pictures, Paul http://www.trainboard.com/smile.gif

------------------
Alan Curtis. Moderator. Member #12

The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale!

www.alancurtismodels.com (http://www.alancurtismodels.com)
Andersley Western Railroad (http://www.trainweb.org/andersleywestern/)
Alan's American Gallery (http://www.trainweb.com/alansamericangallery/)

[Paul Templar]

See below Alan

[This message has been edited by Paul Templar (edited 28 January 2001).]

[Paul Templar]

Yeah Alan, I put the photo's in straight from trainorders instead of members.trainorders, thats why the user name came up. Changed them all back.
cheers

How's your N-scale Andersley Western Railroad coming on?

[This message has been edited by Paul Templar (edited 28 January 2001).]

[Alan]

Trying to get down to some serious progress on the layout. It has been neglected a bit recently.

There are lots of things to do, so I will try to concentrate on particular areas. Progress will be reported (with pictures) on the web site http://www.trainboard.com/smile.gif (Link below)

------------------
Alan Curtis. Moderator. Member #12

The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale!

www.alancurtismodels.com (http://www.alancurtismodels.com)
Andersley Western Railroad (http://www.trainweb.org/andersleywestern/)
Alan's American Gallery (http://www.trainweb.com/alansamericangallery/)

[Paul Templar]

Alan, thought you might like to know that your
Alan's American Gallery, comes up error. Might be the same problem I keep getting . HOST SERVER DOWN.

[Alan]

http://www.trainboard.com/eek.gif Whoops! The url was incorrect in my signature http://www.trainboard.com/eek.gif

http://www.trainboard.com/redface.gif I should have checked it http://www.trainboard.com/rolleyes.gif

SORRY!

------------------
Alan Curtis. Moderator. Member #12

The perfect combination - BNSF and N Scale!

www.alancurtismodels.com (http://www.alancurtismodels.com)
Andersley Western Railroad (http://www.trainweb.org/andersleywestern/)
Alan's American Gallery (http://www.trainweb.org/alansamericangallery/)

[Gats]

Excellent photos, Paul. Your layout looks great! http://www.trainboard.com/smile.gif Here's similar done with digital...

http://www.pnc.com.au/~audiosat/photos/digital/dscn0154b.jpg (http://www.pnc.com.au/~audiosat/photos/digital/dscn0154.jpg)


Click on the above to see the full 685K 1600x1200 image.

Digital photo taken with layout lighting - 0.027 sec@f2.6, ISO equivalent of 80, handheld. Image as taken with no adjustments bar above reduction. Click on the above to see the full 685K 1600x1200 image.

No film, no processing, no delay.
10"x8" prints at photo quality on photo paper at a fraction of the cost, little of the wait, and none of the hassle.
Can even be uploaded directly without the need to scan and manipulate.

In other words, each has it's advantages and disadvantages and is only as good as the equipment used.

Gary.

------------------
Gary A. Rose http://www.pnc.com.au/~audiosat/cat01.gif
The Unofficial TC&W page (http://www.pnc.com.au/~audiosat/)
TrainBoard Moderator and Member No.377
NARA Member No.17
N to the Nth degree!

[This message has been edited by Gats (edited 30 January 2001).]

[Paul Templar]

Hi Gary,
You are dead right about only as good as the equipment used, and also the guy behind the camera.
Thats got to be the best digital photograph I have seen on the net so far. congrats. What is the camera, and how much was it. Now, that, I can use if the price is right. One other question, could your digital camera do this kind of work.
http://members.trainorders.com/shamus/Nighttime.jpg

[This message has been edited by Paul Templar (edited 31 January 2001).]

[JLS]

Very nice phots, Paul.

There is no question, Traditional photo and a slide scanner will always be better than any digital photo (at least for a few years to come).

Jean-Louis Simonet
visit traiN'ternet: http://www.trainternet.org/

[ten87]

...could your digital camera do this kind of work...

Yeah, and my Daddy can beat up your Daddy! http://www.trainboard.com/biggrin.gif Seriously guys, both have their merits, but the same could be said for steam vs diesel. It's whatever floats your boat...

------------------
Ed Harrison
http://www.trainboard.com/smiles/103.gif Ed's Mental Cab Ride (http://harrison.railsusa.com)

[This message has been edited by ten87 (edited 31 January 2001).]

