Best way to mail my slides for professional processing
 

I sometimes shoot slides of my artwork with a film SLR camera, and professional slide scanners seem expensive & difficult to use, are there good places that anybody can suggest that will develop the slides, & make digital images out of them to print up for a portfolio or website etc. I need a developer that can do a good job of developing slides of artwork.

would this be economical with time & money than buying a slide scanner & doing it myself?

No.

All your need is a pro lab to E6 process the slides. No prints, no scans, nada. Just straight E6 process. Mounting is optional, too. I generally just get it developed, leave the slides as negative strips. Some places include mounting in prices, however. So maybe ask about discount for "process only" with no mounting, scanning, etc.

If you don't have a pro shop local (big city), then you can mail to a few places.
I use BWC in Dallas. http://www.bwc.net/bwc/

Then use an Epson V300 (no ICE) or V600 (ICE) to scan:
- V300 @ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B001GBKTGM
- V600 @ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...SIN=B002OEBMRU

The Epson V300/V600 can rival some pro scanners, for slide quality. It performs similar to a Minolta or Canon, but better than a Nikon. It's not as good for negatives (C41 color), however. Just E6 positives/slides.

what about my epson that I have now? the epson perfection 4490? or would those epsons you linked be better?

can you recommend a good easy, not too expensive slide E6 & negative C41 scanner? I do have quite a few slides & negatives.

And when I get to scanning these; what specs to use?

24 or 48 bit?

sRGB or Adobe RGB?

.tiff? what dpi?

.jpg? what dpi?

what type of touch up? while scanning & what to leave to do in photoshop. I have photoshop elements.

I know you got through braking down specs for my other material but would slides, negatives & photo prints be different?

I don't know about the 4490. The V300 and V600 are good ones, however. You'd just need to scan some slides, see how it looks. maybe post a JPEG from a scan (inside a RAR file, full resolution, JPEG High, less than 8MB in size).

Everything else is the same.
24-bit
sRGB
TIF is fine.
JPEG is fine.

For slides, I'd have to double check the optimal settings.

Maybe scan at 1200dpi, but then downsize the scanned image to 300dpi in Photoshop. (Image > Image Size)

Touch up generally involves some cloning or healing, to remove further dust/boogers on the film. Then some basic levels. Maybe saturation fixes.

I go one further, correcting some things in Camera Raw. But ACR doesn't come with the Elements version of Photoshop. (Or does it? I don't remember.)

Everything from that other post is more or less the same, for all kinds of scanning. It's general advice.

I'm curious what you ended up doing with your slides.
Self scanning? Sent to a service? Tabled the project for later?

Always nice to have follow-ups, see where the forum advice took you and what the outcome was. :)

I ended up having to table the project for now, I have been absorbed in my school work, & I just bought myself a mac laptop, & am learning how to use it.

I have been saving my school money aid, & was finally able to afford my own computer, I would next like to be able to get a digital SLR, for general photography, that is good in low light, & for shooting my artwork. I have to carefully allot my school money, I only get a certain amount each semester, & I will only get it for up to about 4 years of school, so I have to plan my big ticket purchases accordingly, of which a DSLR would be.

when is the best time of year to get a DSLR? I know electronics have seasonal cycles before they come out with newer models & discount the last year models.

also, I have been doing just my general education requirements for my Associates degree in graphic design. I have not delved into my major yet. Among the classes, there is a photography class, would I be best to wait until I actually enroll in the class? or get the camera before it? I would get good use out it before a photography class.

In the past I have used my epson perfection 4490 scanner to scan my slides.

For my recent slide roll, I took them down to my local camera store & had them processed. I like the look of dedicated slide scanners, but they are very expensive. As someone suggested some other epson scanner models, I am, a bit tied on that, I am not sure buying another flatbed scanner is the answer, I have the epson 4490 now. The last time I tried to scan slides, when I previewed & scanned them, they came out in weird colors, everything was reversed like negative color image or something. Also, the slides are a bit tricky to arrange on the scanner, I end up touching them alot getting finger prints on them, or there are alot of dust particles on them.

