Scanning Negatives and Slides: Digitizing Your Photographic Archives
by Sascha Steinhoff
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Book Summary Information
Author: Sascha SteinhoffEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-02-09
ISBN: 1933952016
Number of pages: 249
Publisher: Rocky Nook
Book Reviews of Scanning Negatives and Slides: Digitizing Your Photographic Archives
Book Review: The Best Book on Film Scanning Presently Available
Summary: 4 Stars
Having read both the first and second editions of this book, I highly recommend it to those who are new to film scanning or wish to broaden or refresh their knowledge about film scanning. Film scanning at this point seems to be a bit of a dying art, as reflected in this book, and the other books on this subject, with one exception (see below), are all dated and mostly too superficial. This book will help someone new to film scanning make more informed choices amongst the (few) hardware and software choices out there. It will also help the reader to understand the issues that crop up in film scanning and the pros and cons of the various solutions out there. Basic workflow suggestions are also provided, although I think there could be more depth of treatment in that area. The only real alternative to this book for someone who wants to gain some introductory knowledge about this subject is the much less efficient one of trying to piece together information by searching the web. That said, if you want to dig in further, I also highly recommend the excellent "Real World Scanning and Halftones" 3rd Ed. published by Peachpit Press, which goes into more depth and is broader in its coverage. I do have some issues to raise. First, this book focuses on film and slide scanners almost entirely. Issues concerning flatbed scanners (except the relatively inferiority of flatbed scans compared to dedicated film scanners) get short shrift here. Second, the book is about scanning film (negatives, positives and slides). There is really nothing here about scanning reflective material such as prints. I don't see that as a drawback -- the focus is on scanning film. Third, the book tends to be a little Nikon-centric. That is somewhat explainable with respect to hardware because everyone else has pretty much left the dedicated consumer grade film scanner market, leaving Nikon with a virtual market monopoly (and there are unsubstantiated rumors that Nikon will also be leaving this market). The book does try, if not with total success, to give objective treatment to the software alternatives to Nikon Scan. Fourth, the book uses the term "RAW" somewhat inaccurately. Scanners apparently do not produce RAW files like digital cameras can. What they produce is a kind of TIFF, which already has certain parameters baked in, unlike true RAW. Yet much of the discussion of the pros and cons of scanning software is framed in terms of the ability of the software to produce RAW files. Files output from film scanners can be readily optimized in conventional photo editing software. Thus, this book leaves one a little confused about whether to spend money on additional software or just stay with the image editing programs that they already own. Fifth, while I very much enjoyed reading this book, there are some obvious editorial gaffes which are a little hard to excuse for a book at this price. I've noticed this in other Rocky Nook publications I have read. They need to do a better job of proofreading, but I can't say that it detracts substantially from the overall reading experience. All that said, for someone who is looking for a good introduction to this area, or simply wants to know a little more, this book will clearly fit the bill.
Summary of Scanning Negatives and Slides: Digitizing Your Photographic Archives
A large number of contemporary photographers have either moved into digital photography exclusively or use both analog and digital media in their work. In either case, there is most likely an archive of slides and negatives which cannot be directly integrated into the new digital workflow, nor can it be archived in a digital format. More and more, photographers are trying to bridge this gap using high-performance film scanners.How to achieve the best possible digital image from a negative or slide, and how to build a workflow to make this process efficient, repeatable, and reliable, is the subject of this book. The author uses Nikon's filmscanners throughout, but all steps can easily be followed using a different scanner. The most common software tools for scanning (SilverFast, VueScan, NikonScan) are not only covered extensively in the book, but are also provided on a CD along with other useful tools for image editing, as well as numerous sample scans.
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