I have now been playing with scanning my photos for a while and I have come to some conclusions. For the record, the scanner is a Canon Canoscan 9900F and I have connected it using USB2.0. My target is publishing them online but also saving them is original PSD (I use Photoshop) for later editing. The source is all negative film.
As you can imagine, the settings you use when scanning a photo affects the result and I have currently found that the following produces the best result. * Resolution 1600: This produces files of about 2288×1464 pixels and each raw file is 9.56MB in PSD format which in turn can be compressed non-lossy to 7.2MB using Winzip with maximum compression. The resulting JPEG as created with Adobe ImageReady using JPEG quality 90 is 1.35MB. For comparison the PSD file becomes 34MB if the resolution is increased to 3200. * Remove Dust and Scratches (FARE) Hard: FARE is a technique that uses infrared light to detect dust and scratches on the source and does a VERY good job in removing them. This features as I understand it is unique for Canon scanners. Most of my old negatives have been stored badly and are a bit damaged. * Fading correction Normal: This makes the colors a bit more saturated. * Grain correction: Normal This was actually the hardest one to decide on. If I set it on soft you can see the grains on e.g. white walls but if I set it to hard then the image gets to blurry. I decided to use normal. * Quality High Quality: This just means that it scans in higher quality than normal. * Not using Unsharp Mask: The unsharp mask is very important but Photoshop makes a much better job than the scanner software. More about this later.
Using these settings scanning on negative takes 5 minutes 20 seconds.
The scanner can scan 24 negatives at one time but that requires that the negatives are cut in sheets of 6 which most Swedish negatives aren’t (they are cut in sheets of 4).
That was the scanning part and I will post more details about handling tomorrow.
[Written while listening to: Chris de Burgh – Carry Me 03 – and talking with my mother using SIP.]
I have just put a child to sleep. My child. She is so beautiful, lying there in the light from the lava lamp. The light goes up and it goes down as the wax gathers at the bottom of the bottle covering the lamp. She turns this way, she turns that way, she checks if I am there and then finally, she is really asleep and I can leave. Do I really have to leave? Can’t I just sleep there, right next to the princess? Well, I have another princess to take care of to night. Good night!
Giving bloods makes me feel good, but I did feel fatigued and aggravated during the cycle home. I recruited Johanna today and got an extra 50:- as a thanks. T was running around the place between me leaving blood and J in the testing room for the newcomers. Nobody seemed to mind my little critter running around and being cute.
Me and T had planned to visit the icebreaker Frej today (after a great tip from Jalle) but unfortunately the two last yours were sold out so we were only allowed to view the 4 icebreakers from the outside. Instead T and I hid from the rain down in the harbour and did some creative drawing, on the ground and other creative places đ Tovah even found out that she could draw and stones and in places where I couldn’t reach.
After that Tovah got a small burger and an ice cream and we headed for the blood central, then Kvantum and then here I am.
I must admit that I feel good.
By the way, T woke me up at 5.30 this morning and after tossing for 30 minutes I got up and showered. Then J came and pulled me back into bed and we slept until 0900. I am really glad she did!! When I awake that early, it seems like all problems get ten times bigger and I get queasy feelings in my stomach and my chest and I cannot sleep. Later when I get up at an reasonable time the problems are all gone, well they are still there, I just don’t care anymore đ
[Written while listening to: madonna – american life – 03 – I’m so stupid – – ]
Personal Problem&Solution for my own notes only.
Today my PC audio on Blipp got distorted and mic-in vanished. Many BSODs and much testing showed turned out that the driver for the USB pccard reader is not very correct. Uninstalling the driver and drive solved the problem. It was the violet LexarMedia reader with dual drives. The drive itself worked with the driver.
[Written while listening to: madonna – american life – 02 – hollywood – – ]
I haven’t been blogging much the last two days and the reason is that I have been working, working and working. I woke up full of energy today and got to work immediately. After a great lunch of chili marinated grilled chicken and curry rice I got a bit tired and headed out for a 10KM cycle ride. This was my first training ride since the accident and it just felt great. When I got home I felt pumped up (though physically tired). By the way, Tovah joined me, at least half the way as she fell asleep. She usually does when riding the bike cart in the afternoon.
During the morning I created an exam for SMD151 so students, now you can begin to crack into my account and read all the questions.
I get to do what I want to do and just have to do some minor “boss bullshit”. I worked longer than I had planned today but now I am finished and I am going to eat some supper and then dig into my photo collection.
Anyhow, just wanted to say that I feel great đ
[Written while listening to: 13 – What It Feels Like For A – Madonna – GHV2]
We had a nice afternoon with Jalle and Ida. We ate 8.5 rolls of sushi and then we played EBay and Chee’z Dork. EBay was really fun but Chee’z Dork was so so. I am disappointed in you, Steve Jackson!
Tovah found a new game, throwing sand around and of course most of it ended up in her hair. Check out the cloud and pebbles.
We threw them out around 19.30, Tovah took a bath (because of all the sand) and she ended up washing her hair twice in a day. She hates washing her hair.
After she fell asleep J and I dove into our analog photo collection and starting matching up missing negatives and sorting the rest a bit. I have started putting captions on the first set.
Good night everybody!
En dag som du inte lÀr dig nÄgot nytt, Àr en förlorad dag!
