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Family History Documents and Artefacts => Unwanted Certificates & Artefacts => Topic started by: Maggie. on Tuesday 17 March 09 09:59 GMT (UK)
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They are not exactly ‘unwanted’, but I would welcome any suggestions as to how to find a home for a collection of over 8,000 colour transparencies taken by my late father, who was a keen amateur photographer and historian, as whilst they are a very precious memory of my him, storage is a problem and we have few opportunities of viewing them.
The quality of the slides is excellent as they have been carefully stored in slotted wooden boxes and they are all annotated. The subject matter is varied and includes many Greek, Roman and Italian historical sites, and English and Welsh cathedrals and castles. They date from the 1960s, 70s and 80s.
I realise one obvious solution would be to digitalise them on to CDs. What would it cost to do 8,000 though? And would the quality be compromised?
Maggie
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I would think that digitising them would make the collection a lot more accessible to you and anyone that wants to view them, but as you point out there would indeed be a cost. It depends what you want to spend, time or money.
If you consider the images of great importance then high resolution scanning would be necessary. this takes longer and creates larger files. For computer viewing only, much smaller files at lower resolution can be made. If the originals are to be stored in safe conditions they could be referred to later. If the quality is starting to deteriorate ( a lot of early colour slides are not very stable) or you need to dispose of the originals, then the higher quality scan, the better.
Ideally notes should be included embedded in each file, but practically it is more likely that a good index will suffice. If you have the notes written in a book or similar you could scan these as well and cross reference them to the photo index.
I inherited a, not so large as yours, collection of family pictures on slides. I have an epson scanner that has frames to hold slides with back illumination. Even scanning in batches took many weeks of spare time (best to have a good book to read whilst waiting for the scan process. I have seen other scanners that work on one at a time, but this would mean constant reloading. The resulting images I indexed by number and then took the files down to a local photo printer where we haggled a price for a complete set of prints (about 3p each if I remember correctly). This gave me a set to work with and write notes on the back and acted as a picture index to the main files. The processor had also printed the file names on the back, which meant that they were already referenced to the files.
The prints were cropped from the original format, but were good enough to work with, the original file can always be composed and printed properly if required.
In short, it is quite easy to digitise them yourself if you have the right sort of scanner, it just takes time. If you do go to a print shop, be prepared to haggle, you could save a lot on the original asking price as most prices are based on short runs.
Alternatively approach a museum or archive and ask for their opinion on the importance of the collection.
Hope this gives you a few ideas to think about.
Good luck.
nuff.
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Hi nuff,
Thanks you so much for your suggestions, which have indeed given me a few ideas to think about. My husband does have a scanner with a frame to hold slides but our earlier attempts to scan resulted in images that were too red. I think we need to experiment with the settings. The scanner is old, however talk of a replacement is being muted!
My biggest problem is the time factor - it looks such a daunting task, so initially I think I must go through them 'prune' away any duplications, then concentrate on scanning a box at a time whilst indexing them. I am conscious that I am not getting any younger and to leave this particular archive for our children to sort.... well, it would never get done. Yet a lot of them are worth saving, if only to compare say the ruins at Olympia or Mycenae in 1965 to the ruins as they are now.
Many thanks for your helpful reply,
Maggie
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A university archaeology department may be interested in the historical sites collection. Perhaps contact Liverpool University?
Nell
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The redness could be a result of the slides starting to age. This can be corrected to a certain extent with programs like photoshop or similar.
Another useful resource can be teenage relations. If you have a computer savvy teenager to hand they are often open to the idea of being bribed rewarded, to undertake otherwise mundane tasks. They regard it as being paid to play on the computer, you get someone that is prepared to fiddle with the settings to get it right. One word of warning, do calculate the full cost if you offer "piece rate" or it can soon mount up. (Often better than a lump sum for results as it keeps them going).
nuff
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That's a good idea Nell, I hate the thought of the originals just being destroyed, in fact that won't happen in my lifetime. My Dad studied pharmacy at Manchester University in the 1920s - it would be good if perhaps they were interested.
