hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr4244.txt

Episode: 4244
Title: HPR4244: Two methods of digitizing photos.
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4244/hpr4244.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 21:57:04

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 4244 for Thursday the 7th of November 2024.
Today's show is entitled Two Methods of Digitizing Photos.
It is hosted by Henrik Hemrin and is about 8 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is a brief discussion about two methods of digitizing analog photos.
Welcome to Hacker Public Radio.
My name is Henrik Hemrin and I'm your host today.
Today I will talk about digitizing analog photos.
I will talk about two methods.
I will not give the answer which met through this best, but I hope it gives you some thoughts
on how you can do.
I'm also eager to hear any experience you have or any thoughts.
I have analog photos stored as prints, as negatives and as positive slides.
They are in black and white and they are in colors.
They are in various sizes.
Only my positive slides are in all in one size, 24 x 36 mm.
Some prints are glued on a paper sheet or in a book and are not easy to detach.
I have digitized photos now and then for managers, mostly on a project basis when I need photos
for a specific purpose.
In my dreams I want to digitize in a structured way in the days to come.
In one way, it's good I haven't done that yet because the hardware and software is so
much better now than a decade or two ago.
I have primarily used flat bed scanners for this.
More recently I have added a dedicated film scanner for 24 x 36 mm to my equipment.
I have scanners from different manufacturers.
Each scanner is delivered with software.
Each software is generally good, but it is a problem to manage several software.
I wanted to simplify my software learning, so I wanted one software for all my existing
and any future scanner.
Secondly, I intended to migrate to a Linux operating system which I have done now.
Those two requirements led me to switch over to View Scan Software.
I had tested View Scan before and also gotten recommendations from photographic friends.
View Scan is a proprietary software made by a small family-run company.
It's available for Linux, Windows and Mac OS.
View Scan supports very many hardware scanners.
I do not know about any better software for Linux and it's maybe also the best choice
for any operating system, so I do not regret my switch to View Scan.
A second method to digitize photos is reproduction with a camera.
That is to use a camera to shoot a photo of the photo.
The concept is old.
I remember from the old analog days that a special positive slide film existed that was
optimized to duplicate positive slides with a camera.
Since the days when I started to use scanners, the evolution of digital cameras has gone
way forward and reproduction duplication method is indeed an alternative to scanners in quality.
Some say it is a superior technology.
I do not know.
But as I'm coming from the scanning technology and starting to explore the repro technology,
I will give my early thoughts from that perspective.
My initial plan has been to use repro technology for prints that are glued into all bumps and
therefore difficult to manage in the scanner.
It is also an excellent method to digitize other papers in book format.
But I have not really started to do that.
However, a while ago I started to look into 6x9 centimeters negatives.
My scanner can just manage 6x9.
But I do not have a fixture for 6x9.
So it's both somewhat tricky to position the negative as well as to keep it flat in
the scanner.
A thin plexiglass plate should be possible to use to keep it flat.
But even without plexiglass, I have tested 6x9 in the scanner and I get well-acceptable
result.
Anyway, I started to try out the repro method on 6x9.
I am not coming so far in my trials that I can decide which method is best for me.
My camera is a modest digital camera compared to the state of the art.
My flatbed beds should give a better or comparable resolution than my modest digital camera
will give.
The fixture I have for repro do not keep the negative fully flat because 6x9 is a rather
big size.
So I plan to explore if I can improve quality with the plexiglass plate above the negative.
An issue with the repro method is to keep all angles in control to mount the camera in
exactly correct angle in relation to the object.
Focus can be another issue.
I consider it is better to use the manual focus rather than auto focus.
When I take repro photos, I have the camera connected to a laptop and I use the entangle
software to control the camera settings from the laptop.
I can use the camera live view to position the object as well as to focus.
I then use raw therapy software to convert the negative photo from the camera to a normal
photo.
Raw therapy comes with pre-installed profiles for this process.
The default profile values can be adjusted and also stored as a new personal profile.
A major advantage of the repro method compared to the scanner method is the speed.
Once all is configured in set, I mean it takes 100 of a second or so to do the digitizing
itself with the camera while it can take minutes with the scanner.
I use DigiCam as my photo catalog software.
For me, this is an ongoing investigation.
For time being, I will likely use scanners as my first to go option and repro photos for
the other objects not suitable for my scanner.
This may change later when I have better experience or eventually better equipment.
All software I currently use with the exception of use scan of free and open source, I use
them all on Linux operating system, some of them are available on other platforms as well.
I will include links to their websites in the show notes.
If you have any opinion or experience of digitizing analog photos, I will be happy to read
your comments or listen to your show.
Thank you for listening, take care and goodbye.
You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio at HackerPublicRadio.org.
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