Slide Scanning: Before And After Scans

You know, it's all too easy to talk about "quality".

Let our work speak for itself.  Here's a short video comparing normal slide scans vs. scans edited by me and my team at ScanCanada.ca:



Slide Scanning: Compare Before And After Slide Scans

Read This Before You Choose A Scanning Company To Convert Your Film To DVD

5 Mistakes To Avoid When Choosing A Scanning Company -- And Recommendations To Make Sure You Get Quality Slide, Film, Photo Scans

Learn how the scanning industry works so that you can make a better decision when choosing a company to scan your family’s only copy of slides, negative film, or photos.

Mistake #1: Are Your Dad’s Slides A Commodity, Or Are They Memories?

The biggest mistake is choosing a scanning service that works like an assembly line. What I mean is, their focus is to scan as many slides, film, and photos as fast as they can. Time is money, and if they can just squeeze a few more scans per hour, then that means more profits.

Listen, I have no issues with efficiency. But in my 6 years experience in scanning, I know that you can’t scan 50 negatives in an hour, and get digital images that are worth keeping. What I make up in speed, I lose in quality.

Time is money with these guys. And here’s some ways they cut corners:

(a) Reduce the resolution / DPI so the scans go faster.

(b) Don’t clean the slides, negative and photos before you load them in the scanner.

(c) Use scan enhancements like Digital ICE that “promise” quality results, but are just short-cuts.

(d) Not editing your final scans in photo editing software like Photo shop.

There’s a lot of tricks companies will use to speed through your scans. But what you gain in speed, you lose in quality.

Mistake #2: Choosing A Scanning Service Based On Price

I just talked about how some scan companies rather focus on speed than quality. And the lower their price, the better chance that they are cutting a lot of corners. Be careful with the ones that offer low prices-- I bet they are setup to zip through your scans, rather than provide you with quality scans that aren’t useless.

And anyway, if you’re that concerned on price, why not do it yourself?! I know, maybe you’ve tried and that’s why you’re looking for somebody else to do it. But if you need some tips on how to convert film into digital, check out HowToScan.ca.

If you pick the cheap, low-price scanning providers, you’ll end up with useless scans. Better to pay the extra coin, or do it yourself.

Mistake #3: Picking Some Guy With A Scanner

Scanning is pretty close to photography. Say you hire a professional photographer for your wedding. She can produce compositions, moods, colours in one single picture. Or you can hire a buddy, with a camera. Anybody can shoot photography. And a lot of amateurs are pretty good. But when you compare a professional with your buddies photos, you can tell right away who’s are better.

It’s the same with scanning-- anybody can buy a scanner, put up a website, and offer scanning services. Just like anybody can can buy an expensive camera and take pictures. But it doesn’t guarantee quality.

Why would you want quality scans? Well, what’s the point of digitally converting your film, slides, and photos if they turn out worse than your originals?

Mistake #4: Falling For “Digital ICE” And The Promise Of Beautiful Scans

I use a Nikon 9000 film scanner. When I bought it cost me $6000. It can scan up to 4000 DPI. And guess what? so can a $200 scanner. Why was it so expensive? I’ve learned that I mostly paid for what they call Digital ICE.

What’s Digital ICE? It’s basically scanning software that looks at your scans and removes dust and scratches, fixes faded colours, and improves the exposure. That’s what the marketing claims, anyway.

Digital ICE is good if you have NO idea how to improve a digital image. You press a few buttons, and the machine does the rest. But after years of using Digital ICE, I’ve found myself going back to Photo shop, and fixing the scans by “hand”. Unfortunately, there is no short-cut to quality scans. I wish I can press the scan enhance button, and get amazing scans. But there is no substitute for the human eye-- and I will always edit scans using Photo shop, and never touch Digital Ice.

So, look out for scanning companies that market “Digital ICE”. It’s just another way to zip through your scans.

Mistake #5: Paying For The Highest DPI / Resolution

Most people have no idea what a good DPI is for a digital image. Do you even know what DPI’s are?

