Topic: Scancafe.com, TIFF vs JPG

[Massive Dynamic]

     I've got a few hundred 35mm color transparencies that I'd like to get in a digital format. I ran across ScanCafe.com, and I have read the fine print (outsourced to India), but I'm planning to send at least some of my non-critical images on a trial run. Anyone have any experience with this place?

     If everything goes well, I'm also considering having some of my best images (Nikon glass, ISO 100 film) scanned at their highest offering, 4000dpi in TIFF format. The huge file size and higher cost, though, make me wonder if I really need this quality. The "standard" service is 3000dpi in compressed JPG format. I should also mention that I don't have a digital camera and only very basic software. I'm mostly interested in archiving my images and being able to view and share them, something I can't do with them now. Any help or insight would be appreciated.

[John Kary]

Think of it as storing a WAV vs a 320kbit MP3--most listeners can't hear the difference.

At 3000dpi, you probably won't be able to tell the difference of it being compressed vs 4000dpi lossless.  JPEG at 100% is visually lossless as far as I know.  Only way to tell is to send a few in for test images, or get the same slide scanned as both and compare.

For reference, the highest-end feature films scan their 35mm film at 4K (4096x2160, not sure what DPI.)

[it-goes-to-eleven]

Send'em a test and see how it goes... how much they get scratched, how much dust, dirt, fingerprints, etc...

Not all 4000dpi scans are the same. There can be a big differences in quality depending on the hardware used as you enlarge/zoom the images.  Good 35mm can be printed very large if the scans are good.

Another consideration... 16 bit color mapping is nice if you intend to do serious prints or manipulate color/density.

You might decide to buy a used scanner on ebay and then resell it when you are done. You could also buy new and resell on ebay.  Good scanners don't depreciate too much. There really are only a handful of good 35mm film scanners. Some have bulk feeding options. Scanning can be very time consuming..

[phanophish]

I have never used them, but have heard a number of positive recommendations on some photography message boards.  As others have mentioned the visual difference between TIFF and JPEG at fairly high resolution is minimal.  Where JPEG can bite you is if you do extensive editing and multiple saves.  Just like multiple generations of WAV>MP3>WAV>MP3 can really start to have major impact on audio quality, the same thing can happen with multiple generations of JPEG compression.  You might however gain some benefit to their 4000 DPI scanning as the additional detail in the original scan will make a difference in the end JPEG.  If I were doing it, I'd probably go with the 4000 DPI to a high quality JPEG, then whenever I did edits always start with the original JPEG "master" and crop/resize/edit from there.  I think the cost of the 400 DPI scan adds about $.09/image.

[stirinthesauce]

I asked this question to a long time pro this summer while in a workshop.  He said to always save as a tif.  He says if shooting jpeg, too convert the master to tif for editing purposes.  As phanophish said, where you get bit is editing as it is compressed.  Tif is uncompressed while jpeg is compressed and lossy.

If I was converting slides, go the tif route.  I do encode my finished (while saving the tif and the raw masters) product for print to jpeg but that is it.

If doing alot of editing in jpeg, one will start to see artifacts show up that are undesirable.

[phanophish]

I asked this question to a long time pro this summer while in a workshop.  He said to always save as a tif.  He says if shooting jpeg, too convert the master to tif for editing purposes.  As phanophish said, where you get bit is editing as it is compressed.  Tif is uncompressed while jpeg is compressed and lossy.

If I was converting slides, go the tif route.  I do encode my finished (while saving the tif and the raw masters) product for print to jpeg but that is it.

If doing alot of editing in jpeg, one will start to see artifacts show up that are undesirable.

Maybe just to clarify, where JPEG really causes a problem is not with lots of editing, it's with lots of save/close/open/edit cycles.  If you open and original JPEG in Photoshop and make hundreds of edits to the image and only save it once the quality loss from JPEG is very minimal if you save at the highest JPEG quality.  But if for example you open the image, crop, save, open the cropped image, then adjust exposure, save, then open and adjust color balance, then save, you will begin to see the cumulative effect of the JPEG compression.  Obviously if Quality is the #1 factor go TIFF all the way, but the additional cost and particularly the file size impact will be significant.  That's why I suggested the JPEG and then alway edit or work from the original JPEG with fresh edits each time.  I'll play around some soon to show some examples of how the JPEG compression begin to effect the image quality with each save/open cycle.  Apps like Photoshop work with the image as an uncompressed file once it is open, then JPEG compression does not get applied until the image is saved.  Hope this all makes sense.

[stirinthesauce]

I asked this question to a long time pro this summer while in a workshop.  He said to always save as a tif.  He says if shooting jpeg, too convert the master to tif for editing purposes.  As phanophish said, where you get bit is editing as it is compressed.  Tif is uncompressed while jpeg is compressed and lossy.

If I was converting slides, go the tif route.  I do encode my finished (while saving the tif and the raw masters) product for print to jpeg but that is it.

If doing alot of editing in jpeg, one will start to see artifacts show up that are undesirable.

