Digitizing a color slide archive

[Chuck Albertson]

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Magnum Photos just posted this YouTube video on what's involved in digitizing their archive of color slides (spoiler alert: it's very labor-intensive):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yxI3Bb2U1Vo

 

[250swb]

An interesting video but I think it only shows the sort of post processing anybody would do anyway whether it's a slide or a negative. The simple steps are to correct the colour balance if necessary, check the tone, and check for dust. Usually that sort of work takes a few seconds for each image, but it's a laborious process for Magnum because they are eventually doing all the slides they have, and I guess they'll be digitizing the negatives as well. Perhaps they reduce the work by doing it when an image is needed rather than wading through the whole collection, but some slide and negatives will be fading over time. Fortunately in most cases as amateur photographers we only need to post process our own images, and then only the good ones.

[PhotoCruiser]

Thanks for posting that.
Actually i am in scanning my diapositives and B/W and colour negatives so it was a interesting watch.
I just bought a Plustek OpticFilm 8300 Ai what works well for my use and quality is better than i expected, but every now and then the included Silverfast AI 9 Studio software locks and scanner and software need to be restarted.
Obviously a total different setup and approach that Magum uses for their pro level photographers but sufficient for my use.

Jep,
what i do is apply only slight corrections and then save them as the goal in this moment is to have all film photos in my Lightroom catalog to be able to catalogize and view them for hypothetic later use. Should i need a photo then i will edit it later when needed or rescan the slide/negative using either my scanner again but investing more time in editing before scanning, use my camera and a macro scan setup or simply have them scanned on a high quality scanner.

Chris

Edited 1 hour ago by PhotoCruiser