Hello,
I have a big task at work. My task is to transfer our slide library into digital images.
I have some major considerations for this task. First, the images need to be as good as the original slides. Second, I don't have time to individually correct each digital image.
I am using a Nikon slide scanner and a PC with a bad monitor. I have access to a flatbed scanner, cinema display, and a new powermac.
The final digital images will be projected for lectures. I would like the projected images to be similar or better than slide projector images.
Our digital projector is not of the best quality. So far, the digital images are turning out blurry and the wrong color.
I would appreciate any help. I am looking for the easiest and best solution.
Thanks.
I'm not surprised at your result. You will have to invest in some good (and expensive) equipment. You will need training in color managed workflows and some calibration equipment for your monitor, scanner and projector. Yes yu can "wing it" but you will get blurry, wrong color images.
I'm doing the same thing. I'm slowly converting a large catalog of film (all types, 35mm, medium format, color and black and white negs and transparencies) Maybe I have 12,000 images to convert, possibly more.
Here is what i've learned so far.
It is very, very time consumming. At best I can work at the rate of four minutes per image. Yes, my scanner does batches but every strip of film must be removed from the plastic sleave, placed in the scanner and then replaced in the plastic. I usecompressed air on each image to blow off dust. Also there is always some work required in Photoshop to color balance and remove whatever dust is still on the image after cleaning and automatic dusting. To get to the four minute rate you have to be able to do multiple things at once, scan, clean, organize and photoshop. So that is 15 images per hour. Let's say your emplyer pays you minimum wage of $7.50 per hour. That means he is payng about $0.50 per slide. (Actually I hope he is paying more.)
A cheaper way is to pay a commercial service to do the scans for you. They have better equipment that you can't afford and will work for $0.25 per slide. Just pack everything in a box and ship it out.
Now back to your quality requirements. How good are the slides? Are they studio quality, professionally made or were they shot with a cheap $20 hand held camera? Let's assume a middle ground. You will have to scan the slides at about 3,000 DPI to capture all the detail in an amateur grade slide (maybe 4,000 if the quality is very good) What this means is that the image files will be roughly 3,000 pixels tall by 4,500 pixels wide.
Now your digital projector is going to have some problem. No one makes a projector that can come close to showing a 4,500 x 3,000 pixel image so you will need to down sample the images to at least what a 1080p HD projector can handle. The problem is that the best digital projectors are not equal to the best optical film based projectors. That said, it can still look good but it will take some effort in Photoshop to clean up each slide
