Taking digital photos of my analogue prints

[carmenloofah]

I have to take digital images of my analogue images and I only have a compact digital Nikon Cyber Vision for the job. I am experimenting with lights and zoom on and off and getting nice results with the 4x zoom on, generally greyer and grainer than the greener effect I get when widest angle. I am not editing them after I load them onto my Apple Mac, just cropping. I would be delighted to hear how you handle this job. I am doing it reluctantly. I have a set of lith prints I need to digitalise too for a course application and for web page so any advice appreciated. I am not going to buy any other digital camera but I could work from the negatives if I get access to a scanner for the non lith copies but I have not tried this yet. Thanks

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I've moved this to the "Presentation & Marketing" forum, which is where discussions about getting stuff on the web for the galleries, APUG Portfolios and individual websites seems to happen.

This is pretty much straight copy work. If you're stuck with a P&S camera with a fixed zoom, then generally set the zoom to the middle of the optical zoom range to minimize distortion. I've done it with a Nikon Coolpix 990, recently upgraded to a Canon 40D, mainly so that I could use better lenses and for the extra resolution when digitizing negs and transparencies.

I have a copy stand that I leave set up all the time with two Norman LH-2 portable strobe heads and 16" Octabox-type diffusers carefully angled to produce even light and no reflections. Traditionally the lights should be at a 45-degree angle to the copy surface, but since I have them fairly close in, they are at 30 degrees to the copy surface so the diffusers themselves are not reflected in the surface of prints. I also use a 5000K light pad with the strobes off for digitizing negs and transparencies.

For larger work, I use two LH-2000 heads each in plain 5" reflectors at 45 degrees to the copy surface.

Some people cross polarize. I usually find I don't need to for photographs that are flat. If you photograph work with texture, like oil paintings, you may want to cross polarize.

 

[carmenloofah]

Many thanks for your advice, I will try it out although I don't have any lighting you mention I will experiment. thanks again

 

[Sirius Glass]

If the prints are smaller that 8.5 x 11 you can get a refurbished scanner from Epson for a good price. I paid $100 for a 4490 Photo scanner with free shipping.

Steve

 

[carmenloofah]

thanks, would I get better results from scanning the prints compared to taking digital photos?

 

[keithwms]

thanks, would I get better results from scanning the prints compared to taking digital photos?

Yes... much better, unless the paper is very textured, in which case a scanner can emphasize that.

 

[carmenloofah]

thanks, I will look into scanning costs for lith prints project I have and I also need to have all my negatives scanned

 

[keithwms]

What size are the prints?

 

[carmenloofah]

the lith prints are approx 10 x 8 mounted on museum board

 

[keithwms]

8x10s can fit in an epson 4990 / 750 flatbed...

 

[carmenloofah]

thanks, I work in the darkroom and I do not intend to use photoshop/gimp so scanning the negs would just be for preservation purpose so I may just scan my prints portfolio so I can get on with making my website

 

[Denis R]

canon ...

canon cansocan and some others have negative scan feature

 

[carmenloofah]

thank you!

 

[DanielStone]

8x10s can fit in an epson 4990 / 750 flatbed...

but the prints are mounted, ON 11X14 BOARD? I don't know if the canoscan can take 11x14 boards, loose 8x10 prints for sure, but anything larger/wider, make sure.

-Dan

 

[keithwms]

That's true, 11x14 can't be done by the flatbeds that I am aware of.

 

[Ian Grant]

I shoot digital copies of my prints in the same way as I used to make slide copies for gallery prensentations.

My prints are all Fibre based and just a fraction too large to scan in one on an A4 scanner, and have 2" borders so that doesn't help. The best scans are made from Glossy RC papers, so I prefer to copy using an SLR (film or digital) and a couple of studio flash units set at 45° to the print.

Ian