Nuff - my OH has just pointed out that the redness only seemed to occur with the darker slides, the brighter ones we tried were better, and as most of the more interesting stuff was taken in Mediterranean sunshine, perhaps our old scanner may be up to the job. Your suggestion of using computer savvy teenage relations is a good one but unfortunately we are right out of teenage relations at the moment. Perhaps in 10 years time when the grandkids have grown up a bit :D
Maggie
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To be - brutally, I'm afraid - frank, I don't see museums, archives or universities being especially interested. From your description they are comparatively recent from a period when photography was readily available to and used by the masses; plus they are of subjects of which untold thousands of photographs will exist. It would be different if your father were a famous photographer or artist.
You could get them scanned professionally, but that will cost. I've just had a quick google, and the cheapest price of the handful of sites I looked at was 18p per slide (dearest was 40p), which is going to add up to nearly £1500 for your collection. That might well be a price worth paying. Think in terms of the cost of a new scanner that will do slides, probably an upgrade to the hard disk in your computer (8000 images is going to take up a lot of disk space!), and then there's all your time.
There will be cheaper, poorer quality alternatives, ranging from projecting your slides onto a screen and filming it with a video camera. I was just sent a DVD conversion of a VHS tape of some old 16mm cine films of my parents' wedding and other family events. The original VHS tape was made by simply pointing the video camera at the screen. The quality is just about ok (but I don't know what sort of shape the original cine films are in). It's nowhere near broadcast quality, but better than some of the clips on youtube! But in terms of keeping the memories, it's absolutely fine.
I know that my father was a very keen amateur photographer, and made up slide shows from many of his images - all synched in with music played on big reel-to-reel recorders through some gizmo that combined two slide projectors and took an input from the tape to move the slides on. Clever stuff in a pre-digital age. But about 10-15 years ago he put a lot of these slide shows onto VHS tape. What I can't remember was whether that was by filming the screen, or through an additional gizmo. I suspect the latter, but I don't know what it was. You can then convert the VHS to DVD.
I had a quick look on ebay and there is something there called an Elmo Slide to Video Transfer Projector. I'm sure there'll be a way to connect straight to a digital recording device rather than going via VHS, so you don't lose anything in that transfer.
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I take your point, Aulus, and agree that it is a bit unlikely that there would be much interest shown by an institution in housing thousands of slides. The majority were taken in the late 1960s and 70s, the subject matter being the ancient sites of Greece and Italy at a time when these places were far less visited and excavated than today so perhaps there could be some interest in comparing then with now, but despite my father being a superb photographer, he was nevertheless an amateur.
There is no way that I can contemplate having the whole lot scanned professionally so at some point in the not too distant future I am going to have to go through the whole of the collection and be ruthless in what I throw away. As I am a hoarder, this will be difficult for me!!
Regarding your suggestion of projecting them onto a screen and video-ing them, we have already considered this and I think it could be one solution. In fact we already have a VHS tape of black and white 8mm footage taken by my father's brother in the early 1940s. It was done by my husband exactly as you describe - by pointing the video camera at the screen, and the quality is more than adequate for keeping memories alive. It is fascinating to watch it now, not only for what the footage shows, but because my father, his brother and their wives were unintentionally adding commentary, unaware that the video camera was recording all they were saying. As these precious family members are no longer with us, I am so glad I have this memento of them. It is also fascinating to have my own Christening in the 1940s safely archived!!
Thank you so much for your helpful suggestions.
Maggie
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Scanning the slides yourself should not be that difficult. It just takes time. The quality will be so much better than photographing a screen.
If you google 'slide scanner' you will find a great range of products available that will do the job (from about £60 to £2500! )
You can get a simple device such as the Veho unit (which I personally have never used) or buy a scanner that can handle transparencies. I have used an Epson scanner (4870 now replaced by 4970 about £240 ) and had very succesful results the 4470 is cheaper at about £125 or even the v350 at about £75 should do the job, so hopefully there should be something within budget. (and you will have a scanner for more general use, although I found the 4870 rather bulky and use a smaller canon model for documents)
It takes a little playing with to work out the best settings for you, but once that is done then it is all as simple as load it up and press the button. The scanners come with software to improve the images if necessary.
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Nuff - thank you for your input, it all helps when making a decision in what to do. In addition to all my father's transparencies, we have quite a lot of our own and these also need going through and archiving, therefore to invest in a scanner at the cheaper end of the market that would do the job adequately may make sense.
