Scanning and burniing 35MM Slides onto CDs or DVDs

Dave wrote:

 > My mom has about 5000 slides we would like to burn onto CDs or DVDs. She
 > is buying a new computer so what specifications and software does she
 > need for this? We realize we will have to get a specialized scanner for
 > all the slides but we also need to know how many slides will fit on a CD
 > and on a DVD. Any help will be appreciated

Using JPEG compression you could get reasonable scans for computer
viewing at about 500k per picture, or high-quality scans for large
prints at about 3MB per picture. So, expect 200-1300 images on a CD
depending on the quality. Any modern PC will handle this task easily -
get at least 512MB of memory if you expect to also do some image editing.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Scanning and burniing 35MM Slides onto CDs or DVDs 

The file size from a scanned slide varies greatly, depending on the quality
of the original and on how much of the quality you want to retain. For near
maximum quality yuou will want to scan at about 3000 lines per inch, giving
a picture size of about 12 megapixels. This will give an uncompressed file
size of about 36 megabytes. Lossless compression will probably reduce this
to about 25 megabytes, but JPEG compression set for fairly high quality
should reducr this to something like 10 megabytes. That will give you about
70 pictures per CDROM., or 500 per DVD.

If you want to squeeze the last little bit of quality from a slide, you
might want to scan at 5000 lines/inch, save at 6 bytes/pixel, and use no
compression or lossless compression. That will result in something more
like 200 MB per picture, and give 3 pictures per CD or 25 per DVD. It is a
rare slide that has the technical characteristics to warrant that, however,
and even rare to also have good enough subject matter to warrant it. None
of mine ever do

The other extreme would be to scan at 1500-2000 lines per inch and compress
a little more. You could average about 1-2 megabytes per slide that way,
and get maybe 400 pictures per CDROM or 2500 per DVD. The resulting
pictures won't look quite as sharp as the original if printes larger than
about 4x6 inches, but it's a compromise that many of us make, particularly
if we retain the slides as well.

Don


"Dave" <davids1955 RemoveThis @earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:9pWBc.9766$bs4.6564@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net...
 > My mom has about 5000 slides we would like to burn onto CDs or DVDs. She
 > is buying a new computer so what specifications and software does she
 > need for this? We realize we will have to get a specialized scanner for
 > all the slides but we also need to know how many slides will fit on a CD
 > and on a DVD. Any help will be appreciated
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Scanning and burniing 35MM Slides onto CDs or DVDs 

Dave wrote:

 > My mom has about 5000 slides we would like to burn onto CDs or DVDs.
 > She is buying a new computer so what specifications and software does
 > she need for this? We realize we will have to get a specialized
 > scanner for all the slides but we also need to know how many slides
 > will fit on a CD and on a DVD. Any help will be appreciated
 >
How many slides on a CD.
Since a CD will hold about 800 megs you can typically store abour 400
per CD.
This is assuming you go for maximum resolution. Typically people find
it more
useful to store slides by topic. So most CD's will not be fully used.
Before saving to
a CD put the images into a folder and check the size.
DVD's hold a lot more and cost more.

Software
Scanners usually come with software. The scanners with the highest
resolution
most certainly come with the software. Always check the size of the image.
Scanners can make enough pixels to be larger than the screen. This is
usually
not necessary. You may need a graphics editor to re-size images and make
corrections. (Brightness, color etc). I use Paint Shop Pro. But I have
also
used Photo Express by Ulead and have to admit, Photo Express is the
software
that is faster to learn. Ulead and Paint Shop Pro both have a scanner
interface.
Most graphics software have a scanner interface.

PhotoSuite 7 by Roxio is designed to scan images, modify the
images and organize images into albums to save to you CD.

Roxio has Easy Media Creator to make it simple to save things to CD.
One of the features is allowing you to create slidehows (with or without
music)
to store onto a CD. It also includes a program to make CD labels
and sleeves.
There is also Easy DVD Copy by Roxio.


