Kodachrome scans and acceptance

[Bill Kuta]

Chuck, after cleaning the slide, do you put it back in the mount and use the slide holder, or leave it unmounted and use the negative holder?

[Chuck Nacke]

Bill,

 

The CanoScan is a desktop scanner and I never scan a mounted chrome.

I do the best that I can to make sure the emulsion is clean and flat and then

scan the "unmounted" chrome.  You also get more image area without the

mount....

[Bill Kuta]

You're using the Canoscan FS-4000? I have one and used it many times 15-20 years ago. So you put the unmounted slide in the film/negative holder?

 

 

Edited April 28, 2019 by Bill Kuta

[Martin Williams]

Thanks Chuck. I appreciate your advice. The subjects of my Kodachrome stash is quite different, being aircraft/aviation related. The images could appeal to publishers in this field (my view). I just had my first small, tester, batch accepted. I have submitted them un-sharpened as per the Alamy general instructions. Is that true for archival stuff?

 

Martin

[spacecadet]

2 hours ago, Martin Williams said:

Thanks Chuck. I appreciate your advice. The subjects of my Kodachrome stash is quite different, being aircraft/aviation related. The images could appeal to publishers in this field (my view). I just had my first small, tester, batch accepted. I have submitted them un-sharpened as per the Alamy general instructions. Is that true for archival stuff?

 

Martin

Archival bypasses QC so you can please yourself, but I just use the default raw sharpening from LR.

Chuck's process is for normal QC so you don't have to be so exacting, but obviously you should do a reasonable job subject to your own standards. I've never had to do a huge amount of spotting, so I must have got my storage right 30 years ago, and I've certainly never demounted or liquid cleaned. Just out of the file, a rocket blower and a wipe of the anti-static brush both sides, then back in the file.

[Harry Harrison]

4 hours ago, Martin Williams said:

I have submitted them un-sharpened as per the Alamy general instructions

I think also that it will depend upon your scanner and your scanner software and whether you have dialled in any sharpening there, if there is any control over sharpening at that stage (there usually is). You don't want it to look sharpened but then you don't want it to look soft either. On the other hand if your first batch was accepted you've probably got it about right.

[Chuck Nacke]

As Per Scanning Unmounted Slides.

 

You get more image area from scanning an unmounted 35mm chrome.  The

mount covers a small amount of the frame.  Real simple.

 

The CanoScan FS4000 was a really great desktop 35mm scanner and I keep

an old LENOVO laptop with a PCMCIA slot just to use it.  For anyone using the

FS4000, Do Not Use it with a USB connection.  I have an old ADAPTEC 16bit

PCMCIA card that I connect it with.

 

My first submissions to Alamy as well as a few other agencies was in the days

before Alamy had the Archival upload route, so I spent a lot of time spotting

Scans and they are licensed often.

 

It is like uploading News, Most often it is not in my best interests or Alamy's

for that matter to upload poorly processed images.  I'm not perfect, but I do

my best.  It is not uncommon for me to spend over 20 hours preparing a

scan.

 

Chuck

[Martin Williams]

Hmmm .... I have an additional question. I have uploaded a few scanned images and these have passed QC. Excellent! I want to now add these to my Portfolio but they do not show as available to add. Am I missing something, or are archival images not allowed within your portfolio? As always, I'd value the collective's guidance. Thank you.

 

Martin

Edited May 3, 2019 by Martin Williams

[Martin Williams]

3 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Archival bypasses QC so you can please yourself, but I just use the default raw sharpening from LR.

Chuck's process is for normal QC so you don't have to be so exacting, but obviously you should do a reasonable job subject to your own standards. I've never had to do a huge amount of spotting, so I must have got my storage right 30 years ago, and I've certainly never demounted or liquid cleaned. Just out of the file, a rocket blower and a wipe of the anti-static brush both sides, then back in the file.

 

Thanks, mate. I will have to start sharpening them!

[David Olsen]

Wess makes a full frame slide mount which is what I use when scanning with a Nikon Coolscan 4000.

[Martin Williams]

8 hours ago, Martin Williams said:

Hmmm .... I have an additional question. I have uploaded a few scanned images and these have passed QC. Excellent! I want to now add these to my Portfolio but they do not show as available to add. Am I missing something, or are archival images not allowed within your portfolio? As always, I'd value the collective's guidance. Thank you.

 

Martin

 

They finally appeared on my portfolio :). I guess the process takes time.

[spacecadet]

50 minutes ago, Martin Williams said:

 

They finally appeared on my portfolio :). I guess the process takes time.

Those few are looking a bit underexposed on my monitor. I have an import preset curve in LR that makes scans "pop" a bit. Just a thought.

If they look reasonable at 100% I wouldn't add any sharpening beyond default. IMO it's a false premise to try to make it look as "sharp" as digital- scanned film just looks different.

Edited May 4, 2019 by spacecadet

[wiskerke]

7 hours ago, spacecadet said:

Those few are looking a bit underexposed on my monitor. I have an import preset curve in LR that makes scans "pop" a bit. Just a thought.

If they look reasonable at 100% I wouldn't add any sharpening beyond default. IMO it's a false premise to try to make it look as "sharp" as digital- scanned film just looks different.

+1

Once more into the bleach.