Maybe just to clarify, where JPEG really causes a problem is not with lots of editing, it's with lots of save/close/open/edit cycles.  If you open and original JPEG in Photoshop and make hundreds of edits to the image and only save it once the quality loss from JPEG is very minimal if you save at the highest JPEG quality.  But if for example you open the image, crop, save, open the cropped image, then adjust exposure, save, then open and adjust color balance, then save, you will begin to see the cumulative effect of the JPEG compression.  Obviously if Quality is the #1 factor go TIFF all the way, but the additional cost and particularly the file size impact will be significant.  That's why I suggested the JPEG and then alway edit or work from the original JPEG with fresh edits each time.  I'll play around some soon to show some examples of how the JPEG compression begin to effect the image quality with each save/open cycle.  Apps like Photoshop work with the image as an uncompressed file once it is open, then JPEG compression does not get applied until the image is saved.  Hope this all makes sense.

yes, thanks for clarifying as I wasn't clear.  The opening, editing, saving, opening, editing, saving aspect was what I was referring to as I often times go back to a pic numerous times for changes.

[phanophish]

Just found this article.  It gives some good examples of the cumulative generational loss from JPEG compression.

http://www.jmg-galleries.com/articles/jpeg_compression.html

It also references that some image editing programs "sneak" in a save (Windows Image Viewer "Rotate"command for example)  which can add to the image quality reduction.  I'm doing some research to confirm that Photoshop does NOT do this, (I don't think it does but now I'm curious). 

Another good article on JPEG compression loss.

http://imaginaryreality.com/GettingGoodPictures/JPEGCompression/index.html

[phanophish]

yes, thanks for clarifying as I wasn't clear.  The opening, editing, saving, opening, editing, saving aspect was what I was referring to as I often times go back to a pic numerous times for changes.

One more thought, this is one of the things that is nice about Lightroom from Adobe, it basically has a database of the adjustments that are made to an image and leaves the original image untouched.  then if you open the image in Photoshop it converts the image to a TIFF or PSD when you tell Lightroom to edit the image with Photoshop.  This may only be for when working with RAW files though, I don;t usually shoot JPEG from my DSLR, but this is because of benefits that RAW has that are not applicable to scanned images

[mmedley.]

There was a comparison done by Money magazine just this month (January 2008). Go read it in the store or you might be able to find it online...lemme look and see, but ScanCafe was the winner with the A-.

It is on page 106 and 107 of the hardcopy magazine.


All else fails, PM me and I will scan it to PDF for ya.

[Massive Dynamic]

Thanks for all the great info. I haven't done any serious photo work in over 10 years (marriage, kids ) and nothing digital. Though the cost will add up, I don't have the time or expertise to do it myself. I don't even have time to track out shows from last summer! I think I'm better off sending my images to others who know what they're doing. Glad to hear this place has a good rep. I've actually got tens of thousands of images to go through, but I'll report back in 2-3 months and let you know my impressions.

A recent post asked about cheap/free photo editing software, but most were PC only. Any Mac options?

[phanophish]

Thanks for all the great info. I haven't done any serious photo work in over 10 years (marriage, kids ) and nothing digital. Though the cost will add up, I don't have the time or expertise to do it myself. I don't even have time to track out shows from last summer! I think I'm better off sending my images to others who know what their doing. Glad to hear this place has a good rep. I've actually got tens of thousands of images to go through, but I'll report back in 2-3 months and let you know my impressions.

A recent post asked about cheap/free photo editing software, but most were PC only. Any Mac options?

I always heard iPhoto (Part of iLife) was the way to go for a nice simple photo editor.  Doesn't it some with all Macs?

[sunjan]

A recent post asked about cheap/free photo editing software, but most were PC only. Any Mac options?

I always heard iPhoto (Part of iLife) was the way to go for a nice simple photo editor.  Doesn't it some with all Macs?

iPhoto is not free per se, but bundled with the Apple hardware. Anyway it's fairly limited, and more comparable to Picasa on Windows.
For a full-featured and free editor on OSX, GIMP and similar GPL varieties springs to my mind. Check list here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_raster_graphics_editors

/Jan

[Massive Dynamic]

iPhoto is not free per se, but bundled with the Apple hardware. Anyway it's fairly limited, and more comparable to Picasa on Windows.

I have iPhoto '05, but it is intended for snapshooters, not photographers, and is very limited as Jan mentioned. +T for the wiki link.

[phanophish]

iPhoto is not free per se, but bundled with the Apple hardware. Anyway it's fairly limited, and more comparable to Picasa on Windows.

I have iPhoto '05, but it is intended for snapshooters, not photographers, and is very limited as Jan mentioned. +T for the wiki link.

I think Clive was looking for something low cost/free so those were the best options I know of.  Unfortunately, without making the jump to Photoshop or one of its Variants (I think LE is around $100) iPhoto and Picasa are among the best I have come across.  I find The Gimp really frustrating and always just wish I was using Photoshop.  I did also see that Google is rumored to be releasing Picasa for Mac.  I'm not sure how it really compares to iPhoto feature wise but for what it is it rocks.  The last option I know of that is a good one below going to full blown Photoshop is Lightroom.  For a basic tool though I think it's hard to beat something like Picasa or iPhoto.