Here’s the thing-- you don’t need to get the highest DPI scans to get true HD quality digital images. For example, if I scan my 4” x 6” photo at 300 DPI, I can put them on my HDTV and it will display it at true HD. How? Not to get too technical, but a 4” x 6” scan has a pixel resolution of 1200 x 1800. And your HDTV has a pixel resolution of 1080 x 1920. You see, your digital image will fit perfectly on your HDTV screen. For slides and negative film, I scan them at 1500 DPI, to give me a digital image that is around 1200 x 1950. You don’t need 4000 DPI for HD.

So if you’re just using your scans for nothing more than HDTV, email, slide shows, then don’t go for the biggest resolution they offer.

At the same time, if truly want to future-proof your family slides, negatives, or photos, I’d suggest 3000 DPI or 4000 DPI for slides and photos; and 600 DPI for photos. Technology will always get better, and maybe your 300 DPI scans will look bad on a 2160p HDTV.

Recommendations On Finding A Professional Scanning Company

Here’s 3 tips to find qualified scanning services, for the best price.

Recommendation #1: Are They In It For Speed Or Quality - Ask These Questions To Find Out

Do you want some guy zipping through your only copy of your Dad’s slides? Probably not. To weed out the bad ones, here’s what to ask:

(a) How do you clean the slides, negatives, photos?

Professional scanning companies know that most of the dust and debris can be removed BEFORE the scan. They will take the time to thoroughly clean the original using lint free cloth or compress air.

(b) How Do You Improve My Scans

If they only use Digital ICE to improve your scans, watch out. Professional scanning companies won’t use the scanner to improve your scans. They will actually use a photo editing program to do this job, such as Photo shop.

Again, you’re looking for the companies that take their time-- they’re not charging you by the hour, but by the quality of scans they can offer you.

Recommendation #2: Does The Scanning Service Offer Free Sample Scans For Your Approval

A HUGE red-flag is if you feel the company is hiding something. Are they more than happy to show you their work? And I’m not talking about other customer scans-- they can just show you the good ones. But, actually show you YOUR scans.

A professional scanning service will scan a batch for you to approve. So before they start scanning ALL of your scans, they will make sure you are completely satisfied by providing you a few samples of your scans.

Even if they don’t offer this, why not send 25 slides to scan for your own test run. If you like the scans, send the rest of your collection. If not, at least you lost $25 and not $250 or more.

Recommendation #3: What Is Their Guarantee

It’s easy to say, “100% money back guarantee”. Everybody does. But, does the scanning service ask for money now? or after the scans are complete?

In this industry, just like photography or web design, the company or person doesn’t get paid unless work is done. Sometimes there’s a down payment, but most of the case they get paid after the work is done.

It’s the same with scanning. It’s a “creative” profession. They are offering “professional creative services” not tire changes.

So if they are asking for money up front, take it as a red-flag. The real professionals, the one that know what they are doing, the ones that are confident in their work will charge you AFTER you get your scans. If there’s any problems with the scans, they’ll be happy to re-scan or re-edit the bad ones, or give you your money back.

Check out their return policy. Get it in writing. Make sure you get a quote, and make sure their guarantee is on the quote.

Still Not Informed?

This small peak into how the scanning industry works was to educate you so that you can make a better decision when picking a scanning company.

I hope I met my goal, but if you like to learn more, please visit:

ScanCanada.ca: Professional Slide, Negative Film, Photo Scanning Services Toronto

Thanks!
Konrad M.

Scanning Your Photos More Than 300 DPI Will Not Give You More Detail

Myth: Increasing Your Photo Resolution Higher Than 300 DPI Will Give You More Detail - Here Is Why This Is Wrong...

Once you understand a bit more about resolution, you can then control what you do with your photo scans.  For example, here is a story.

Gary, a client of mine, wanted to scan a few photos for his Father's 60th birthday.  He wanted to use the digital photo scans and create a slide show.  He told me that he was going to display them on a 52" HDTV.

I told him that 300 DPI scans will display at full HD quality.  So I scanned his Dad's photos at 300 DPI.  When Gary got the digital photos, he put together his slide show, and told me that the images looked great on HDTV. No problems with quality.

