hi, maybe someone can help me. I work for a hospital and they want to transfer kodachrome slides to digital. i want to know if any edition of photoshop can do this.
Nikon, Canon, and Minolta all make good quality film scanners. Even better is having drum scans made. Look for slide feeders (because slide scanning is not fast), dust removal algorithms, durability. If you have need for formats other than 35 mm, you usually have to pay more.
Photoshop does not transfer anything from a negative to a digital file. You need a scanner to digitze the slide.
I use a Nikon Coolscan IV ED for this (and other) film formats. This scanner has had no trouble with Kodachrome, Kodachrome II, or Kodachrome 200. Just don’t try to use ICE on Kodachrome because the residual silver grains show up as defects in the IR channel.
Jim wrote in message
hi, maybe someone can help me. I work for a hospital and they want to
transfer kodachrome slides to digital. i want to know if any edition of photoshop can do this.
Scanning the amount of slides I suspect you have (we have several hospitals on our customer list, so I have an idea of the kind of work you probably need) requires a film/slide scanner.
Wether you want to buy the equipment and take care of scanning yourself or outsource it will require quite a bit of thought (not to mention the budgets that may be involved)
Depending on the quality of the scan that you need, and what you’re going to use it for, think about this. Our local Wal Mart now does slide scans for $1 each. You end up with about a 25MB file, if I recall correctly. Definitely not a drum scan, and I could do a better scan on my Polaroid film scanner, but it might be worth your time to have them do a couple and see if they are good enough for what you need.
Nick, who hates sitting there while the film scanner does its thing…
I might get hit by a barrage from the Kodachrome lovers but I hate scanning Kodachromes. For one thing, Digital ICE dust removal hardware/software is not happy with Kodachrome which usually means loads of extra work with the healing brush cleaning up the dust spots. And I’ve never managed to get good colour with Kodachrome out of the box on my Nikon Coolscan 4000.
I guess I’ve been spoilt in the last few years since I discovered ICE. I use Fuji Velvia almost exclusively for my own stuff and dust spots are non-existent now on my scans. The NikonScan software gives me near-perfect colour without any manipulation with Velvia. Occasionally I get some Kodachromes to scan and it always means extra work. I use a big blower brush without the brush before scanning to blow off dust but it’s impossible to get rid of it all. The colour casts are easy enough to deal with I admit. The idea of scanning a hospital full of Kodachromes certainly wouldn’t have me jumping for joy. It was great stuff in it’s day (before Fuji invented Velvia) though. Nostalgia.
Feb 12, 2004
I’ve scanned a bunch of old Kodachrome 25’s with the Minolta Dimage 5400 using ICE and it removes dust without any problems. Each scan is about 91 MB as a TIFF.
Very nice flower pics ABC. I don’t understand the Kodachrome and ICE thing because I’ve seen many people report the same problems as I’ve seen and others who seem to have no problems.
It depends on: – vintage of Kodachrome (how old) – speed (ISO) – processing (older CR process left more silver in than modern processing. Also, if processing is not in optimal control, more silver left in the film. Silver is death for "ice". – variety of "ice". More properly referred to as Infrared Clean. "ICE" is Advanced Science Fiction’s algorithm, licensed to Nikon/Minolta. Canon uses "FARE", and VueScan uses "IR Clean". Btw, most folks find VueScan’s algorithm to be most effective w/ Kodachrome.
Personally, with my Nikon 2000, ICE is unusable on Kodachrome, Vuescan IR Clean does pretty fair if used on low setting. I have no experience w/ FARE.
Mac
Feb 12, 2004
Thank you, Mick.
Based upon absolutely no information and no experience with any other film scanner, my guess would be that the light source on the Minolta scans the image differently (angle or speed or something) and thus, the difference. ICE definitely works very well with the Minolta and Kodachrome.
Just a guess.
ABC
Feb 12, 2004
Mac, I cannot dispute your post, but my Kodachromes 25’s are over 30 years old, and should therefore be less suited for ICE. But, it works with the Minolta. (I’m not a salesperson for Minolta. I just bought the unit and am floored by the results. I have no basis for comparison with other scanners.)
And yes, as you mentioned, the type of light source may well come into play also. Nikon uses "columnated" light source (LED) which produces bright light but very narrow depth of field (and sharp delineations). I believe your Minolta is a more diffused lighting.
Also also, though, if most of your KRs were souped at the same lab, they may have undergone very strict quality control and have also retained no silver.
Ektachrome (and C-41 neg films) don’t have possibily of retained silver halides as their processes go to completion (unless something was WAY off during the souping).
An interesting mystery. Perhaps Mac is right in relation to different processing labs. I have seen people swear that ICE works on the 4000 with Kodachrome (but definitely not for me).
Do Minolta make any claims for ICE and Kodachrome I wonder? One would imagine it would be a great selling point as there must be millions of Kodachromes out there awaiting scanning. I don’t know if things have changed with the new batch of Nikon scanners but Nikon admit in the LS4000 manual that ICE and Kodachrome may not be satisfactory or words to that effect.
