Thanks Joshua

Main thing I noticed was the amount of detail left in the highlights and the lack of noise in the shadows

Can't wait!!
Matt

Don't forget this link:
http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/17164.html

You might find this exteremely helpful
Matt

There's absolutely no way of 100% guaranteeing protection. User can always grab a screen shot.

Best way is to resize and watermark. There are numerous free packages that will do that for you automatically (Think IrfanView even can do all that.)

If you make each image no larger than 500 pixels they can't do much with that, even if it's not watermarked, but yet it should still be good enough for deciding what they want.

Matt

Aaron,
Agree with your comments - a good set of practical suggestions

I know Vuescan is a real pain, but it is helpful if you have an older scanner that isn't supported on your current OS. (You don't need the Twain drivers as Vuescan drives the SCSI or USB directly.) Personally, I found, after a very long time messing around, that I could get excellent results from slide (Velvia/Provia), but negatives were much tougher with Vuescan (but then I only ever shot about 1% in neg anyway). It was quick at doing batch scans and was better than the supplied software with my ancient Minolta, and I preferred it to the Nikon Coolscan IV. So my recommendation for Vuescan was more of a "if you can't get the results, at least try it"

Matt

Input res should really be the same as output res for archiving. You don't want any resizing/sampling going on

I batched scanned all my slides with Vuescan in AdobeRGB 8-bit JPG (95% quality). For slides Vuescan has an "image" mode that copies pretty much what you see, without applying colour correction to "undo" the Velvia/Provia look. I was happy with the results.... but that was before the dSLR

Apart from the odd image or two, I've lost the will to archive great batches of images!

As far as getting the colours back - you'd be surprised. I suggest you check out Katrin Eismann's superb "Photoshop Restoration and Retouching" book. An absolute gem

Have fun!
Matt

David,
SRS Microsystems are offering £599 and the first shipment should be in next week
Matt

Just remembered something else about the recipe for adding noise which creates a better film-representation, repeated for completeness sake:

* Add a new layer
* Edit / Fill, 50% grey
* Filter / Noise / Add noise - 10% Gaussian, monochromatic
* Filter / Blur / Gaussian blur - somewhere around 2 to 5 (clumps the noise together)
* Change layer blend mode to "Soft light"

If you want a grittier noise:
* With the noise soft-light layer selected, add a Brightness/Contrast adjustment layer
* Then group this B/C layer with the noise layer
(You can do this in one step, by holding the ALT key and using the add layer adjustment at the bottom of the layers palette, then clicking "Use Previous Layer to Create Clipping Mask" (terminology I think is different pre PS-CS)

Now, double click the Brightness/Contrast layer and push up the contrast - the grain will have more effect.

The nice thing about layers is you can use this technique along with the "Blend If" of the layers property to create noise in just midtones, highlights or shadows



When downsizing an image with this noise, there's little difference (except if you use mistakenly use "Nearest Neighbour" resampling in Photoshop).

Matt

Great lighting and composition. I like the effect of added grain, but could be a bit strong on the noise though (it maybe because the images have been downsized for web.)

PS hint for adding noise:
* Add a new blank layer on top
* Fill with 50% gray
* Add gaussian, monochromatic noise to taste
* Change the layer blend mode to "Soft Light" (or "Overlay" for a stronger effect)
* Now you can reduce the layer opacity to taste, or ditch the layer and start again

This has the advantage that you can save the layered PSD file and choose to remove the noise if you want without affecting the rest of the work

Matt

The *ist-D is a fine camera
Notable points:
* Uses Compact Flash
* A little slow on processing, especially RAW
* Lovely clear pentaprism viewfinder
* Thumb and finger wheels for Pentax's "Hyperprogram" (where you can instantly choose Av or Tv modes)
* Popup flash can control AF360 and AF540 wirelessly
* Has a PC flash sync socket
* Same CCD as all the other 6Mp Pentax cameras (superb results if you shoot RAW)
* Exposure can be a bit variable, especially with older lenses and often with flash. Improved by uploading the latest firmware, but if you shoot RAW it's not a problem as it errs on the underexposed which is easily corrected.
* Battery grip is available for it.

Personally I much prefer the *ist-D to the *ist-DS (which is also a fine camera!). It's more of a "pro" spec'd camera and is available at very attractive prices second hand!

Matt

Lens compatibility is the same for all Pentax DSLRs - ie superb

*ist-DL/DL2 - use Pentamirror, smaller viewfinder.
*ist-DS/DS2 - Pentaprism, large clear viewfinder. Think the DS2 just has a 2.5" LCD vs 2.0" LCD of the *ist-DS
K100D - Pentamirror, smaller viewfinder, shakereduction, better in-camera processing than the DS.

Plus *ist-DS/DS2 supports the older TTL flash... whereas the others require an AF360-FGZ/AF540-FGZ that does P-TTL.
If you intend to shoot RAW, then there's almost zero difference in the output image quality.

Swings and roundabouts as they say! Best thing is to go and try the *ist-DS2 and K100D and see how they handle

Full K100D review: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxk100d/
Full *ist-DS review: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pentaxistds/

Hope that helps!
Matt