I just got a Coolscan III and will start scanning a lot of old 35mm material and put these on CD for distribution to family members. Hopefully this will enable future generations to be able to look at their roots.

Any suggestions on a suitable format and resolution to make most use of available space?

Also wonder if anything on this subject is to be found on Internet or in books?

All tips are welcome!

Regards from Sweden,

Olle

-- Olle Andersson (olle_andersson@home.se), September 27, 1999

Answers

Interesting! I am in the process of doing the very same thing, using a slightly older Nikon Coolscan II.

I slightly overscan (to permit cropping) into Photoshop where my final image is 1280 x 853 pixels (keeping the 35mm aspect ratio). This will permit a fairly decent 4" x 6" print if any of the family care to make prints. This produces a 3.2 MB TIF file, but I save them as JPEG files with 5:1 compression, producing a file of about 640 K. The JPEG files are then written to a Plextor CD-R in packet mode as I finish each bundle of slides. (Intermediate storage of the TIF files is on a JAZ drive.)

As I also archive prints, I pretty much do the same thing with them except that many of these prints (especially after cropping) are not in a 3:2 aspect ratio. In such cases the image in Photoshop is adjusted to match either the 1280 or 853 pixel dimension, whichever is appropriate (e.g., 1000 x 853 pixels or 1280 x 775 pixels, etc.).

In addition, when I come across an especially interesting image, I JPEG it down to the lowest quality and email it to selected family members so they can see what's happening and get them excited about the project.

-- Albert Klee (aklee@fuse.net), September 27, 1999.