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Questions about ScanDigital services, ICE, etc.
WinsomeWorks
Registered Users Posts: 1,935 Major grins
Just wondering if I could get a couple thoughts on the ScanDigital scanning services offered in connection with SmugMug, from anyone who's been through this process already. I have years & years of slides & negs that need scanning. The slides are my first priority, and almost all of them are Kodachrome, except for maybe 300 Ektachromes. I've already chatted with a rep. from ScanDigital and it all looks great. But I need to decide how many to send in for my first try. (wish I could send 1000 & get the 15% savings, but can't afford that right now). Here are some things I'm wondering, & would love to hear from people who've used ScanDigital:
1. How drastic is the ICE technology? I will probably upload quite a few of these to stock sites, and they are quite picky about NR or anything that looks like it. (files will be viewed at 100% by them and me!) There will definitely be some dust particles on these slides & negs, since some are 25 yrs. old. in other words, do you notice the ICE at all?
2. How drastic is the color-correction? Did you see it to be an improvement or not?
3. When going from SmugMug, you can still keep your files on ScanDigital's site (in your album area) as well, correct?
4. Cleaning... was it adequate, or not enough? I'm a little worried about the possible compressed air, etc... although my slides are going to need SOMEthing to get them clean. I'm just wondering how much cloning-out of dust particles, etc. I'd need to do to get marketable images ready for stock.
5. Any tips as to sorting, labeling, or anything else would be welcome! Thanks in advance for any help.
1. How drastic is the ICE technology? I will probably upload quite a few of these to stock sites, and they are quite picky about NR or anything that looks like it. (files will be viewed at 100% by them and me!) There will definitely be some dust particles on these slides & negs, since some are 25 yrs. old. in other words, do you notice the ICE at all?
2. How drastic is the color-correction? Did you see it to be an improvement or not?
3. When going from SmugMug, you can still keep your files on ScanDigital's site (in your album area) as well, correct?
4. Cleaning... was it adequate, or not enough? I'm a little worried about the possible compressed air, etc... although my slides are going to need SOMEthing to get them clean. I'm just wondering how much cloning-out of dust particles, etc. I'd need to do to get marketable images ready for stock.
5. Any tips as to sorting, labeling, or anything else would be welcome! Thanks in advance for any help.
Anna Lisa Yoder's Images - http://winsomeworks.com ... Handmade Photo Notecards: http://winsomeworks.etsy.com ... Framed/Matted work: http://anna-lisa-yoder.artistwebsites.com/galleries.html ... Scribbles: http://winsomeworks.blogspot.com
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
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DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
Great service, quality. We love ScanDigital! I'll ask 'em to stop by.
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Andy - thanks for the heads up on this thread.
WinsomeWorks - My name is Anderson Schoenrock, I am the co-founder of ScanDigital and I'd be happy to give you some additional information / insights into our service.
Regarding DigitalICE - we can also scan without it if you would prefer. ICE is definitely helpful and each image is reviewed during our process three times to ensure the highest level of quality. This gives us the flexibility to rescan images with or without Digital ICE as needed. As a standard practice we use ICE.
If you plan to use these with stock sites, what I would suggest is that we run a quick test order for you with say 30-50 slides. We can run them through our process and then you can see what the stock sites say. The reason I suggest that is because the stock sites are definitely very picky. I would love to be able to tell you we'll do x,y & z and then everything will be fine with the stock sites, but the reality is that each set of images is different and have unique challenges when it comes to dust removal...etc.
Which brings me to the compressed air topic - compressed air does a great job on the slides and we prefer that method because there is no way we can damage the slides with the compressed air.
On the color correction - again, if you would like us to not do that we can skip that part of our process. Everything we do is done manually - image by image. The beauty in that is that we can apply color correction to only those slides that need it and we can adjust the level of correction based on the image itself. Because of that, we view color correction as a really great benefit of our service. That said, if the slides were developed properly and stored properly the aging seen in the digital files may not be as dramatic.
As part of our arrangement with SmugMug - you'll have a chance to review the images before finalizing your order and then at the end of our process we'll transfer them directly to your SmugMug account. We don't keep them in online on both sites as a standard practice. That said, we keep a copy on our servers should you ever wish to order a duplicate DVD copy.
Finally - we'll keep any organization you provide within the physical slides (i.e. labeled slide cases or envelopes will result in labeled folders containing those images). So feel free to organize away! We typically don't do individual file naming (can for an additional fee), but other than that we'll maintain your organization.
Thanks for your inquiry! Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.