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 >> Stay informed about: Scanning and burniing 35MM Slides onto CDs or DVDs 

Dave (davids1955@earthlink.net) wrote...
 > My mom has about 5000 slides we would like to burn onto CDs or DVDs. She
 > is buying a new computer so what specifications and software does she
 > need for this? We realize we will have to get a specialized scanner for
 > all the slides but we also need to know how many slides will fit on a CD
 > and on a DVD. Any help will be appreciated

As others have said, this is a bit of a "how long is a piece of
string" question.

One thing to beware of, however, is the time commitment. My scanner
takes about 3 minutes to scan a 35mm slide at its highest resolution
of 2820dpi.

If you get one with similar capabilities, you're looking at at least
15,000 minutes to get the job done. In reality, what with changing
slides over, managing files, bring CDs etc, that's going to be more
like 20,000 minutes plus.

So, if you work for 2 hours (120 minute) every evening, your 5,000
slide archive is going to take 20,000/120 = 167 days to scan.

Do you have a solid half-a-year's worth of evenings to devote to this
job?

Ian

--
Ian Riches
Bedford, UK<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Scanning and burniing 35MM Slides onto CDs or DVDs 

Phil Stripling wrote:

 > Dave <davids1955.TakeThisOut@earthlink.net> writes:
 >
 >
  >>SNIP<
  >>all the slides but we also need to know how many slides will fit on a CD
  >>and on a DVD. Any help will be appreciated
 >
 >
 > Hi, Dave,
 >
 > CDs hold about 650 Megs. How many "slides" will fit on one is a function of
 > what size the scanned image files are. You don't have a scanner, so no one
 > can tell you how many files will fit because there's no way to determine
 > the file size you're going to get from each slide. When you're looking for
 > a scanner, ask about what file sizes you'll get from various levels of
 > quality. If your mom wants images for the web, lower quality scans is
 > fine. If she wants to archive the slides to CD (which is probably backwards
 > -- the slides may outlast the CD), then she'll want the best quailty
 > possible.
 >
We want to scan the slides so that we can show them on the TV through a
DVD player (and not have to set up the slide projector and screen).<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Scanning and burniing 35MM Slides onto CDs or DVDs 

Dave <davids1955.DeleteThis@earthlink.net> writes:

 > We want to scan the slides so that we can show them on the TV through a
 > DVD player (and not have to set up the slide projector and screen).

I suspect it's going to be more trouble to scan them to DVD and show them
on TV than it will be to set up the projector and screen. It certainly will
take more time.

Slides are completely random access. If I want to show slides from my trip
to St. Barths in 1996, slides from Burning Man in 2000, and slides from my
trip to Bryce Canyon in 2002, all in one sitting, I just dig them out, drop
them in a tray, and Bob's your uncle. If you want to show scans that are
across several DVDs, how do you locate those particular images, what do you
do if you want to show three of a set of several hundred, and what happens
when you want to show slides that are imaged on 3 or 4 different DVDs?

I've never had this problem, so it may be that others here have an easy
solution, and I'll be convinced to scan all my slides and show them via
DVD. But it seems to me to be more convenient to show slides with a
projector and screen, with much easier editing of what slides will be shown
and in what order.

--
Philip Stripling | email to the replyto address is presumed
Legal Assistance on the Web | spam and read later. email to philip@
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.PhilipStripling.com/" target="_blank">http://www.PhilipStripling.com/</a> | my domain is read daily.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Scanning and burniing 35MM Slides onto CDs or DVDs 

Dave <davids1955.RemoveThis@earthlink.net> wrote in
news:L1gCc.10774$bs4.10745@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net:

 > Phil Stripling wrote:
 >
  >> Dave <davids1955.RemoveThis@earthlink.net> writes:
  >>
  >>
   >>>SNIP<
   >>>all the slides but we also need to know how many slides will fit on a
   >>>CD and on a DVD. Any help will be appreciated
  >>
  >>
  >> Hi, Dave,
  >>
  >> CDs hold about 650 Megs. How many "slides" will fit on one is a
  >> function of what size the scanned image files are. You don't have a
  >> scanner, so no one can tell you how many files will fit because
  >> there's no way to determine the file size you're going to get from
  >> each slide. When you're looking for a scanner, ask about what file
  >> sizes you'll get from various levels of quality. If your mom wants
  >> images for the web, lower quality scans is fine. If she wants to
  >> archive the slides to CD (which is probably backwards -- the slides
  >> may outlast the CD), then she'll want the best quailty possible.
  >>
 > We want to scan the slides so that we can show them on the TV through
 > a DVD player (and not have to set up the slide projector and screen).

