Trying to salvage wedding photos - HP 3310 anygood?

[Plec]

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

 

[Plec]

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

 

[Plec]

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]

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

 

[Plec]

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