Question about Scanning Kodachrome Slides

WolfOnDigital

I hope this is placed in the right forum?
If it isn't I do apologize and hope the moderator will move it.

I have a LOT of my work shot as Kodachrome Slides.
I would like to Scan them and post them to my galleries on SmugMug.
I have read many times over how Kodachrome is not the easiest Slide to scan as far as correct colors etc.
I am scanning on an Epson Perfection 4490 Photo Scanner.

I know there is software made just for scanning Kodachrome Slides to get the colors and detail accurate. This software apparentley makes sure the slides retain all the data and color accuracy as possible.

Does anyone know what software is available just for scanning Kodachrome Slides?
Also any feedback if some of you have scanned Kodachrome as well BEFORE I start.
I want to preserve the quality of the slides I shot many years ago.

Also I read somewhere you should NOT have digital Ice selected in your scanners menu as this causes issues with Kodachrome?

Wil Davis

I've use a Nikon Super CoolScan 4000 ED to do my scanning. Of all the pictures I have on SmugMug, of those taken before 1995, 99% were shot on Kodachrome.

I use PhotoShop and NikonScan 4.0.2 in which there's a special preset for Kodachrome which I always use. I've found that using Digital ICE³ saves much post-tweaking later. All the UK shots and anything before 1995 here was scanned in using the CoolScan 4000.

Good luck with your scanning!

- Wil

pathfinder

Yours truly on duty at Fort Sam Houston 1945 - caught on Kodachrome, scanned with a Nikon CoolScan IV, VueScan software with Digital Ice



A quick google of "Digital ICE and Kodachrome problems" yielded this page which has folks who relate problems with ICE and Kodachrome and others who do not. The only film I am aware of that does not play well with ICE is black and white negatives. They do not work well with ICE.

This link - http://www.digitalslides.net/Slide%20scanning%20digital_ice.htm - essentially said the same thing I related about ICE and Kodachrome - you'll get different stories.

One thing I will say about scanning, is that the quality of scans you see vary a great deal. I did my own ~6 years ago because I could not get quality scanning done easily or locally.

I suggest you drop by www.hamrick.com and get a copy of VueScan. I have used it from 2001 or thereabouts in Windows and OS X. I drive my film scanner and my flatbed scanner with it when I am interested in better quality scans.

Scancafe.com gets pretty good reviews these days. I have no experience with them however.

WolfOnDigital

My Scanner resolution settings
My scanner does not have a preset for Kodachrome.

I will check into Vuescan and the other links.
I hesitated to even TRY and scan in my Older work in Kodachorme because of all the so called issues I read about.
I guess now that I have some feedback it is certainly worth a try to scan my older slides and see what happens.

Any suggestions on what resolution I should be scaning my slides in at for the best quality?

Jeff

pathfinder wrote:

Yours truly on duty at Fort Sam Houston 1945 - caught on Kodachrome, scanned with a Nikon CoolScan IV, VueScan software with Digital Ice



A quick google of "Digital ICE and Kodachrome problems" yielded this page which has folks who relate problems with ICE and Kodachrome and others who do not. The only film I am aware of that does not play well with ICE is black and white negatives. They do not work well with ICE.

This link - http://www.digitalslides.net/Slide%20scanning%20digital_ice.htm - essentially said the same thing I related about ICE and Kodachrome - you'll get different stories.

One thing I will say about scanning, is that the quality of scans you see vary a great deal. I did my own ~6 years ago because I could not get quality scanning done easily or locally.

I suggest you drop by www.hamrick.com and get a copy of VueScan. I have used it from 2001 or thereabouts in Windows and OS X. I drive my film scanner and my flatbed scanner with it when I am interested in better quality scans.

Scancafe.com gets pretty good reviews these days. I have no experience with them however.

Wil Davis

WolfOnDigital wrote:

My scanner does not have a preset for Kodachrome.
…
snip
…Any suggestions on what resolution I should be scaning my slides in at for the best quality?

Jeff

The preset is in the software.

At least 4000dpi

- Wil

arodney

Did the scanner come with SilverFast?

http://www.silverfast.com/product/Epson/536/en.html

MGraber

arodney wrote:

Did the scanner come with SilverFast?
http://www.silverfast.com/product/Epson/536/en.html

You're lucky if you got SilverFast with the scanner. It's a quite expensive piece of software.
Nevertheless it's my favourite for scanning, especially if kodachrome is the film to scan.

Here's a link to the SilverFast kodachrome site: http://www.silverfast.com/highlights/kodachrome/en.html

I think most important are the fillm profiles (or scanner calibration using a target) for correct colors.
Otherwise you'll often end up having a nasty blue color cast.
Second is the dust and scratch removal iSRD. ICE is not working, but iSRD is.
There is a learning curve for getting nice scans from kodachromes and there is a learning curve for using SilverFast,
but if you are ambitious ...

best