Which Original? Print or negative?

We run a photo scanning service and we get asked many, many questions. There are a few we get asked time and again, one being "Which should I scan, my negatives or my prints?" This is what I normally say. Technically, negative scanning gives a better result. We can use Digital ICE to remove dust and scratches, plus Kodak's ROC and GEM to boost faded colours and manage grain problems. If we scan your photos we don't have access to these tools. Additionally negative scanning generates a digital file more suitable to extensive editing and enlargement. But .... photo scanning costs 10p while negative scanning starts at 75p. Is it 7.5 times better? For most holiday snapshots I'm afraid the answer has to be "No". Talking to a software supplier he made an interesting point. Who made the photo prints? It could be that the print shop had access to image enhancement tools at least as good as ROC and GEM, so in fact the margin between the two results are reduced even further. I shall bear that in mind next time we're asked this question.

Whither Kodak and Their Gallery

Just seen in The Times today, Kodak are apparently looking for a buyer for their online album and printing service, Kodak Gallery. I also found a post on Foxbusiness.com saying Kodak are looking for "hundreds of millions of dollars" which seems like a pretty steep price tag for a division that made a loss in recent quarters. If you've read my posts before you'll know I love Kodak, if there were a competition for their biggest fan I'd at least make the quarter finals. So the sale of a key element in their digital photography arsenal causes me a great deal of sadness. But that's nothing compared to the sickening feeling when I read this sentence - Kodak is seeking money for its pricey overhaul, from which it will focus on selling printers. What? Printers? Are you completely mad? Going head to head with HP, Lexmark, Epson and many others. You owned "photos" and not only are you going to re-invent yourself but you're going to take on and beat dominant players in their heartland. And printers! Printers? Who wants to be in this dull sector of the IT market anyway? Give me strength. You are imaging, snapshot photography, photo scanning and great cameras. As Homer (Simpson) might say - put down that printer, no goods going to come of this.

Wedding Photography?

If I were looking for a wedding photographer in St Albans I'd contact Kevin Cull. He's a good photographer and a nice guy.

Adding Value After Scanning - Slideshows

Everytime I look at our photo scanner I say thanks to Kodak for the service we can deliver to 1Scan's clients and for the substantial revenue it has brought our way. Scanning photos has been a great money-spinner, taking our service to another level having broken into scanning via a flatbed device. As a small (or should that be micro) business I'm acutely aware that if you aren't moving forward, you're rapidly falling behind. Talking to clients it soon became obvious that other companies were gaining revenue post scanning. How could we get a slice of that? My first step was adding an online album facility. People want to show and share their photos, our offering is free and enables them to do just that. We can also offer additional features such as ordering prints. Let me give you an example to show how it operates. This last week I scanned a batch of photos for a chap who, judging by the images, has just got married and been to Spain on honeymoon. We posted his scans to his own, shareable, online library and sent him the link, inviting him to share this with friends. Very soon I could see the hits on that album and my guess is that his bride originally hails from eastern Europe. Those hits peaked dramatically yesterday, they're obviously a popular couple. Very quickly I could see people were downloading free digital copies of the photos. That saves the happy couple hours burning CD copies of the scans, the time and trouble of mailing them across the world - and saves very significant cost. It gains me revenue too, many viewers wanted prints which they can also buy from the album, for direct delivery. I don't have to do anything to make all this happen but I do receive a small royalty from the sale. Second step was photo albums. This seemed to be the most popular next step for scanners. So I was able to do a deal with an album printing company. I'll spare you the gory details but it was a technical nightmare to get running, their client support was poor (including shutting up shop at lunchtime on Friday). Worst, for all the revenue our clients generated for them they never paid us a bean. very, very poor. So we didn't scratch our heads much before ditching them on the first anniversary of the sorry saga. Now we have a link with another photobook supplier and that's working much better. Our third step has just gone live. We're offering to create photo slideshows (or should that be photo slide show) for clients. It's a simple format, you pick one of three styles previewed on our site, tell us what title you'd like, we do the rest. Up to 200 photos for a fixed fee of £9-99. This has been on offer for a week and the response has been very positive. It has surprised me in that we've got a couple of orders where the slideshow hasn't been the simple add-on but the main purpose of the order. If you're in the scanning business, think about slideshows as an optional extra, then you can thank me and Kodak.

Kodak? Leica?