Thanks a mil, Anderson, that clarifies a number of things. I'm sure I'll have a few more questions before submitting stuff, but I'm hoping to send you a batch within a couple weeks. Everything I read on your site was very impressive, and the person I did an online chat with helped a lot as well. Just off the top of my head, here's the next round of questions:
1. I'm trying to picture exactly how you put the files on our Smug site. In other words, I have a Pro account, but no Smug Vault (yet!) So-- would I make an unlisted gallery and then you'd upload the files to it, or what?
2. Also, is it standard practice to include a DVD of our images as well as putting them here on SmugMug? I'm sure I would want another copy besides the SmugMug copy, because otherwise I'd have to download them to my home computer one-by-one.
3. Yes, my slides will have varying degrees of "wear & tear". Many have been kept in "archival" clear slide sheets in a cool area for most of their life. Would I submit them in the sheets or remove them? Most are also Kodachrome, so fortunately the color is in good shape. A lot of others are in barely-opened slide boxes, the way they came back from processing, so I assume I could send them the way they are. Related question-- does original packaging get returned?
4. I have negatives in clear sheets too-- would I send them that way?
5. One reason I was asking about ICE is that I've read varying reports about Kodachrome and ICE not getting along so well. But I do know that no matter how slides are stored, dust is a humongous problem, because I've scanned enough on my own to see that! So here's the related question: I was planning to have both TIFFs and Jpegs made of each file. I'm not sure if you make the Jpeg from the TIFF or if it requires two scans. So-- I'm wondering if there's a way to receive back an "untouched" scan from each file, as well as one that has had your various treatments. If so, how would I work that? Ideally, I'd love a treated and untreated TIFF, then a treated Jpeg. Reason being... I don't "work on" Jpegs as a rule, due to the problem of lossiness. Then if I had one I wanted to submit to stock (these will be probably only a few per hundred), I could always go back to one or the other TIFF. I'm never tickled about spending lots of time with color-correcting & dust cloning & all that, so I will be absolutely thrilled if your in-house fixes will save me that trouble! I'm fairly handy w/ Photoshop, but we're talking thousands of slides here.
6. One last question for now: I have a number of slides that appear to me to have some type of fungus or something else ugly on them. Mostly it's greyish-white in color... a few are pink. It's usually in some spots, not over the entire slide. I know these would need a more drastic cleaning measure than compressed air. Do you do anything else in cases like this? If so, I assume I'd need to mark those that I believe to be especially dirty or problematic. I would also want to scan them first in case cleaning completely ruins them... hoping I can do that at home.
Ok, well, thanks for your patience! Hopefully that covers most of it...! --Anna Lisa
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
Hi WinsomeWorks,
Sorry for the delay - i'm still figuring out Dgrin and thought I'd see the notification, but didn't.
1) When you place the order online and check out before sending your materials, you'll authorize us to upload directly to your account. This will allow us to actually create a ScanDigital gallery and then within your gallery things will be organized as you have sent them to us. (i.e. logical groupings will be scanned and labeled together)
2) Yes - as a standard practice we return your originals with a DVD data disc copy (or CD if you prefer)
3) It is probably best to send the slides in the storage containers or sheets they're currently in. We'll remove them, scan them and return them to the original packaging. Unless there is some logical reason, everything will be returned in the same container. (Off the top of my head, the only example of when we don't return something exactly as it was would be on 35 mm strips that had a sticky strip applied to the top of them after development. Those we remove and discard, but obviously return the strips of negs)
4) Negatives in clear sheets are fine.
5) When providing TIFF and JPEG, as a rule we send unedited TIFF and edited JPEGs - I would need to check with my head of operations and see how comfortable he would be with this concept. We probably would not do this on everything, but perhaps we could go back and edit the hundred or so TIFF files you wanted to submit? That might be the most cost effective option for you too.
6) We have a special solution that is designed to clean slides and negatives, we can use to clean the slides with a delicate wipe (also designed for slides) - definitely mark them and include a note for us. We avoid doing this as much as possible and always obtain permission. Amazingly in most cases we can clean them up and obtain a good scan, but obviously each case is different. You'd be amazed at some of the scans we've taken off what appeared to be a complete loss.
Let me know if I can answer any other questions and I'll be sure to check back in to be sure I don't miss another response. Thanks for your patience!
