Question:
Please only serious replies: To everybody that is looking for high quality scans of 6×9, 6×7, 6×6, 6×4.5, and 35mm negatives and slides: Does this description and price range seem resonable and would it draw your participation? -All scans are 6 million pixels with no interpolation or added data. Uncropped images would be 3072 pixels wide by 2048 pixels high. Scan-File Size is 18 MB at full-resolution color, which could be lessened if requested. -Customers would have a choice between these formats: Photoshop (psd), TIFF (tif), JPEG (jpg), Bitmap, and any other for the most part. -All jobs (over 11 images) would be recorded onto Compact Disc, for no charge, also void of CD cost. -Costs: (just a projected amount for survey purposes) 35mm -under 12 images- $3.00 each -12-35 images- $2.75 each -36-71 images- $2.50 each -72-up images- $negotiable 120 film -under 12 images- $4.00 each -12-30 images- $3.75 each -31-45 images- $3.50 each -46-up images- $negotiable Misc. -there would be no oils or any substance applied to negatives and slides. Customer would recieve them in same condition as recieved on our end. Extra Costs- There would be negotiable extra costs if customer requested more than one file format saved, and/or corrections to be made on images. Youre honest opinion would be appreciated. We are photographers and understand photographers’ needs. Don’t forget about the competition. Look at www.westcoastimaging.com. Those prices are extremely high, given they are drum scan quality. Also see calypsoinc.com. Don’t forget to call Kinkos or any Service Beurau (sp). Thank you, Milkman Imaging.
Response:
says… [ ... ] Does this description and price range seem resonable and would it draw your participation? -All scans are 6 million pixels with no interpolation or added data. Uncropped images would be 3072 pixels wide by 2048 pixels high. Scan-File Size is 18 MB at full-resolution color, which could be lessened if requested.
My honest opinion is that this is VERY low resolution for a professional scanning service — it’s substantially lower than even a relatively cheap ($400US or so) scanner does with no problem at all. Youre honest opinion would be appreciated. We are photographers and understand photographers’ needs. Don’t forget about the competition. Look at www.westcoastimaging.com. Those prices are extremely high, given they are drum scan quality. Also see calypsoinc.com. Don’t forget to call Kinkos or any Service Beurau (sp).
Just to give a quite comparison, a typical drum scanner produces around 8000 DPI — that means a scan of a 35mm slide will come out as approximately 7600×11340 pixels, for a total of about 86 million pixels. To make a long story short, the scanning you’re proposing is _probably_ good enough to preserve most of what’s available on snap shots taken hand held with relatively fast (grainy) film. It’s clearly nowhere close to what West Coast Imaging and such can (and do) produce. About the only thing that’s in the same general quality range as you’re talking about is a PhotoCD, and not the professional version either. Most places that produce PhotoCD’s charge around $10 for the CD to start with, but only about $.75 per picture afterwards. IOW, it appears that your service might make sense if somebody was getting only a couple of pictures scanned, but the break-even point seems to be around 4 pictures or so — any more than that, and a PhotoCD will cost less, and have slightly higher resolution to boot. — Later, Jerry. The Universe is a figment of its own imagination.
Response:
Jerry, You’ve got some bum information. First of all, lets clarify drum scanning. Yes, the scans are absolute premium quality (up to even 12,000 ppi), but at $25-$75 PER scan! Second, those "$500" scanners that you refer to have successfuly mislead you into believing their claim of high resolution. And PhotoCDs suck! Our scanning equipment is the Kodak Professional RFS Plus 3570 film scanner. Look it up on Kodak’s site. It’s a no bullshit scanner and it’s specs on it’s scans are pure and unconfusing. Point me out an inexpensive film scanner that scans 6 million pixels per image (uninpterpolated). Milkman Imaging
Response:
says… Jerry, You’ve got some bum information.
Sorry, but no, I don’t. Second, those "$500" scanners that you refer to have successfuly mislead you into believing their claim of high resolution.
Their resolution is real — I’ve seen it. And PhotoCDs suck!
So far, I’ve seen no indication that your service would provide even as GOOD of images as PhotoCD, not to mention anything any better. Point me out an inexpensive film scanner that scans 6 million pixels per image (uninpterpolated).
A short list of a few of the most obvious: Minolta Dimage Scan Dual II Minolta Dimage Scan Speed Minolta Dimage Scan Elite Nikon LS-30 Nikon LS-2000 Every one of these will do AT LEAST 9 million pixels per image, with NO interpolation involved AT ALL. If you believe otherwise, you’re the one with "bum information." — Later, Jerry. The Universe is a figment of its own imagination.
Response:
A Few Selected Q&A ’s From the Kodak Site: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/professional/products/scanners/3570Plu… Summary, nice that it supports multiple formats and the colour space conversion may be nice, but it’s nothing to get too excited about overall. You might want to look at their KODAK PROFESSIONAL RFS 3600 Film Scanner, that’s a scanner. What is the resolution of the scanner? The resolution is stated as dpi (*dots per inch) as a percentage of total resolution, depending on film size. At 35 mm, the scanner can scan up top 1,000 dpi optical or 2,000 dpi dithered resolution. At 70 mm, the scanner can scan up to 400 dpi optical or 800 dpi dithered resolution. Dithering is a mechanism whereby the scanner mechanically moves the CCD so that each pixel on the CCD captures multiple information of the same area of the film or slide. * Note: dpi and ppi can be used interchangeably. — What is the color depth of a scanned image? Color depth is the number of shades (variations) of colors that can be obtained from an image. The more shades of color the scanner captures, the truer to the original a reproduction of the scanned image will appear. When scanning an image, the pixel data (color depth) for each pixel is 24-bit (16 million color variations, 8-bit/color) for color, 12-bit or 8-bit (256 shades) for gray scale images (black-and-white photos). The "Black-and-White" resolution setting records the data as either black or white but still retains this information in a 24-bit format. — What is the dynamic range of the scanner? The scanner provides a high quality luminance density range of 3.5. This was determined using a KODAK Q-60 Color Input Target where it is possible to discern between gray scale steps having densities of 3.3 and 3.5. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Jerry, You’ve got some bum information. First of all, lets clarify drum scanning. Yes, the scans are absolute premium quality (up to even 12,000 ppi), but at $25-$75 PER scan! Second, those "$500" scanners that you refer to have successfuly mislead you into believing their claim of high resolution. And PhotoCDs suck! Our scanning equipment is the Kodak Professional RFS Plus 3570 film scanner. Look it up on Kodak’s site. It’s a no bullshit scanner and it’s specs on it’s scans are pure and unconfusing. Point me out an inexpensive film scanner that scans 6 million pixels per image (uninpterpolated). Milkman Imaging
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