  Given that criteria, there are a couple of key factors.

  1) Standard TV resolution is only 640x480. 'True' HDTV is 1920x1080,
though there aren't many of these out there. Plasma TVs are usually a
shortcut, check resolutions. Be aware that you need to gauge your scanning
by the *shortest* linear measurement of the resolution, not the longest.
But generally, all of these aren't much when it comes to slide scanning.
Even if you're aiming for true HDTV res (which will crop the slide top and
bottom, letterbox style) about all you'd need is a scanner capable of 1280
PPI. Avoiding the letterbox look and staying with the standard film aspect
ratio, you can get by with 1000 PPI scans. That's for HDTV. If you don't
care about that, then any one of the flatbed scanners with a decent
film/slide capability will do fine, and move a lot faster than a film
scanner.

  2) At this display size, the images can be saved pretty small. Figure
an average of 3 to 4 megs for HDTV size, and 500k for standard TV size,
saved as jpegs with minimal compression. At half compression, you can cut
these down to 25% of those figures, give or take. Compression should be
done carefully, since jpeg artifacts won't look good. Artifacts generally
show up in gradient areas and at high-contrast edges against a solid color.

  3) So it depends on where you're aiming, but you can potentially fit
a lot onto a CD or DVD. CDs are 700 megs. DVDs are 4.7 gigs, allow a few
megs on each for indexing.

  4) As for the computer capability, it's not too demanding. Enough
harddrive space to hold the raw images before resizing and editing, a
moderate amount of RAM for scanning and editing purposes (editing programs
have a habit of sucking this up), and a *decent* CD or DVD burner - it's
easy to get a bad one, so pick carefully and don't be tempted by package
deals. USB 2 capability, lets you use a faster scanner. Some kind of decent
editing software - Photoshop CS is overkill, but the packages with scanners
are often bubble-gum. Look at Photoshop Elements.

  5) With 5000 slides, expect to spend some time, even with a faster
flatbed scanner. Moreover, expect a learning curve if you haven't handled
scanned images before - getting color right and a good display can be
tricky. You're likely to find, around about scan 300 or so, that you now
know a lot more about what you're doing and your first edits look like
crud. Part of the territory - you'd run into it doing a website too

  6) Given all that, consider outsourcing it. The price may be too
high, hard to say (it varies widely). But they'll have the headaches, not
you, and moreover are geared to do things in batches and more skilled at
color correction and acceptable display resolution.

  Hope this helps. Good luck!


- Al.

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Online photo gallery at <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.wading-in.net" target="_blank">www.wading-in.net</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Scanning and burniing 35MM Slides onto CDs or DVDs 

On Tue, 22 Jun 2004 11:49:28 -0700 (PDT), Dave
<davids1955.DeleteThis@earthlink.net> wrote:

 >My mom has about 5000 slides we would like to burn onto CDs or DVDs. She
 >is buying a new computer so what specifications and software does she
 >need for this? We realize we will have to get a specialized scanner for
 >all the slides but we also need to know how many slides will fit on a CD
 >and on a DVD. Any help will be appreciated

I see you've had quite a few answers. "To me" some make sense and
some don't.

First I'm going to suggest reading "Scanning Slides" at
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.rogerhalstead.com/scanning.htm" target="_blank">http://www.rogerhalstead.com/scanning.htm</a>

Almost everyone (but not quite) has said "It all depends" and it does.
If you want to view them on a TV set the *required* resolution is far
less than being displayed on a computer monitor.

Remember a TV set only has about 525 lines so the resolution is
roughly 525 by maybe 640. My monitor is 1280 X 1024.. That is
comparing 336K pixels against 1,310,000, or 1.3 mega pixels. That
means the resolution required for a TV set is only a quarter of what
is required for my monitor...Unless going for HDTV and I don't know of
any way to record those signals yet.