But the day before his Dad's birthday party he emailed in a panic.  He told me he went into a photo lab to print one of his digital photos as a poster.  But when he got his poster it looked horrible-- it was stretched, detail was missing, it just did not look right.  Naturally he thought that since the 300 DPI scans looked great on an HDTV, they would also come out looking great when printed at poster size.

Here is what can happen if you stretch a digital photo past its resolution:

This is where resolution gets confusing.  Come along and I will show you how you can use resolution and control what you do with your digital photo scans.

1) Your Physical Photos Have A Limit Of 300 DPI

If you look at a physical photo under a microscope you would see that it is made up of coloured dots.  This is how the photo lab developed your photos-- it printed minute, coloured dots to make up your images.  And the photo lab used 300 dots per inch to make the photo.  So, what you have there is a photo that is 300 DPI.

Now, if you take that 300 DPI physical photo and set up your scanner for 300 DPI as well, you will produce an exact copy.  What I mean is your digital photo will show the exact same details as your physical photo.

But what if you scanned your photo at 600 DPI.  It makes sense that if you double the DPI you would get twice the detail and resolution, right?  Not quite.  Remember you physical photo is only 300 DPI.  That is the limit.  So if you scan at a resolution more than 300 DPI you are NOT getting more detail.  You are not going in deeper and uncovering more detail.  Your photo's limit is 300 DPI... that is it!

2) You Pick Up Useless Detail Once You Go Higher Than 300 DPI

When you scan higher than 300 DPI you will start to notice other detail.  Not detail from the actual image itself.  But detail off the physical photo.  Your scanner will pick up the shiny gloss, minute dust and scratches, finger prints, oil off your finger prints.  You might not notice these thing with your naked eye.  But the higher the resolution, the more of this detail you will start to "enhance".

Anything under 900 DPI you will be safe.  After 900 DPI that is when you get into problems.  That is when you start enhancing all the artifacts like minute scratches.  So anywhere from 300 to 900 DPI you will be safe.

3) So Why Scan Higher Than 300 DPI

The one benefit of scanning higher than 300 DPI is that you get a larger image.  At 600 DPI, you get a digital photo that is twice the size of your physical photo.  Say you have a photo scan at 600 DPI.  If you walk into a photo lab and asked them to print that digital photo scan, you can print it at 8" x 12" without losing any quality.  Remember, you doubled the DPI from 300 DPI to 600 DPI.  Now the print shop has more dots to work with and are able to print an image that is twice the size.

But remember, it does NOT have more detail. All your scanner did was figured out mathematically how to convert a 4" x 6", 300 DPI physical photo into a 600 DPI digital photo-- WITHOUT losing quality.  It did not find any extra detail.  It just used the same detail and gave you an image that is twice as big.

And remember Gary's story?  His 300 DPI photo scans were perfect to watch on his HDTV.  But he was not able to print his digital photo at a larger size.  That is because his 300 DPI digital photos were exactly the same as his 300 DPI physical photos.  But if he told me he wanted to print out a few photos at poster size, I would have scanned them at 900 DPI. This would give him a photo that is 3x as big.  So he could have printed them at 16" x 24"

The More You Know About Resolution, The More Control You Have With Digital Photos

This is what I mean about having more control.  Say you never intend to re-print any photos at a larger size.  Then there is no point of wasting time scanning all your family photos at 900 DPI.  Scanning them at 300 DPI will be safe enough.  Plus, at 300 DPI you photos are HD quality.

But what if you want to "future-proof" your photos,  I suggest 900 DPI.  I scanned my family's photos at 900 DPI just because I never know if they will come out with a higher resolution HDTV.  Or maybe one day I will want larger re-prints.  I say it is always better to have too many pixels than too little.  But not too much-- going over 900 DPI you enhance what is on the surface of the photo.

If you like to go deeper into resolution, I get way more into resolution, here...

Understanding Photo Resolution: A Non-Technical Guide To See How Resolution Works

Good luck with your photo scans!
Konrad M.

HowToScan.ca