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.