Mick…Kodachrome doesn’t work for me either (Nikon 4000) but I use a workaround that helps a little.
Make duplicate scans, first one without ICE, the second scan with ICE. Copy, paste second scan on top of first scan, add a mask frame and then paint a mask on parts of the image that ICE has damaged the most.
I still have to use healing brush on some spots but it beats spotting the entire image.
Hi pope, another interesting tip thanks. You give me about 1 good tip a week.
I’m just wondering what damage ICE does to the scan. I scanned some Kodachromes a while back with ICE and all I noticed was it had no effect on the dust spots so I never bothered with it again. From what you are saying it seems that it works on certain parts of slides. Can you elaborate a bit or point me towards some further info.
Mick…the worst damage by ICE shows up (for me) in photos of large buildings. The windows go from sharp rectangles to rectangles with rounded corners. I used to shoot a lot in New York from roof tops and helicopters. ICE appears to damage straight lines. It will make a kite string, fish line etc vanish. The TV tower on the Empire State Building has to be masked or it disappears in skyline shots.
I edit images at 100% (for a stock house) and the damage can be severe. The Polaroid filter (used for 4×5 and 8×10 color transparencies) also can degrade images. The images I work on are 20 to 50 years old and were stored and/or shipped under poor conditions. I suspect grain silos, dungeons, chicken farms, oxcarts etc 🙂
Wow! I’m amazed that ICE can do that. I’ve not heard anything like that before. I must dig out some of my old Kodachromes which were stored for about 10 years in a dusty room and have a look.
I’ve just seen the positive side of ICE mainly with Fuji slides. I was a bit suspicious when I first got the 4000 as I’d read stuff about softening of images with the first version of ICE but I can see no significant degradation using the normal setting. The fine setting does soften images and reduces contrast. I wouldn’t wish to go back pre-ICE Age. A must have.
They are a pretty decent way to go, but are getting difficult to find anymore. Also, at 18MB highest rez, they are far surpassed now by prosumer scanners.
Try cleaning your slides with a piece of low tack masking tape.Just press on the tape to both sides and pull off. You can also try Blutak, rolled as a small cylinder. This will pull off any dust. Next do two scans one with Ice and one without. Place them as layers with the ‘Not Ice’ one on top. Make a layer mask and gently erase to expose the clean layer.
Obviously not a method for doing thousand of slides quickly, but very effective.
Two or three years ago they told us "we won’t be slling any more PCD scanning stations, but don’t worry, we’ll keep producing PhotoCDs for a long time to come"
Well a long time was short in coming…
We still scan with our PCD station, but we have to burn the files onto "regular" CDs and those have slight disadvantages over PCD (all built in to the system by Kodak)
My recommendation: avoid PCD, the format is not on its way out, it’s already gone, the files are a pain to work with and as existing scanning stations break down and can’t get fixed (Kodak will still "support" them (meaning charge you an arm and a leg for a tech to come look at it and tell you they can’t have the parts needed to fix it, cause they’re out of stock)) labs will stop offering the service and you’ll need an alternative real soon anyways.
That’s an informative post. Kodak may be justified in abandoning an obsolete digital image format, but since they are now shifting their corporate emphasis from chemical imagery with film and staking their corporate hopes on digital, it doesn’t boost consumer confidence to see them abandon PCD so quickly. I guess all those ex-Kodak employees who were downsized may be a bit disillusioned as well.
Kodak may be justified in abandoning an obsolete digital image format
I have no problem with them abandonning the format (Just thinking about how many times I won’t have to answer the question "You made scans for me and I can’t open them, what’s wrong?" makes me exstatic) and it is a pretty old format (over 10 years) that was never the best thing on earth (just remember the intended application for PCDs and you’ll realize how badly thought out the whole thing was)
My problem is when you have spent somewhere between $250 000 and $500 000 on a PCD scanning station, promoting the product (not to mention justifying why the cost of a CD is like ten times the cost of a regular CD), teaching people how to open up the *&#$% files properly, and spending a fortune in blank PCDs, etc… you expect support for a _long_ time , at the very least having a bit of a notice that the product will be discontinued would be nice, we had about 150 PCDs in stock and only found out they got discontinued when we tried to order some more. (IMHO, this kind of problem is chronic with Kodak and many other suppliers)
thanks for the info. we decided to go with the canon canoscan 9900f image scanner. the optical is 3200. as soon as we receive it i will let you know how it works out with our kodachrome slides.
I have been wondering for some time whether Kodak PhotoCD had become obsolete. I myself liked PCD. I knew something was wrong when I ordered a PhotoCD scan of a roll of film and ended up getting some sort of Fuji consumer thing. Boy, did I have a tangle with the people at Sarber’s, a shop in Solano and Montclair, California. (This store falls far short of its reputation. It sucks!!!!) Anyway…. Can someone suggest an alternative? I think the Kodak PhotoCD scans were excellent, although its support in Photoshop seemed to be waning.