As I've often said, I just love Kodak. My Dad's first camera was a Kodak and he passed it on to me (when he bought a swish new Kodak). My first digital camera was a Kodak and the bulk of our photo scanning is done on a brilliant photo scanner, the Kodak s1220. The camera I long aspired to was a Leica but the best I could afford was a battered Nikon F and a newer Nikon, with a markedly lower build quality and an accurate exposure system. With the advent of digital I'd thought Leica had missed the boat until one of our clients showed me his new digital Leica, it's just brilliant. All the traditions of build quality have been preserved, giving the camera a lovely feel and the image quality is first class. Horrific expensive but lovely. Sadly our friends at Kodak seem to have fallen on hard times, and an article on Techcrunch suggested radical surgery, turning Kodak into a giant R&D shop which farms out its technology. Just imagine an iPhone with a built-in Kodak camera. Interesting idea. Today the Times is reporting a massive investment company has, at massive cost, bought a minority stake in Leica. They'll continue to build cameras in Germany but their focus will be switched to the Far East where they have identified market potential. Up for Leica, down for Kodak? Why? Kodak have, I think, lost their way. I recognise the signs from my experience in the computer industry. When I left university I joined a major world player which over the years not only lost its way but couldn't find anyone who could point the way out of the mess. We acquired profitable companies and ran them into the ground, invested in others that promptly turned a loss. Our price manual ballooned, warehouses were stuffed with kit (unsold alongside unsellable), customers were confused about the business we were in, as were our staff. Running my own business spares me from the internal turmoil I'd guess besets Kodak today. Cameras - yes, but not great. Photo developing stations. Printers, multi function devices? Why? And my beloved range of photo scanners. Don't forget the document scanning range. Some sells to consumers, some to small businesses, others to big companies. I bet much is sold direct while other items are sold indirectly. Then to further muddy the waters there's probably whole teams of people selling to online businesses such as Amazon. Best Buy. PC World. How on earth do they manage that lot. From what I can see, it's all made in the Far East too. So the manufacturers are working while the directors are awake. Recipe for disaster. So, you ask, what would you do? Well, there's little in a big company that can't be improved by turning it into a small company. The first step would be to decide what Kodak is and needs to be, then slim down to fit. Kodak invented and in the public eye still owns photography. I would define that as the act of getting the analogue world into a digital format, supported by a raft of software to make the whole thing the best it can be. As a European I'd say get all of that into America. Drop anything that isn't core. Facilitate anyone who wants to use your patent, design, PCB, or whole unit. Just agree it will have that little logo to keep the message out there. Concentrate on making the Kodak address the go to location for any photo and imaging issue or opportunity. Have people who can help me at a technical and commercial level. I know Kodak has such people, they're the spear carriers standing ready to lead Kodak out of the mire. Good luck to you all.

Colour or Mono Scanning?

Busy week in the world of photo scanning, so I've spent all day feeding photos into our s1220. Today's job has been a mix of colour and black and white photos. Some are quite recent, and well cared for, many are old and poorly. Such a chunk of photos poses a bit of a dilemma. As a photo scanning service we want to give a clients the best service, and one of our most popular features is image recovery, the ability to boost faded colours. Now, if you follow the details of the Kodak operating manual you'll be aware that monochrome images can be scanned either as a single channel, or as RGB three channel colour images (albeit the 'colour' being monochrome). If you scan B&W as greyscales you'll save some space, and maybe even scan a bit quicker (but from the evidence of today any speed gain is marginal). However you can't do much to boost the image once its scanned. I don't know the low level details of how the scanner treats greyscales but it does seem to do something to improve contrast as it scans. You can hit the boost button after scanning but it doesn't do much, if anything. The results of my subjective experience today is that its much better to scan everything as colour. Then you can apply the colour restore, and get a kick out of how much better the post scanning images look.

Track Marks - As "Tracks of My Tears"

If you own a Kodak s1220 or near relative you'll know what I mean - those horrid single pixel tracks that ruin scans? Yes, the remains of debris attached to photos which latch onto the scanner glass. Typically from non-drying adhesive such as Blutack or Pritt Stick here in the UK. Not cleaned from the back of one photo, rubs off onto the front of the next and from there to my beautiful scanner. As a photo scanning service owner I now twitch at the thought.

But we are over it. Frequent thorough cleaning before and during each run, plus eyes and fingers fine tuned to spot tell-tale adhesive scraps. It's a thing of the past. OK, that's the back story.

Last week I was in a rush. We were within a few hundred scans of August (traditionally a very quiet month) being our busiest month ever. I know its petty and I'm the only one it affects but breaking that record, in August of all months, really got me going. When a big box of photos arrived I jumped on it (not literally). A big step to beating the record. Off I went. Couple of hours later, check the results.

