... in which disaster strikes.

I've had to hold my hands up and apologise from some pretty naff scanning on the last two days of last week. My fault was taking the quality of the scans we get from our s1220 for granted. Kodak has provided one of the most reliable pieces of technology it's been my pleasure to operate, so I was more than a little annoyed when things went wrong - not because they went awry, but because it was a client who noticed the glitches. I got an email drawing my attention to some faults in some of the scans from our photo scanning service. First, there was an obvious area of slightly darker blue appearing as a band across what should have been a smooth blue sky. Second, areas that should have been uniformly dark instead were mottled. Once the fault in the sky kicked in as you looked through the batch of images all you could see was this band, all else passed by your view, it was band after band. Laura stopped by and I told her what had happened. She asked if I remembered a slide scanning job we'd done for a friend of hers. That had been done on a Nikon scanner and marred with a similar fault. That resulted in a trip to Dr Nikon and a substantial bill for repairs. I quickly put the two together and expected a similar bill for repairs to the Kodak s1220. When I became aware of the problem I contacted Kodak Tech Support and emailed them a couple of sample scans. I spoke to their team the next day and got a diagnosis an hour or so later. Not for the first time I felt grateful to Kodak. Their suggestion was that the problem stemmed from incorrect feeding of the photos through the scanner, causing the print to pause slightly on its way through rather follow a uniform transit across the scanner glass. That made sense, a couple of scans had the nasty band at a slight angle (most at 90 degrees) so that would have been an image not fed in square, hesitating, the scanner seeing more blue than I'd like, and so the band appears. Attached to Kodak's reply was a pdf and a note of the page and item number that should be replaced. I spoke to Lisa at BMI (they supplied the scanner) and ordered a feed roller mechanism. It arrived at just after 10:00 next day. Five minutes later a few test scans proved the band had been banished (disbanded?). The dark areas were very much better, my pulse rate was back to normal. The new roller runs against another set of rubber feeders so I decided to replace those too. Another call to Lisa at BMI and yesterday that part set arrived. New rollers take just a few minutes to renew so I'm pleased to say we're back to top quality scans. Checking with the pdf covering the replacement parts for the Kodak s1220 it says the main feed roller assembly should be good for 500,000 feeds; the other set for 250,000. I can assure you we've done many, many more and I think photo paper is much tougher to handle than ordinary office paper. Remember, the s1220 started life as an office document scanner. I've made a mental note to replace the latest set of rollers in about six months time.

The End of the Road?

New year, like most of us a lot of time looking forward and some looking back. "Do you remember when?' sort of thing. One of those phrases bought me up with a start. Our Kodak s1220 is around four years old and despite that I still think of it as new. I hate to think how many images it has created for 1Scan, our photo scanning service. I'm pleased to say it is wearing well, still delivering stirling service. A few little quirks, just like any old friend, but overall a very happy working relationship. High volume photo scanning is firmly established as a major element of our product portfolio with no reason to think the next couple of years will be any different. We're ramping up the investment in our website and the Google Adwords campaign. So, do we soldier on with this scanner, with a performance profile developed five years ago, or move ahead with a new scanner? Whatever the route our leading scanner will have a Kodak badge. Nothing else has hit the market which will touch the Kodak range. As I see it we have three options. First, stick with the s1220. Second get a new version of this scanner. Third, get a new scanner with the upgraded spec offered by the improved version in the range. This box is faster, has a bigger / better hopper, has better software. Time for a bit of head scratching.

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.