Archival scanning?

[Anthony Lewis]

I want to know best practice for scanning all my film (35mm, MF, and LF), for use now, and for archival purposes. I am running Silverfast Ai Studio. I intend to scan all my films in HDR mode, and archiving these, probably onto CD’s. I also only want to scan my film once only.

I am considering purchasing Silverfast HDR Studio so I have the ability to do all image processing after scanning, which seems like a great advantage to me, as anything I do in this process is now non-destructive to my original scan.

At the time of scanning I will unsure of intended use and therefore print size. For archival scanning is it best to standardise on a print size, say 8X10 for all film sizes, or just scan at maximum scanner resolution with 100% scaling, whatever the film size?

Is there a standard set of parameters for archival scanning, and/or should there be? What parameters do you all use, i.e. output size or anything else? What media is it best to archive onto? Any other tips or ideas?

[Peter De Smidt]

In general, you should scan such that you get the maximum resolution that your system will allow. By that, I mean real resolution and not what's rated. So you'll have to do some tests and see what gives the best results. Definitely scan in 16 bit per channel. You should also work with a few files a bit to see if you can tweak results. Otherwise you're in danger of spending a whole bunch of time scanning before finding out that something should've been improved.

It'd help if we knew what scanner you were using.

You should investigate how archival cds are. The short answer is that there are a lot of worries concerning them. It might be a better idea to back-up the files to a couple of large external hard drives. Every couple of years, you'd have to migrate the files to new drives. While that sounds like a pain, this is much cheaper and faster in the long run.

[Anthony Lewis]

Peter,
I'm using a Microtek F1 which has a manufacturers optical resolution of 4800dpi. However the real optical resolution is about half this 2400dpi. This is the resolution I am intending to scan at for archival purposes.

Every article I read states that one should scan at a large output size as it is not good to upsize a final photograph. This sounds very logical, but nobody states at what size? I am asking if anyone has standardized on any certain size, say 8x10.?

I am also asking what is really wrong with going for 100% scaling at the maximum scan resolution - but this would mean a lot of upsizing for the final print. If one upsizes with max. resolution is anything lost? (I can see this is probably not the best idea)

In the end the answers I am really looking for, from all those who scan their film for archival purposes, is what output size do you go for, what medium do you archive onto? Is there anything else I should look for or know.

I intend to scan in Silverfast HDR mode which means all image adjustment modes are deactivated - which is a good thing. It also greatly simplifies the scanning process - great. All I have to decide on is resolution (maximum), output size (I don't know), use iSDR (depends), archival medium (need advice).

[sanking]

In the end the answers I am really looking for, from all those who scan their film for archival purposes, is what output size do you go for, what medium do you archive onto? Is there anything else I should look for or know.

The only thing that really matters in scanning is final mp count. A 2X3" negative could be scanned at 5000 spi for a 286mp file or at 312 spi at 48X32". The two files ultimately have the same amount of information.

I simply scan at the film size at the highest spi practical, and then re-size as needed.

I archive to gold DVDs, 4.7 gig, and also keep a copy on two hard drives. I trust the static memory cards more than DVDs and some of these are now up to 32 gig and 64 gig size, but currently more expensive than DVDs per gig of storage space.

Sandy King