You guessed, about 20 scans in, three images with those telltale streaks, and another couple at the back. Scrap it, start again, clean offending prints, eat dinner, resume after (it's twilight now), finally finish up early evening. Next morning, check, same problem. Sift through the box which held just over 1,100 photos to find the miscreants. Clean them with one of our micro fibre (that's micro fiber to many of our readers) dusters. Clean scanner, clean hands, clean up language. Re-scan 15 photos as a single batch to make sure I was getting them right.

This time, despite my thoroughness, five images had the damned track marks. But the rest were clear. Why? It was a simple explanation and without the scarring experience those years ago with the glue I would have found it quicker. All the duff scans were monochromes, same size and similar subject material so safe to deduce from the same original photo shoot. And the photos were themselves scratched. Yes, each print had three distinct fine scratches running along the face. Not deep enough to affect the surface where the chemical printing action took place and on most only visible if you knew what you were looking for. My guess was that as they went through the scanner the gouges were refracting the massively bright light from the scanner causing imperfections.

Correction - check with the good scans which orientation they needed to go though the scanner for the surface flaws not to be picked up. Half an hour later the batch had been cleaned of the original bad scans and the proper images inserted. We're a big step toward breaking the record. Thanks (again) Kodak.

The Customer is Always Right ....

From time to time I have to repeat this, helps calm me down. I had to say it quite a few times this morning.

Last week a chap rang, he'd got back from holiday to find his basement flat had been flooded. Thankfully his landlord lived in an upper floor so most of the water had been mopped up but many of his possessions had been damaged, including his photos. He described them as wrinkled and eaten away at the edges but they had been dried. Could we scan them? Trying to be helpful I said we'd try.

So a couple of days later just over 800 photos arrived in a box. They were certainly crinkled and around the edges the coloured material of the photo seemed to have come away from the glossy surface. Some had chunks of paper missing, but most were in reasonable condition. I fired up our scanner and crossed my fingers. The Kodak s1220 has an amazing feed mechanism (improved in later models) and the prints could be fed in quite easily, albeit one-by-one, and some hours later the photo scanning exercise was complete.

Today we got an email from the client. He was not happy, well, half not happy. He pointed to some defects in our service. Many of the images, particularly those which should have had a smooth blue sky, showed unacceptable hard lines. Clearly the scanner sees alternative shades of blue as the print surface wrinkles closer and further from the scanner glass. Then the colour restore function in effect hardens a line that shouldn't be present.

No, no thought for what we had achieved - in double quick time he had fixed these images against more decay; that at least half had been properly scanned despite the physical damage to the original.

The client suggested the photos would be better if scanned on a flatbed scanner. I said I thought this ought to be the case as the wrinkling might be reduced. I declined the request that we should reduce our flatbed charge (50p per image) to that of our bulk scanning service (10p). We part on a little less than great terms. You can't win them all, but you can tell yourself the customer is always right.

What Colour is Snow?

This week we've been grinding our way through a set of images supplied by a long-standing client. He's very organised and every so often we get a chunk of his family photos. This week we got the holiday photos. A mixture of prints, slides and negatives.

The mix of holidays covers annual summer holidays, mainly to sunny beach locations plus many winter skiing trips. Final count was nearly 4,000 images. We had to use our Kodak s1220 for the print scanning, the Nikon 35mm slide scanner and our Epson V700 flatbed.

For the majority of images we got great results from all the material. The summer shots were pretty good, lots of deep blue sea and sandy beaches. The ski shots were much more difficult, and after a while we began to be fascinated by the variation in colour that we could see in snow. The Nikon scanner got the snow white the majority of times, on slides and negatives. Similarly the Epson was spot on, in no small measure due to the special snow scene setting in Silverfast.

But look at the prints - many of which were derived from the negatives we'd scanned. If the source was white right, I assume at one point the prints were too. Maybe it was poor washing or chemicals in processing, maybe it was the ravages of time (although the prints had been kept in their original paper wallets), but snow ranged from a light shade of grey through to a very mucky grey. Hardly any white snow.

If you've ever done any scanning you'll know this is a major problem. Sure, the correction is simple, you can normally rely on those one-click correct functions in iPhoto or Photoshop. The real problem is the variation in greys and the absolute volume of the task - we're talking hundreds of images to be corrected. It is in most circumstances a massive task.

Thankfully Kodak have a Retouch function, a one-click fix for any number of colour issues. Just hit the button and away goes the s1220 software busily bringing all the whites into line. So when the full project was finished and the files merged together as the client wanted we could see what colour snow really is, and it doesn't matter if the image came via negative, slide or print. Snow is white.