Like: https://www.dropbox.com/s/b2eiddn4pc9fl7s/testT731N7.jpg?dl=0

 

wim

 

notes:

once more - wiki

youtube

[MDM]

Yes I agree with win and spacecadet - those shots are way too dark. It's not really possible to say if the original slides were underexposed or the scans are too dark. If the latter then you might want to adjust your scanner settings. You might have your monitor way too bright as well if they look right to you. The simplest way to check is to use the histogram in Lightroom or Photoshop whether or not your monitor is calibrated. These pics should have a full tonal range which is easy to see using the histogram.

 

Given that you are bypassing QC, I would think that you should not sharpen them at all as that is best left to end user. 

[Chuck Nacke]

Just to give an idea,

 

As of this morning, 5/5/19 I have returns from images spanning 31 years. some done with a

D800 and some done on K-14 and scanned with a CanoScan FS4000.  Some uploaded to Live News

some uploaded to Archival and some uploaded through the standard Stock route.

 

Do not understand the complaints about going through QC?  Some of the above images go back

to the days of mailing a CD to London.  Many of the scans were done before I was working on a

calibrated monitor connected to a desktop, IE my old LENOVO T-62 laptop.

 

Chuck

[spacecadet]

3 hours ago, Chuck Nacke said:

 

 

As of this morning, 5/5/19 I have returns from images spanning 31 years.

Same sort of experience here, with a couple the other day from 1979 (I've just realised how many years ago that was). Nearly a third of this year's sales by volume from less than 2% of my port.

And yes, OP, one aeroplane so far, out of about 6 I have on Alamy, but it's one of only 3 of the type in flight. Sometimes you just have to wait for an image to turn into archive.

I wish I'd taken more b/w at college.

Edited May 5, 2019 by spacecadet

[Bill Brooks]

On 04/05/2019 at 01:12, David Olsen said:

Wess makes a full frame slide mount which is what I use when scanning with a Nikon Coolscan 4000.

 

Thats the mount I used with my Nikonscan 8000 and later when using a Canon DSLR as a copy camera.

 

Not only did the Wess mount show the entire image area, but it held the film the flattest of any other mount I tested.

 

For optimum sharpness in the scan I turned off the Nikonscan dust and scratch removal function in software. Get out the pec 12 cleaning fluid and your clone tool.

 

Kodak coated very old iso 10 Kodachrome with a shellac that becomes sticky (embeds dust) and yellow with age. You need to remove the shellac with the pec 12 cleaner before scanning.

[spacecadet]

On 03/05/2019 at 19:25, spacecadet said:

Archival bypasses QC so you can please yourself, but I just use the default raw sharpening from LR.

Chuck's process is for normal QC so you don't have to be so exacting, but obviously you should do a reasonable job subject to your own standards. I've never had to do a huge amount of spotting, so I must have got my storage right 30 years ago, and I've certainly never demounted or liquid cleaned. Just out of the file, a rocket blower and a wipe of the anti-static brush both sides, then back in the file.

I should clarify that I'm copying on an Illumitran, not flatbed scanning, so I have the luxury of not having to demount.

I bought the Illumitran to do the job -it wouldn't have happened otherwise, to 6000 images. I mention it just to outline my alternative to scanning.

Edited May 5, 2019 by spacecadet

[giphotostock]

On 03/05/2019 at 09:03, Martin Williams said:

The images could appeal to publishers in this field (my view).

 

If I were you, before spending a lot of time on scanning, I'd verify that your assumption holds. Do publishers indeed use images like yours? And if they do, how often they get used? Who supplies them and how large is the supply relative to the demand?

 

A bit of market research can go a long way. If the answer is "not worth it", it can save you a lot of time and frustration.

 

GI

[spacecadet]

18 hours ago, giphotostock said:

 

If I were you, before spending a lot of time on scanning, I'd verify that your assumption holds. Do publishers indeed use images like yours? And if they do, how often they get used? Who supplies them and how large is the supply relative to the demand?

 

A bit of market research can go a long way. If the answer is "not worth it", it can save you a lot of time and frustration.

 

GI

Sales of aviation subjects are reported here, and IIRC there are one or two specialists. On the face of it OP's images do sound more suitable for a specialist library, but Alamy's reach is very wide, and known to be, so I suspect specialist sources would know they could come here for shortage subjects.

BTW, OP, your latest images look much better, but you have a couple of duplicates. Easily done.

Edited May 7, 2019 by spacecadet

[Robert M Estall]

Kodachomes were a very specific problem. My Nikon 9000 had a special setting for scanning Kodachromes, i don't know if your scanner has that facility, but worth checking. 

 

The problem was a shadow just a bit out from some details. It was an extra fringe often around foliage. Once you have found one it's fairly easy to spot them. If your scanning software won't deal with the problem, you can set the stamp tool to something fairly fine and patiently tidy the fringe out

 

If you are allowed "archival" uploading you may get the images accepted, but the fringing will still be there and the end client will have to deal with it. Or if the use is fairly small, they may think it's not really a problem.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Robert M Estall
typo

[DickJ]

On ‎24‎/‎04‎/‎2019 at 14:34, Martin Williams said:

 

Was that via the archival route, @DickJ?

No, I don't believe that it existed then.