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- Newsgroups: soc.roots
- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!src.honeywell.com!mail-enters-news
- From: stauffer@src.honeywell.com (Don Stauffer)
- Subject: Re: SCANNING PHOTOGRAPHS
- To: soc.roots
- Message-ID: <9301211457.AA00423@spot.src.honeywell.com>
- Posted-Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 08: 57:53 CST
- Sender: postmaster@src.honeywell.com "originally from: spot.src.honeywell.com "
- Organization: mailEnteringNews at Honeywell SRC
- Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 14:57:53 GMT
- Received-Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 08: 57:54 CST
- Lines: 31
-
- Clarridge@ns asked a number of questions about scanners. Since the
- posting was of some length, I'll just post my answers, hoping anyone interested
- in the subject remembers the questions.
- 1) You are correct in wanting to scan the largest print available. Unlike
- video, the scanners have a resolution per INCH. Thus, the more inches
- scanned, the more data in the file and the better the resolution.
-
- 2) I have found only minor differences in what software I use to scan the
- image, but MAJOR differences in what I do after initial scanning, particularly
- printing. Each program seems to use its own printer driver, and this makes
- big differences in print quality.
-
- 3) File sizes are large. Many image processing programs include compression,
- although I have not tried to do much with them. I expect to end up with many
- floppies. I store on 3.5 inch, as it looks to me like they may protect the
- actual media a bit better.
-
- 4) although there are many graphics file standards, there are two main ones
- in use now for your purposes; GIF and TIF. I started saving in GIF, but have
- switched now to TIFF (or TIF in msdos world). GIF is the most popular format
- for TRANSFERRING images, but for processing them, more of the software seems
- to handle TIFF among their options. I seem to have better results also on
- some software with TIF.
-
- I am also creating a database for all my scanned images, classifying them
- by person, date, etc., and the disk the picture is stored on. My rationale
- for scanning old photos is, that while magnetic files may not last as long
- as archival washed B&W photos, I can make many generations of copies with
- virtually no loss in quality. I will set up a refresh cycle of about every
- seven years for the magnetically stored images. Be nice when someday I can
- get a read-write laser disk!
-