Where in the world is s1220?

During the dull bits, for example while the s1220 is doing its thing to restore colour to a batch of photos, I amuse myself by thinking where I'd try to sell photo scanners if I were Kodak rather than a humble photo scanning service in the UK.

This week I read a tip about using website statistics to identify a target market. So I've just done a bit of digging into who actually reads these posts, and who I assume have an interest in Kodak, s1220 or photo scanning. So if I were Mr Kodak Intergalactic this is where I'd be heading.

USA. Ok, not much of a trip for people based in New York State but US interest outweighs the rest of the world put together so maybe your biggest market is on your doorstep. Or maybe the good folk of Rochester indulge odd moments of boredom thinking "where in the world would I open a photo scanning business".

Next, with very similar stats, come Japan, Germany, Turkey and the UK. The big surprise for me in there is Turkey. On a par with Japan and Germany - wow.

Then, another fair step behind, come an odd couple - China and Iran. China I can sort of understand as I know for many years even the poorest Chinese citizens have cherished photos so maybe they've been writing ad copy for Kodak in their duller moments, But Iran? Really? That is one place I'd love to visit and maybe there's market potential there to justify First Class air.

Finally there are the guys letting the side down. At less than 1% of the interest shown by Uncle Sam come the triplets of Canada, Netherlands and Australia. Frankly, we think you should be doing better. I'd justify my trips there by telling Kodak Inc board that the population there need a good talking to and Bondi Beach is the best place to shout.

But finally, finally, are those who don't appear. Mainland Africa? South and Central America? Middle East? Far East?

Clearly this is too much for even Kodak Rochester to handle. Next week we have a few big jobs on, lots of photo restores, so it must be down to me to fill in to help out Kodak. Just send me the plane tickets and hotel vouchers - I'll hit Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. My address is on the 1Scan.co.uk website.

Bored? Nous?

"You must be bored to death by these" said the young lady as we were loading her photos into the back of my car. Around 10,000 prints, all in wallets, each one carefully named with a Post-it note.

Wedding, art college, h-moon, b'day - and so on. Yes, we get loads of those. Then the holidays, this couple have been everywhere; not just the obvious European or North African tour resorts but all over the world. South America, Australia, Hong Kong (might have been a work assignment, lot of social gatherings), Thailand, Antarctica, New Zealand. This week we've been round the world a couple of times. Bored, no.

Then we had a batch of brilliant photos sent in by a major motor cycle racer. Fantastic shots of colourful bikes in a range of impossible positions. They zipped through our s1220 in no time and I though I'd have a bit of fun with the auto rotate function. You may know our photo scanning service returns print scans correctly oriented, could the computer sort these out?

No, sorry Kodak you failed on that one, but it's hardly surprising. A racing 500cc bike goes round corners on its side. It's only one of the laws of physics that stops the rider falling off. In some of the photos the rider is just inches from the tarmac. Then we add in a number of shots of airborne bikes popping over the brow of a hill and you have a massive mix. Hardly any of a normal bike and rider pose.

I wasn't surprised to find the s1220 thinks there's no difference between a bike on its side and one flying through the air. And sometimes a bike in the air above bleached concrete gets turned up side down. Boring, certainly not.

I've been musing about what it takes to close business. In the case of the large order I was loading into my car it was offering to collect them from the client. sadly too few people trust the mail these days and bundling up thousands of prints for mailing is a real chore. In another case it was mentioning our parallel CD ripping service, so we got 179 photos plus three CDs so our client could make a slideshow with favourite music as a soundtrack.

So all together its been a far from boring week. Thanks Kodak, thanks s1220, and thanks to our clients. Much love.

Taking Our Scanner for Granted

I know this is tempting fate, but ...

As the owner of a photo scanning service I rely heavily on my Kodak s1220. If you've read other posts you'll see we've been through the wars together. New versions of the operating program, a few usability issues, plus the odd stripy scan. But ...

Well, I was going to run this post last week but I thought I wouldn't tempt fate. I've held off for a week, and last week was pretty busy, we did a few thousand prints. I've given it a second week and see no reason for holding off any longer. Here goes.

Nothing to report.

The wonderful Kodak s1220 has worked faultlessly, happily chugging through all sorts of photos without problem, fuss or drama. We've now put in place an automatic system that asks clients for their feedback when they pay their bill. They continue to love what, thanks to Kodak, we can continue to deliver. A snappy turnround, great quality scans, snapped up faded colours, correct orientation - all at a reasonable price.

