Photos and Scanning
Previously on Lucian Albrecht's Livejournal, I have discussed Jessops' deeply pants1 develop 35mm-and-scan them service. I have recently been experimenting with DLab7, whose do 36 exposures at 3072 x 2048 for £8. This is still too small, but at least the scans are usable; I have one Jessops did that both washed out the highlights and lost detail in the shadows, a clever trick.
In addition, they all provide these scans as JPEGs, meaning you get recompression artifacts if you process them. Honestly, it's not like 36 18Mb files won't fit on one CD, and why couldn't they supply DVD-Rs anyway?
So, irritatingly, I now want an Epson V700 scanner-a snip at £360-which will produce 160Mb files from a slide. Of course, buying one of those would delay my hypothetical eventual purchase of a filmdigital³ SLR rather.
I've also decided to stick to the highly-saturated Fuji Velvia slide film over their Provia. The slides look better, even if the point is moot if you're scanning them as you can just turn up the saturation.
Other photo-related irritants this week have been Tesco, who do a digital print service, at least in their Clifton Moor branch. I went in at lunchtime last week, with the idea of getting a few prints from the DLab7 scans done for comparison purposes, and discovered a) you have to give your name2 to get anything printed, and b) it takes an hour. Which rather renders it useless if one is there in one's lunch break. Muppets. I suppose I shall have to add a decent printer to my shopping list.
A slide projector wouldn't go amiss, either.
1. IMHO
2. or, in my case, the name 'Vladimir Illyich', because I am bloody-minded, and also read the papers.
EDIT: 3. D'OH!
In addition, they all provide these scans as JPEGs, meaning you get recompression artifacts if you process them. Honestly, it's not like 36 18Mb files won't fit on one CD, and why couldn't they supply DVD-Rs anyway?
So, irritatingly, I now want an Epson V700 scanner-a snip at £360-which will produce 160Mb files from a slide. Of course, buying one of those would delay my hypothetical eventual purchase of a filmdigital³ SLR rather.
I've also decided to stick to the highly-saturated Fuji Velvia slide film over their Provia. The slides look better, even if the point is moot if you're scanning them as you can just turn up the saturation.
Other photo-related irritants this week have been Tesco, who do a digital print service, at least in their Clifton Moor branch. I went in at lunchtime last week, with the idea of getting a few prints from the DLab7 scans done for comparison purposes, and discovered a) you have to give your name2 to get anything printed, and b) it takes an hour. Which rather renders it useless if one is there in one's lunch break. Muppets. I suppose I shall have to add a decent printer to my shopping list.
A slide projector wouldn't go amiss, either.
1. IMHO
2. or, in my case, the name 'Vladimir Illyich', because I am bloody-minded, and also read the papers.
EDIT: 3. D'OH!