[Paul Templar]

Ed my friend, I wasn't been nasty when I asked --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

...could your digital camera do this kind of work...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I was interested in finding out if a digital
.Coulddo this, thats all. :D :confused: :confused:

[ten87]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Paul Templar:
...I wasn't been nasty when I asked... <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'm sure you weren't. I just wanted to try and cut the tension a little. I'm partial to the digital camera myself, but mostly because of me being a penny pincher. I do have to point out the incredible detail in the digital photo of the saw mill. If you look at the big version, you can actually see the shirt button on the prototoype person standing stage left!

null

[Paul Templar]

:rolleyes: What the hell, I couldn't afford the digital camera I would need to replace my 35mm lot anyway. :rolleyes:

[chessie]

FWIW,
My two cents worth... my digital cannot replace or surpass a 35mm in a couple of areas: speed and control. For speed, I am referring to photgraphing a movng train.... when you are used to having a 3-5 fps motordrive at your disposal, you will be disappointed. :( As far as control, it depends on whether you can control apeture, depth of field, shutter speed, etc. from you camera. These are generally areas that digitals cannot compete. As the technology improves, so will the digital pictures. In their defense, I have pics that I have taken with my digital camera and printed on an old printer (2 yrs +) that folks swear must be "film" photograpghs. ;)

Harold

[Gats]

It's really a matter of horses for courses. I have both film and digital, and though digital has been the medium of choice in the last 6 months, I'm not going to forego my 35mm Pentax for a digital only existance.
As most have stated at some point, speed and flexibility is simply not there with digitals within reach of the average person. If I need to get a quick-fire set of images, the 35mm does the work. If I'm doing a set piece where I can set up the scene, or I need a photo to get across a point via the net, then the digital wins hands down.


No flaming or anything here... just some serious, and not so serious, banter about pros and cons. smile.gif

Ed, I have a couple of shots of the shop area alone in the same size. I add them to my site so everyone can have a look.

JLS, when you're talking slide film, you are talking away and beyond traditional film or digital.It's amazing what it does with detail. That's why it is the choice for cover shots on magazines.

Paul, I reckon I could get away with doing a long exposure shot like yours with the Nikon. Have you seen the digital shots I have of Sydney during the Olympics and 2001 NYE fireworks?

Gary.

[Paul Templar]

Hi Gary, No I didn't see the shots, can you post some?
:cool:

[Art]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
Most of my photographs that I scan in are 8" by 6" and the rest are 7" by 5", I wouldn't go any lower than these sizes to scan in.
I set my scanner to 600dpi (dots per inch) then scan the photo into either Adobe Photoshop or Paint shop Pro. Once the photo is in the computer the size of it is huge, about 17mb big. Too big to upload anywhere, but the quality is very good. Now, I save that first to my HD. As a bitmap, not jpeg. So I always have the original scan. Next I reduce the image size in Paint shop Pro
In resize I use percentage of Original and put that to 30% I tick resize all layers and tick maintain aspect ratio, then press OK. Then next job is to go to image- noise- and despeckle. Once this has been accomplished, I turn my attention to the image sharpness and brightness/contrast sections. When these are correct, I use Gamma correction, this moves RED GREEN & BLUE all together. What in effect you are doing is altering brightness in a way, but keeping the colours together. When I think the photograph is okay, I save it as a jpeg ready to upload to my website. So now I have gone from a 17meg photo to one which is around 150 KB mark.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


You will find that the industry standard for scans and for digital is the tiff format, not the bmp. If you stay with that format you will be much better off when and if you need to sell your pictures. Most professional shop will only accept the tiff.

For your information even a mid-range Nikon like the 950 digital will shoot a tiff that is about 8 megs in size, and the picture will be so sharp that you can see the grain in metal. The Nikon 950 can be purchased from Nikon on the web for under $500.

Once you move to digital you will use your scanner for a paperweight.

Art

[rush2ny]

smile.gif I have had good luck scanning 35mm pics and the results are usually pretty good. The one problem that I do have is if I try to scan glossy style photos (although 90% of my pics are matte finish, my personal preference). When I scan these I get images that appear faded and sometimes, the scanner itself has trouble scanning them and gives an error message. Anyone else encounter this problem or know a better way to scan glossy pics? I have a lot of old glossy photos that I would like to preserve digitally.

Russ/NYC The Hoffman Valley RR (http://users5.50megs.com/rush2ny/hvrrpage.html)
NARA member#28

[Alan]

All my prints are glossy, and I have never had any problems, on three different scanners.

[Gats]

As a personal observation, I've found glossy prints will give a better result than matt when scanned. The matt prints tend to be a little blurry and require sharpening within the manipulation program.

Gary.

[Gats]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Paul Templar:
Hi Gary, No I didn't see the shots, can you post some?
:cool:<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Sorry, Paul, I missed your post. head to http://www.pnc.com.au/~audiosat/photos/digital/

Gary.