Anderson
That's fine, Anderson-- Yes, it takes a little practice to figure out where things are around here... it's a pretty comprehensive forum, as forums go! I only found out recently that I could click on "You!" (upper left) to find the threads I've commented on (if they have new comments on them). Anyway, no worries-- I waited 25 yrs. on some of these slides-- I only got excited because I've been looking through them, and, well, you may know how it goes when you find "old friends" amongst your images & you realize you won't be around forever to take care of this stuff
1. With the cleaner solution, I'm guessing you mean PEC-12 ? I actually have some of the stuff, but have always been too chicken to use it because I've read of the possible clouding risk. However, some of those "dirtier" slides are practically unusable the way they are anyway, so I'd trust the pros have at them... IF a high-quality scan could be made first! Can that happen? Then, if cleaning damaged the slide, I'd at least still have the option to Photoshop some of the ugly stuff out of it, using the pre-cleaned digital file. [ETA: in my last post, I said I hoped to scan these first at home, but I'm not getting the kind of results I need from my scanner. I had another one that worked better, but it only works with SCSI & not USB, & I haven't found a way to convert it... boohoo]
2. One question connected with that-- I'm not always going to know which ones need that kind of treatment; I'm not sure I'll be able to individually view or lupe each slide before sending. Is it good enough just to mark those with known problems?
3. As far as returning slides in the packaging, I'm thinking in my case it would be highly advantageous for me to include brand new slide sheets (or neg sheets) since they're so old. It seems nutty to put those freshly-cleaned slides back in sheets that certainly have dust & etc. in them by now. I trust that's ok? I could even place the same labels on them, if that helps.
4. Lastly, from what you're saying about TIFFs and Jpegs, I gather you're saying that if someone asks for both file-types, you don't make the Jpeg from the TIFF but instead do two different scans for the two file-types? Hmm, I need to think about this part. Normally I keep an original un-edited TIFF plus an edited TIFF, & make my Jpeg from the edited TIFF...or 2 PSDs & Jpeg (for each shoot's best) because there are so many reasons for needing to go back to the TIFF & save something.
The clincher on many of these slides that I'm anxious to scan is... they're from locations I visited once only & may never get back to (Tibet, Nepal, etc.). I'm also planning to donate duplicate files of all the decent Tibet ones to a Tibetan group that's trying to save their culture & history. There weren't many photogs in Tibet at the time. I may have to include extra info. on those files, etc., so would like to go back to a non-lossy format to do that. I'm also unsure about crops. (because getting sharp corners means cropping off a fair amount of slide image) Well, hopefully we could work something out then... thanks so very much for helping me figure this out! Can't wait to get started--honestly! Once I do, I imagine this will be a long relationship with ScanDigital!
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
It definitely seems very comprehensive and I figured out how to receive an immediate email notice which helps tremendously. The SmugMug guys are definitely on top of it!
Let me see if I can cover everything here - as always let me know if you have additional questions or if this sparks new questions!
1) I think what might make sense regarding taking scans beforehand would be to take these on a high quality flatbed. We're very cautious about feeding anything with gunk on it into our slide scanners as we want to keep the inside as clean as possible. Pec-12 is what we use and it works pretty well. As I mentioned, never ideal to have to apply something but sometimes it is the only way.
2) We'll inspect everything and apply the same sort of approach, so you do not need to flag every single one. Any work you do for us is helpful, but certainly not required.
3) Whether we're putting the slides back in old sheets or new sheets, it is the same amount of work for us...so if that is better for you we're more than happy to use the new sheets. We can return the empty old ones or discard them.
4) We actually will scan them as TIFFs then create the JPEGs then edit the JPEGs. So the customer receives unedited TIFFs and edited JPEGs. It is just difficult for us to edit off of TIFFs at our volume it becomes very cumbersome.
We'll do our best to work with you. We've done everything we can to create a process that is rigid enough to ensure security and consistent quality, but tried to allow for some flexibility given that each order is unique and has particular requirements based on the customer's goals.
We look forward to working with you!
Ok, I think I'm almost there. Only one question! In #1 above, did you mean I should try to get them scanned ahead on a high-quality flatbed? or that you have one there? I can certainly understand your need to protect the best equipment! My present scanner is an HP Photosmart C8180, flatbed. It does the transparencies, but I'm getting streaks in darker areas. (so sunsets, sunrises are basically unusable). More "cluttery", medium-toned files come out usable for web, but not terrific. I'm hoping you meant you guys have something better there, even if it's a flatbed, that could give a prelim. scan before more aggressive cleaning.
On the rest, it all sounds workable. Thanks a mil! Now... just gotta get some $ together. OH-- one last thing - you aren't normally able to put my own numbers on each file you scan; you just name the folder with my title groupings, right? If that's the case, I think it's fine for now. Thanks again.
DayBreak, my Folk Music Group (some free mp3s!) http://daybreakfolk.com
Let me know if you have other questions!