The Epson Perfection V600 scanner looks interesting even if it is USB 2.0 output. The scanner specs are pretty nice, Digital ICE is very worthwhile ( I have a similar ICE on my CoolScan ) and the price is very reasonable. I am sure VueScan supports as well...
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Photographic History Preservation
I've still got about thirty 100mb Zip Drives in a box somewhere. They'll be with the VHS tapes, Vinyl and Audio Cassettes - probably.
I have the loaned Epson 550 in my possession 😎 what a boat-anchor! There will be time today to fire it up and have a look at what the native software will do on a few sample images I have here. There may still be the possibility of having two scanners available on this task, still working on that.
Update...
* My wife's work laptop will have a licensed copy of VueScan installed in the next day or two. I'll play with that - and the settings - and see how it compares. I may break down and purchase a license for home use as well.
* Latest version of Epson Scan seems to do okay. Minimal cleanup (since the 550 doesn't support the Digital ICE) on a couple more images I have here, just working thru what the workflow might be.
* My BIL estimates 300 images. Less than a handful are larger than 'snapshot' size. We may not get them all done, but there's also some clippings from when he had his 15 minutes of fame, back in the 1960's. Three days; should be able to do it.
* My last test is to attach the 550 to my laptop. It's not the fastest machine out there, but hope good enough to handle this scanning job - scheduled to happen in three weeks.
In addition to photographs, are other printed or hand written documents - hand written letters, drawings, programs guides, etc from our childhood, or from our relatives childhoods.
I just found a letter my father wrote me in December 25, 1950 to explain why Santa was no longer going to be bringing me Christmas gifts - Santa had to save his time and effort for the younger children of the world - so my parents were going to take over this task for Christmas. My mother had saved this document all her life for me, apparently.
Scanned very nicely and quickly on my V700 Epson scanner in VueScan. I created a special folder on my external hard drive and VueScan saves the file directly there. The original document paper is degrading with time, but the digital file should store more securely.
I have been using VueScan for almost 15 years on many different computers. Hamrick.com has provided a real service to scan users.
Another update:
* My wife's employer did NOT have a VueScan license (grumble, grumble..), so I played around for a couple of hours with the demo version. Procurement is imminent.
* I've got a small pile of unrelated photos here that I've been using to establish a workflow. I bounced across this two-part description of this author's workflow. Yes, it's a decade old, but it doesn't seem to be too terribly different than one might use today. I'm finding some of the technical detail toward the end of the first part to be rather useful from the 'why would you do that?' perspective.
* We've got a family member that does wedding photography as a side gig. So, one might think that she'll have some tips and tricks to pass along when it comes to LR as well.
A brief epilogue to this story...
As I suspected, several hours of reminiscing about the photos on day one. Since my brother-in-law is a dozen years older than my wife, there were plenty of things he knew that my wife didn't. Yet, there were stories of things told to my wife that my BIL didn't know about.
About 300 images were scanned, I think. The tag-team process worked very well. Image resolution was adjusted as we went. I spot-checked as we went along, but real image manipulation on 14" laptop screens (when used to doing stuff like this on 27" dual monitors) just wasn't going to happen there.
One of their uncles had also shot some old slides back in the early 1970's; I'd never seen them this small. I did scan a few of these. I had a single uncle (on mom's side of the family) that shot slide film back in the 60's and 70's. It took a bit of effort to figure out how to scan them, but trial and error worked.
I think there's about a dozen images that will really be worth the restoration efforts - once I get a better understanding of Lightroom.
In the next week or so, I'll post up a couple of them to share the results.
I share your aversion to image editing on 13 or 14 inch laptop screens. Maybe its our age, or something but a 27 or 31 in 4k or 5K monitor is just so much easier and more satisfying to work on.
I've not yet started the process, but even with next-to-nothing accomplished during the scan for cleanup, not too bad:
Grandparent's house c. 1940's - Hammond Rd., Glen Cove, NY
My wife's uncles c. 1914 - location unknown
My wife's paternal grandmother c. 1915 - location unknown. The oval shape was original to the photo. The backdrop was remarkable (auto parts?)
Unknown individual 1971 Florida. The grandparents were some of the original 'snowbirds' of that era, but they stayed with a son that lived there. Obviously, this one has yet to be cleaned up.
I never met any of these in-laws of mine...but got a glimpse of their lives thru these images and the stories told by my wife and her brother.
These images seem small when I click on them - did you choose to upload only small file sizes here on Cake, and have larger ones for your own use? I think you would want bigger image sizes than I see here.
I like the 2nd and 3rd image - with just a bit of curves to created a bit more contrast they might really snap. The few damaged areas look like they would be easy to restore too.
Oval framing was common in the late 19th and early 20th century. I have some images in that format as well.
Pretty darn cool! Bravo!
These images seem small when I click on them - did you choose to upload only small file sizes here on Cake, and have larger ones for your own use?
Yes...actually linked from Flickr
Yes...actually linked from Flickr
Where's my beers??????