So, I would expect far less required resolution for the TV set than
for say making an 8 X 10 print.

My experience has been when using JPGs for a full screen shot on the
monitor the files size in on the order of 250 to 300K which is a bit
smaller than some see. TV size images are usually less than 150K as
JPGs with little compression..

Again, IF you are only planning on displaying the images on the TV set
you can easily use JPG files and even inexpensive scanners will do the
job quite quickly.

As 35 mm slides are basically an inch by an inch and a half you only
need a scanning resolution of 640 X 1.5 or 960 dpi. That ain't much.

As has already been mentioned, 5000 slides are a lot of scanning even
at the lower resolutions.

I use a Nikon LS5000 ED with the SF210 bulk feeder. That means I have
as much invested in my copy equipment as many have in their camera set
ups. Compared to the point and shoot it's a lot more and I'm not
counting the soft ware. However, the system will scan a slide roughly
every 20 to 30 seconds. (IF THE SLIDES ARE CLEAN) and if the slides
require no additional manipulation. Adding scratch and dust
elimination (Digital ICE which adds a hardware requirement to the
scanner), or reduction can easily double the scan time. Adding color
correction for faded slides as well as grain elimination which
shouldn't be necessary at the low resolutions can easily take the scan
time past 3 minutes.

In my case I scan at 4000 dpi which gives an uncropped file of 64 megs
at 8 bit color depth and roughly 128 megs at 16 bits. That also takes
a lot of computing horse power. I only use the 8 bit depth as most of
my soft ware doesn't work with 16 bit files. Still, that takes a lot
of computing horsepower. I'm running a 2.8 Gig XP Plus Athlon with
one Gig of RAM. The hard drives on it are 200 and 180 Gig. I back up
over a network to another computer similarly equipped, But my files
are large, but unless you decide to archive the slides and again it's
already been mentioned the life of the slides may be as much as the
DVDs, there is no need for such a high resolution.

Unfortunately it can take a lot of time to do that scanning even with
a bulk feeder. and the DVD or CD isn't nearly as flexible as the
slides themselves. BUT, IF you store the slides in chronological
order as well as in categories, it only takes a minute or two to burn
a CD and you can share CDs without worrying about the slides,
particularly when CDs are now about 25 cents or less each.

Sooo... Even if you do scan at a higher resolution and save as JPGs
it's unlikely you will need more than a meg or two for each image.
That means even at 3 megs you will get nearly 250 images on a CD.
AT 500 K it will be over 1200.

So, good luck

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.rogerhalstead.com" target="_blank">www.rogerhalstead.com</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Scanning and burniing 35MM Slides onto CDs or DVDs 

[Phil Stripling wrote in rec.photo.moderated]
 > Slides are completely random access. If I want to show slides from my trip
 > to St. Barths in 1996, slides from Burning Man in 2000, and slides from my
 > trip to Bryce Canyon in 2002, all in one sitting, I just dig them out, drop
 > them in a tray, and Bob's your uncle.

I've heard more and more people come around to that way of thinking in the
last few months. The DVD possey will answer you and say that you can burn
a new DVD-RW of your slide show and present it in any order you like on the
TV, but this isn't what most people want to do when they want to cuddle up
in the dark and watch slide shows.

I know that's a widely held view too - we ended up launching a slides-from
digital files service on the website because of the volume of people asking
for one. Production starts in a couple of days.

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.fotoserve.com/about/slides.html" target="_blank">http://www.fotoserve.com/about/slides.html</a> (if you're interested)


The cost of a decent projector is the main reason that people are turned
off slides.

--
Regards, Andy Davidson<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Scanning and burniing 35MM Slides onto CDs or DVDs 

Get a Nikon CoolscanV($600) for scanning. Then get Photodex's ProShow Gold($75) to make a great slideshow on DVD. You wont be sorry. I use both and highly recommend them.
 >> Stay informed about: Scanning and burniing 35MM Slides onto CDs or DVDs