You have all given me plenty of things to think about - many thanks.
Maggie
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If you do decide to get a scanner, it might be worthwhile posting a "what scanner should I get for slides?" question on the photo restoration board. I'm sure that there would be a wealth of experience of using different models there.
btw some of these scanners can be used to scan negatives in various formats, something I have have to be of great use in getting good copies where the negatives have been found with old prints.
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A good suggestion and I will do that once we have decided what to do. My OH wants to replace his ancient PC soon, so probably at that point it would be a good idea to get an appropriate scanner.
Maggie
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have you considered contacting the Museum of Photography in Bradford
http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/photography/
they may like some or all of them or alternatively, know where a good home could be found. I bet they have thousands of images in their collection and are always looking for more
Genie
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Thank you for your suggestion, Genie. I have asked them via email whether they would be interested in taking any after I have scanned them or had them scanned professionally. If they say they are not interested at least I have tried.
Maggie
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Hi Maggie,
My heart goes out to you! I've had to do the same with the collections of both my father AND grandfather...both excellent semi-professionals. It's very hard to decide what to do, especially as they're pix taken in both Europe and the UK. It would be so easy to just leave them on a museum doorstep like an unwanted baby, but then you'd worry about them forever.
A photo - for museum and archive collections - is only as good as its caption and date. That's a start. Chuck out anything not captioned or dated or anything that looks bad i.e. under/over-exposed or blurry.
Keep the best of what you love. Have decent sized HUGE prints made and archivally framed and keep the originals in archival boxes in a cool, dry place.
Take a holiday to Athens or Rome with samples of the very best and see if the local museums/archives are interested. You'll have a holiday, meet interesting people and make more decisions!
Or, like me, just hang on to them. We've sold some, donated some to archives but that would just be 5%. I've had some brutal chucking out days, and have parcelled some photos off to various places and instructed them to do what they wish with them.
Of course, you'll know what I do for a living - a professional photo editor! - but I could never do it for anyone else with photos close to their heart.
Good luck!
All best, Liz in Oz :D ???
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Hi Liz,
What lovely comments and you understand :D ;)
We are a little nearer as my OH has just replaced his ancient scanner for a new one that will scan slides in batches, it is quick and the results are excellent. The plan is that we gradually go through Dad's collection, and like you suggest, be brutal in what we chuck out and scan the rest archiving them onto DVDs. I have not yet found a museum that is interested in the originals.
I imagine I will keep a fair proportion. We have visited many of the places Mum & Dad photographed in the 1970s, including Rome and ancient sites in Greece, and it will be interesting to view Dad's pics along with our own more recent ones once we have them on DVDs. Rome is my favourite city - I love it. Wonder if I can persuade my OH that we need to return soon with the best photos ::).
Regards,
Maggie
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Glad to hear that you're making progress Maggie.
Just a thought, when you scan the slides make sure you use a high enough resolution to obtain a decent print, and if the picture is especially good then go for as high a resolution as you can. What looks good on the monitor can sometimes dissappoint when printed, you can never put the detail back once you dispose of the slides but you can always reduce the picture quality if you wanta copy on your webpage &c.
Happy scanning,
nuff
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A good point, nuff, and we will bear it in mind when we start in earnest. At the moment we are still experimenting with some of our own slides from the early 1970s - old family stuff taken when the children were small. We haven't looked at them in years as it was always such a performance getting the screen and projector out. They make fascinating viewing after all these years.
My OH went for quite a good scanner in the end - part birthday present and part work equipment with other functions other than scanning. So far we are delighted with the ease of use and the results. I have also purchased from the internet at a great cost saving a media storage device that can hold up to 40,000 digital images. This would seem like a good way to store the bulk of thescanned images perhaps rather than on my PC? The best ones I would put onto DVDs.
Maggie
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Do both. Or even all three. DVDs scratch or break, storage fails, Hard disks fail (As we speak I am recovering my daughter's files on her pc - thank goodness for the back up drive). Once you have the files copy them onto storeage and DVD and if you have space on the pc leave them there. Perhaps even get a second physical drive fitted with automatic back up of all your files on a continuous basis. It has saved my lot from tears many times over.
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There's a lot to think about. First we must get scanning. Thanks for the tips, nuff, its appreciated.