Trying to salvage wedding photos - HP 3310 anygood?

Plec · 3 Aug 2006 at 02:09

Hi

Firstly, forgive my ignorance – I have a very limited knowledge when talking about scanners & their effectiveness – even more so when it’s combined with 35mm film. So please bear with me.

First, the sob story – clipped version - got married 10 years ago, wedding photographer turned out to be a complete charlatan (his portfolio turned out to be someone else’s). Result: awful photos – blurred, overexposed & to cap it all he had them developed at Boots, so only 35mm. The only silver lining to any of this is that I made him give us the negatives.

Well, we tucked the photos & the negatives away & have never look at them since, for obvious reasons, as we made an album out of guest’s pics.

However, technology has moved on. I have a copy of Photoshop 6 & a large 'bible type teaching aid' & so I’m thinking of scanning the negatives & trying to get the best results out of the them as an anniversary present.

My questions are

would the HP Photosmart 3310 be suitable for this with its negative scanning ooji-ma-flip?
what resolution does it scan negatives at? Is it the same dpi as if you’re scanning a normal photos (4800)?
Would the resulting scan be of good enough quality for me to manipulate the image properly in photoshop?

It doesn’t seem to quote this info on the web site – or not in a form that I can decipher any way.

I know I could post them off - but I like the idea of doing it all myself & I need a new printer so I’m hoping a good quality ‘all in one’ would do the job.

Any advice would be gratefully received – either regarding the scanner or any tips on trying to reproduce the actual colour of clothing & the surroundings on the day etc (I’m guessing, sampling the wedding dress/bridesmaid dresses colours would be a good starting reference point?!).

Cheers

Plec

Selekt0r · 3 Aug 2006 at 15:43

Firstly, all-in-one devices like the HP 3310 tend to be distinctly 'average' compared with separate best-in-class devices. Whilst most 'desktop' scanners boast resolutions of up to 4800dpi they simply cannot resolve detail at that level, particularly on slides & negatives.

If you're serious about getting the most from the negatives then you would really need to use a dedicated slide/negative scanner like the Nikon Coolscan, which is going to cost several hundred pounds.

To be honest, you'd be better getting the negatives professionally scanned by an outfit with the proper equipment and expertise, particularly as this is a 'one-off' requirement. I've never had to do this, however there are plenty of places offering this type of service. I've just found one (http://www.pixstudio.co.uk/) which looks professional and offers a free trial scan of 3 negatives to evaluate their service. I guess you would probably not send the wedding ones at this stage, but you could send some other negatives to try them out. 'Pro' scans (at 4000dpi) with basic dust & scratch removal comes in at around £2.25 per negative.

Whoever you use, just make sure you ask them what kit they will be using to perform the scanning - I found a few places online which offer 4800x9600dpi scanning for 20p per negative, but when you dig around on their website they are using an Epson Perfection 4990 scanner. This is a pretty good flatbed scanner - certainly better than the HP 3310, but it's still not going to give comparable results to a dedicated slide/negative scanner.

As far as the colour correction / sharpening / re-touching is concerned, I'm sure there will be plenty of advice here on the forum if you need any help.

Good luck!

Plec · 4 Aug 2006 at 14:51

Thanks for the detailed reply Selekt0r, much appreciated.

I'll take your advice & look into some of the online services as it clearly seems to be the better & cheaper option - even @ £2.25 per photo.

When i get them converted to a digital format, i'll come back for some much needed guidance on photoshop manipulation.

Thanks again

Plec

Mohain · 4 Aug 2006 at 15:34

If you've got terrible photos the chances are you've got terrible negs. The fact that it's on 35mm is neither here nor there, the best wedding photog I know (by a long shot) shoots almost exclusively on 35mm.

I think you are probably on a hiding to nothing if you think you can rescue them by scanning and Photoshopping them yourself. If you want to see if you can get some decent prints it's probably best to take the negs to a pro lab and ask them to try a test hand-print from a chosen neg. Show them what you've got tell them what you want. The best you can probably hope for is a better colour balance, contrast and some dodging and burning to help with highlights and shadows but you're not going to be able to sort very overexposed negs or sharpen blurred prints.

As for scanners, as Skeletor said, it's best to get a dedicated film scanner if you want serious quality film scans. Flat bed refelctive scanners, with film holders, are generally crap for scanning film.

(As a note I think 35mm film is [very roughly] equiv. to 3500dpi).

Plec · 4 Aug 2006 at 16:21

Mohain said:
If you've got terrible photos the chances are you've got terrible negs. The fact that it's on 35mm is neither here nor there, the best wedding photog I know (by a long shot) shoots almost exclusively on 35mm.

Agreed, i was stressing more the fact that he didn't develop them himself, perhaps this didn't come across very well. Either way - the end result was not good.

I'm concerned that I may have over exaggerated the severity of the problem – although this may make little difference to your original theory. Not all the photos are blurred & the ones that are are only just out of focus. However, all the photos are overexposed, without exception, but I can get hold of colour samples from original fabrics etc if this helps?

As both of you have advised it, I think I will get the negatives professionally transferred to a digital format as this clearly seems the only valid option for decent results (i'll ask for samples first). I will then start reading these 1000 page epics that are sitting next to me & hopefully I’ll be able to make some improvements.

Plec

Plec · 4 Aug 2006 at 16:54

Fuji have recommended a place called Colabs to get the negatives scanned.

Would a 40mb image be overkill or would a 16mb image be sufficient to work on & get the desired results?

Plec

Mohain · 4 Aug 2006 at 17:17

16mb would probably be ok unless you want them blown up big.

Why are you getting scans done? Might be best to get prints straight from the negs (unless you specificllay want high-res scans for archiving).

Plec · 4 Aug 2006 at 17:30

Thanks again for the reply Mohain

I'm opting for scans as i want to be able to manipulate the image in photoshop plus the problems i've mentioned are evident on the negatives so I would be reproducing the same problems even if their printing services are better. (they may have editing facilities but i would like a bash myself first.)

I am no wizard when using photoshop but i'm impressed with some of the results I’ve seen with similar photos in experienced hands so I’m hoping that once I’ve had the negs scanned into a digital format I might be able to repair at least some of the damage. There are some photos in particular that will benefit from some photoshop jiggery-pokery.

I'm under no illusions; it'll be a painstaking task to try & repair 40 varyingly poor photos, and maybe for no reward, but I figure it's worth a shot. I don't mind reading a few books & watching tutorials - at least I’ll get to learn a new skill.

Plec

Plec