Another factor, I never knew exactly what resolution to scan them at, or what bit depth to use. It would be nice to be able to make photo or prints from them for portfolios.

Just before or after new bodies are announced.

One of the tell-tale signs of a body being replaced by a new model is rebate programs that give you $100+ off certain bodies and lenses. For lower end DSLRs, it's $100 max, but sometimes just $50 or so off, in addition to price cuts by photos stores. (Side note: Best Buy, for example, is generally last to know anything, being a non-photo general consumer electronics store, so expect no rebates/sales from them or others like them.)

After new bodies are announced, rebates generally go away, but prices drop.

Sometimes rebate price is better, sometimes post-announcement sales are better. It's a gamble. My Nikon D200 was priced better with the rebate than it would have been with sales after the D300 was announced that summer. The Nikon D3 rebate ($250), however, was nowhere near as good as the natural price drop that happened after both the D700 and D3s hit. It dropped from about $5000+ to just around $4000.

I would try to get the camera during the break before the class, be it summer or fall. Read the camera manual front to back. I also HIGHLY SUGGEST you buy and read this book: National Geographic Photography Field Guide: Secrets to Making Great Pictures -- And notice under the "formats" window that several options are available, both hardcover and softcover, with some being as low as one penny plus about $4 shipping!

See http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.ht...reative=390957 for the best used prices.

Start creating yourself a "swipe file" now, however! A swipe file is what many journalists create when they see something else written/photo'd that they really like. It gives them inspiration or an idea for something they'd like to do themselves. I have video, design (print+web), photo and article swipe files. You can download photos/etc online, but you'll find the best work in magazines and newspapers -- "dead trees" -- like USA Today, Time, etc.

Do NOT get into reading too many photo magazines. Most of them have turned into sales pitches for camera gear companies, rather than publication dedicated to new ideas on photography. Outdoor Photographer is decent for non-pitchy type information, but it does still contain a lot of "buy this new gear" type of crap articles. It's easy to spot those. Many magazines are full of them.

Get a whole year of Outdoor Photographer (10 issues) for about $5 from BestDealMagazines. Hard to beat that price. And no, there's no need to be a landscape/wildlife photographer to learn from Outdoor Photographer. Much of what they cover is good advice for all photo areas, in terms of technical tips.

So for less than $10, you can learn from a book, a magazine sub, and your own swipe file. :)

Most of your slide scanning issues to date revolve around scanner software settings, as well as implementing good cleaning/handling procedures. I can add those topics to the guide to-do list.

Good luck on all your classes. :)

Here's a great example of a Nikon D3000 now available for a really low price, due to the release of the Nikon D3100 that has replaced/obsoleted it.
See http://www.digitalFAQ.com/forum/show...2803#post12803

That's the way to do it! :)

How many slides are you looking at scanning?

If its hundreds, you are likely better off sending them out to be bulk scanned.

I just got the Epson Perfection V600 photo. Its a great unit, but it takes awhile to scan slides and the carrier only holds four at a time. You'll grow old and bored scanning hundreds of slides. To get the most out of the scanner, many recommend 3rd party scanning software and proper color calibration. VueScan and Silverfast are popular scanning tools for this. A commonly available scanner color calibration target is also needed for proper calibration.

The last film/slide scanner I used was a Nikon Coolscan LS-2000 (ancient compared to today's units). IMHO this Epson meets or exceeds its image quality with C41 color negatives. The V600 also does a stunning job with my Tri-X 400 black and white negatives. Sadly the Digital ICE technology will not work with silver based negatives. It will however work with C41 process black and white film like Kodak BW400CN. Slides may be a different story, particularly Kodachrome. I don't have any slides to test out quality, but the consensuses online says 1. That calibration is a must for proper color (particularly for Kodachrome), and 2. A dedicated slide scanner may be better suited for this task.