Can film images be converted to digital?

[jimiw]

I at present cannot afford a digital slr so I was wondering if film images transfered to a cd can be edited in a photo editing program? . Thanks Jimi

[blumesan]

Yes, certainly images transferred to cd can certainly be edited in all programs that I know of.

[jfrancho]

You can get a desktop scanner, or many labs will do it for you. Personally, I'd like to keep my hands on any valuable pictures, so I'd look at a desktop scanner. I used to have one, and it was less than $200 if I recall. here are bunch of the "flatbed" type that are pretty easy to use: Flatbed Scanners | B&H Photo Video. Once they are scanned, they can be opened in a photo editor.

[jimiw]

Thank you very much blumesan and jfranco. Thats a big relief and I have gone and checked out some scanners at BH and will be ordering one soon, again thanks Jimi

[aam1234]

Let's see some photos, Jimi

[jfrancho]

Originally Posted by jimiw

Thank you very much blumesan and jfranco. Thats a big relief and I have gone and checked out some scanners at BH and will be ordering one soon, again thanks Jimi

Just go out the website of the manufacturer, and make sure it will work with your computer before you buy. It should, but its good to check first.

[blumesan]

My guess is that having the lab that develops the film scan and transfer the images to a cd will provide you with better quality digital files than you can obtain from an inexpensive desktop (flatbed) scanner. The cost is usually nominal. A lot less time consuming too. The next step up is a film scanner, and a decent quality one will up the price considerably; and then there's the learning curve.

Cheers/Mike

[jimiw]

Thanks Mike thats what I will probably do at first till I can afford a film scanner Jimi

[jimiw]

Originally Posted by aam1234

Let's see some photos, Jimi

I have to take some pics first but I will post them for C&C. Jimi

[Tom Swaman]

JimiW,

You have received a lot of great information. Before you decide how best for you to proceed, permit me to suggest that you answer a couple of questions for yourself, namely what do you desire to do with the digital pictures including how large you want to print your edited images. The answers to these questions ought to guide you as to the best direction for your needs.

Here is one other idea, which if it works for you, will save you a whole lot of money and give you some great image files with which to work. Consider borrowing a dSLR or renting one for a weekend and photographing your pictures or work with one of your friends who knows how to do this. in this way, you can download the photocopied images and you will be off to the races without having to place a single bet.

Best of success,
Tom

[Tom Swaman]

P.S. JimiW, you may even be able to use a decent point-and-shoot camera on a tripod or on a table with your photo to be copied on a wall parallel to the sensor plane of the camera. This will depend upon the answers to the questions suggested.

Tom

[aam1234]

I'm with Mike. If you can get a CD then go for it, because scanning is a bit of a hassle.

[Latinbob]

Most places that do processing will put them on a CD for you. You might look into that in your area. I have a scanner at home, but I'm going to try out the 1 hour processing and CD thing soon. The developer is killing my hands, so I need to lay off home development for a long while.

Bob

[silentrob]

If you're looking to get them put onto a CD when they're developed, the best place I've found is Costco. Much cheaper than any other place in my area at least. Plus you don't have to get prints if you don't want them (I usually didn't) which saves you some money. They're the only place near here I've found that did that. Brought the cost of developing and CD down under $5/roll.

[rnyholm]

I have a friend who started after his retirement to scan all his dia-photo's and he has been doing that for months. The quality surprised me, but he has in that small scanner a gap for the dia's.

[jimiw]

I want to thank you all for the suggestions and Ideas, I am just going to have to figure out exactly what it is I want to do and then go from there. All of you are the reason Im so glad to be here, you are great Again thanks so much. Jimi

[jfrancho]

When you get them "digitized" post some up here. I'd love to see some.

[mfryd]

Originally Posted by jimiw

I at present cannot afford a digital slr so I was wondering if film images transfered to a cd can be edited in a photo editing program? . Thanks Jimi

As others have pointed out, there are many choices in getting film scanned.

Although this works for many people, there are some disadvantages.

What I haven't seen mentioned, is that you will most likely lose quality in the conversion from film to digital.

Images on film are recorded as 'randomly' placed grains of chemicals, which vary in size. There are separate random placements for each color.

Digital images are typically stored as a rectangular grid of regularly spaced color samples. Each element of the grid has full color data.

Whenever you are converting between schemes that don't quite match up (random film grains vs. orderly samples) you will have some loss of sharpness. If the scanning resolution is very high compared to size of the film grains, the loss will be minimal. If the scanning resolution is close to (or small than) the spatial resolution of the grain, the loss may be noticeable. Typically, you need to scan at twice the resolution (or higher) of the smallest detail you are trying to reproduce.


What this means is that a 6 megapixel image from a DSLR, will likely be sharper than a 6 megapixel image scanned from a 35mm negative. I'm not saying the DSLR is better, just that there is loss in the conversion from film to digital. Your 6 megapixel scan may only have the details of a 2 megapixel DSLR. (two megapixels is enough to print a 4x6 image at about 300 dpi)


You can scan at much higher resolutions to minimize this loss (Nikon makes a very good 4000 dpi scanner for 35mm film), however you end up wi