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What I did on my Summer Vacation

Started by PhotoBob, September 02, 2015, 11:07:01 AM

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PhotoBob

I've been fairly absent from the forums this year. I even missed my own birthday party!  :'(  There hasn't been much going on, and I've been busy with a special project:

Last fall the husband of a dear friend of my family's passed away. This lady reminds me a lot of my mother, just a heart of gold! She contacted me early last December to ask if anything could be done with the slides they have. They want to be able to share them and view them in a simpler way than dragging out all the equipment for viewing. I've done this sort of work for years so I said sure no problem.

Then I asked how many she had...  "Well, I have about 24 carousels and there's 140 in each carousel" Oh my, that's 2,800 slides.  It's basically their family photo history from the birth of their children in the early 60s until – well I haven't gotten there yet.  I let her know what a HUGE task this was going to be and started digging into some of the slides.  So far 80% have been Kodachrome and 95% have been dirty. Little black specks, some worse than others. I've done some research and most people say its mold. Kodak on the other hand says it debris from the cardboard mounts breaking down. It won't blow off or brush off. The only way to remove it is a wet process, and Kodak advises doing a high res scan first in case you ruin the original wet cleaning!  Here's my solution:

This justifies buying a great scanner, the Epson V850 Pro – and upgrade the version of Silverfast that came with it to the Studio AI 8.5. This combo dose a great job of finding those little specks and eliminating them (85% of the time – nothing is perfect.) You know, I can't stand DSLR sensor dust bunnies and all of these specks were making me bonkers! I am not dismounting all those slides, wet cleaning, then remounting in plastic mounts and rescanning. (Life is too short)

After scanning, I open the files in camera raw, in Lightroom. When correcting the images I use the original as a guide, then do what I can to improve the image. I have already shocked them at what can be pulled out of a slide that has almost faded to nothing. Fortunately there have only been a few that required "restoration", so I've been doing those as they come. Mostly it's battling over and under exposure. A lot of the indoor shots were done with flash bulbs – really makes me appreciate the control we have now!

After all the images in the carousel are polished I put them into a slide show for them. Fortunately I don't have to pick out music, she said she would hum along to the slide show!

I'm not going to get wealthy from this project, but it's one of those that needs to be done. I just finished carousel #9 and I need a break from slides.  I am ready to jump back into full OPR restoration mode. Fire up the Muck Machines and let's go!!!  :up:

Bob
PhotoBob
"Every cat should come with his own instruction manual."  -- BP Collin

Pat

Wow, just thinking about doing all that makes my head spin :wow: Bob.  You're a saint!

Pat
Pat

"Take a deep breath and think of the three things you are grateful for, right in this moment."  -MJ Ryan Author

Hannie

Good grief Bob, just reading all that you have to do makes me tired! 
You are in need of a well deserved break and do an OPR restore.     ;)

Hannie
Hannie Scheltema
Distribution Coordinator
[email protected]

lurch

I just converted 4000 slides! Took me two years. Most were Ektachrome, therefore badly degraded.
<C>

Tori803

You folks are gluttons for punishment! I found a couple dozen (as in 24) old slides of my own and did them and felt that was quite enough of that!
Tori
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence." -Calvin Coolidge

PhotoBob

Carousel #1 started with a very pregnant lady and her young husband. By slide #12 there was a new baby in the family and joy all around. By carousel #3 there was another baby, and baby #1 wasn't sure what to make of this new development. Birthdays, Christmases, cousins, vacations, little league, more Birthdays & Christmases, Aunts and Uncles, and before you know it high school graduations. Then in carousel #9 baby #1 goes off to collage and comes back with a full beard!  I'm not even half way through the carousels and the baby already has a beard! I can't wait to see what happens next.

The kind lady I'm doing this for knows I'll be taking a break for OPR, and that's no problem with her.
Lurch, I'm probably going to hit the two year mark with this job also. To do it right takes time.

Bob
PhotoBob
"Every cat should come with his own instruction manual."  -- BP Collin

Mike S.

PhotoBob,

You are definitely making the world a happier place.  Be careful what you ask for, especially about the Mucking Machines.  (They are out in full force).
Mike
Mike S.

MikeG

Excellent choice on the scanner. I have a V700 and scanned over 30 years of slides. I used a anti-stat film cleaner and it worked fine on those slides and negatives that were really dirty without any damage to them.

For slide shows I use ProShow Producer from Photodex. Excellent product and if you need help when you call their tech support you get a real live person at their headquarters in Austin TX.  I have the full suite of products from Adobe, but for shows I think ProShow Producer is the best.

PhotoBob

Mike - It's a shame Nikon stopped making their film scanners. They can be had on e-bay for a hefty price (and probably no guarantees) I also understand that you have to set up a Win XP system to run the software.  Sounds like a hand full of problems.

The Epson is doing a great job - especially for a flatbed!  At work we had a Kodak HR-500 film scanner with Ice built in. When we bought it new it was somewhere around $45,000.  :wow: It would scan a whole roll of 35mm, unattended. Of course if the moon was full, or the tide was rising, or it was a RUSH job - forget it! But, that scanner did a wonderful job on slides and Digital Ice worked better on that machine than any other I've seen.

I also use Producer. Another great program. Many moons ago we needed a piece of software to allow us to make contact sheets of our digital files (this was really back in the dark ages). We found this little company called Photodex in Texas that had only one product. It's called CompuPic. It did what we needed and a lot more. It stopped working after Win XP, but if you have an old system, Photodex still sells it. It has an eyeball in the upper right corner that follows the mouse pointer around the screen - cool! (I'm easily entertained)

Bob
PhotoBob
"Every cat should come with his own instruction manual."  -- BP Collin