So, nothing to report and much to appreciate. Not much of a post really, except in the world of IT based services where not every item of hardware does exactly what it says on the box without hysterics.

To stop you feeling entirely cheated I'll add something I've noticed from our marketing efforts. We've targeted 1Scan.co.uk very much at people who know they don't want to scan. Our clients have been people who wouldn't even know how to switch on a scanner or at the other end, those who know a lot about scanning and know they don't want to be bothered (typically businesses and photo professionals). Increasingly I'm noticing business from people who have a scanner, know how to use it, and have done some scanning. They've been happy with their results - yet they come to us for one simple reason. They have worked out how long it will take them to scan 300+ family photos and they just can't face the grind of doing that one by one.

New Scanning Package

A few weeks ago we went to the UK's foremost photography show at the National Exhibition Centre. This is pitched squarely at the pro photographers and retailers, with maybe a small corner for photo scanning service peeps like us.

Unless you've been living under a stone you won't know how UK retail is in the doldrums, recesssion, the squeezed middle, higher VAT, the internet, shopping malls, if you own a shop front you need any lifeline that can be thrown your way. Boy would you have been disappointed by Focus. OK they had some new cameras, tripods, strange devices to hold lamps, camera bags but anything new, anything to generate new revenue? OK, a couple of booths to print instant photobooks, but not much more. At least Kodak had a scanner on their stand, but they weren't making a big song and dance about it.

But Kodak have made amends with the launch of a new scanning package in the USA. I hope they roll it out here. It's a neat package of the latest version of their photo scanning system along with a payment terminal. Idea is you leave it on the counter, its a self-service operation and customers can then pay without pestering staff. It's one of the few things I've come across that can be said to offer a prospect of a solid ROI to the retail side of the photography market. I'm sure in due course Kodak will roll this out into the UK and Europe.

As an internet based scanning operation I don't see this as deadly competition. It's a way of raising photo scanning in the minds of the consumer and it will confirm in peoples minds that Kodak is the premier name in imaging. Oh and I just love this image they have on the photo scanning page, thanks Kodak, that's just how Laura spends her time.

Comparative Speed Test

If you're considering investing in a new Kodak scanner this video gives an interesting insight into relative speeds of Kodak's current models.

Take into account cost per unit, reslience to machine faults, which would you go for? One big fast one or two slower models?

Jeff Underwood
1Scan
Photo scanning service

Brillianize Miser

We use Brillianize wipes to keep the two scanning glasses clean. They seem very expensive to me but they're worthwhile in improving the quality of photo scanning. The instructions are on the little packet but I was thrown when I was asked a simple question - why do you throw the wet one away and keep re-using the dry one?

So this last week, thanks to a sealable plastic bag, I've kept the wet part and used it a few times each day. Works a treat and you can call me miser any time.

New Software Treasure Hunt

Just found out there's a new version of the Kodak software for our s1220. I've downloaded it and will install it shortly. Great news - this version seems to support Windows 7 which is installed on the most recent PC we've installed. Also a suggestion that the image order number will be improved so final numbering reflects what the client wants. Sounds vague I know but if you've been running an s1220 you'll know what I mean.

Small beef - I found this update by accident. We own many devices, not just scanners but Flip camera, iPods, all of which get upgraded by a clever system of automatic notifications usually when the device is connected. Even our Epsons, the workhorses of our photo scanning service, which run Silverfast, have a function which checks for software updates every month.

Come on Kodak, can't we have the same feature?

Jeff Underwood
www.1Scan.co.uk

Scanning Today

My apologies to the guy who rang earlier this afternoon and asked about throughput on our Kodak s1220. I have tried to email this to you but it bounces back. The answer to your question is that we've scanned 1421 standard sized photos today.

Small Problem, Solved

Normally we scan 99.9999% of our photos on our Kodak s1220 with any odd ones done on our Epson flatbed. Either those that are that bit too big for Kodak or ones that are too small, and normally its the tiddlers that are a problem.

So when I opened a box with a few hundred photos and about 20 sub passport sized prints dropped out I knew I had a problem. You see our Epson packed up and I'm waiting on a spare, and in the absence of the Epson those small pics would hold up the return of the complete batch. Not the best for customer service. Then I had a brainwave ....

I thought maybe, if I attach each small image to an upturned post-it note, it would be big enough to go through the s1220. Then I could open the scans in Photoshop and crop out the surplus yellow background. Amazing, it actually worked. One happy customer, one happy scanner.

Jeff Underwood
1Scan.co.uk
Photo scanning service