Have I been taken for a ride?

Splunking · Nov 4, 2012

Hi All,
I've just joined, looking for a forum where I can learn how to take holiday and family photos properly with my Canon SX40HS. I know it's not a DSLR but it was a compromise to get good zooms without carrying and switching lenses. Hopefully and as I start to know what I'm doing, I'll move up into the bigger and better world!

My first post unfortunately is about scanning old 35mm color slides that have been in my parents loft for some time. I say unfortunately because as soon as I had dipped my toe into the wonderful world of digital photography, I may have been bitten by a slimy predator.... or not. That's why I'm hoping someone can really help me with this and why I posted this thread.

I had initially bought an Epson V750 Pro (got it at half-price being an ex-demonstration unit but looks brand new to me!) but the idea of getting much better scans commercially got the better of me so I sent them off to a company (I think it's a one-man-band but seemed to be highly recommended) instead. They boast on their website that they use [FONT=&amp]Kodak Professional HR500 [/FONT]and [FONT=&amp]Pakon F series Plus - 5 x High Resolution Scanners - (Now Kodak owned)[/FONT] which are £35k & £9k respectively and I shouldn't be fooled by other companies that use domestic scanners such as the [FONT=&amp]Nikon Coolscan[/FONT].

After receiving the results, I wasn't that impressed. Some did seem marginally better than the results from my Epson however many seemed over and under exposed. I will have to do some of them again myself. I thought because the source were old slides then perhaps I was expecting too much.

However and so, my reason for starting this thread is just after starting to try and find out which are the best settings to re-scan the under and over exposed ones, I looked into the "Properties" of a couple of the scans (JPEGs) by the company and noticed that under the "Details" tab it states the camera and model make is a PIE PS500 which is a scanner (also states they use the program VuseScan 9x32) that seems to be marginally better than the Epson and which I'm hoping they didn't use!

Before I confront them about this, could this mean simply nothing and they're only using a template or something? Is there anyway else of telling if they didn't use the scanners they were supposed to? Are there any other questions I should ask too? I can upload a photos for you to see but don't know if it's possible on this site or makes a difference.

Thanks very much for your attention and hope you can help.

Derrel · Nov 4, 2012

Sounds like the company that did the scanning is untrustworthy, and bragging about using HIGH-end scanning equipment when in reality, some of the work is ACTUALLY done on much more modest scanners...

Helen B · Nov 4, 2012

What resolution were they scanned at? Have you compared the resolution with the resolution you achieve with theEpson? Does resolution matter to you? Have you asked the company that scanned them for rescans of the bad ones? Scan quality is dependent on the scanner and the operator, not just the scanner.

It would be useful to post comparison images, both full frame and small sections (say 400x400) at full size, without resampling.

cgipson1 · Nov 4, 2012

Were they cheap??? Cheaper than most competitors? You get what you pay for!

Tony S · Nov 4, 2012

When sending out for services like these it's best to only send a few to get a sampling of what they do before getting a lot done.

Overread · Nov 4, 2012

Just another thought but you did check your ordering slip to make sure you ordered the right kind of scan - many of these operations will have different price structures and it might be you ordered a level which sounded high but is only about equal to what you have now and that the higher levels would use the more powerful scanning machines.

Splunking · Nov 4, 2012

Thanks for all your replies, I really appreciate it.

* I did get some samples first and whilst I was expecting more, I thought you couldn't really get any better since they are supposed to be using these 9k & 35k scanners. My concern is whether I can get better quality using these scanners and the ones I got was from cheaper scanners instead. I guess I'm going to just send them an email and ask why it states in the properties of the JPEGs a PIE PS500 scanner was used.

* We both scanned at 4000dpi. I would love to some how upload the comparisons to this forum but is it possible, they're both about 15MB each and would you be able to tell if you can get better without seeing the original slide? I'll see if I can upload them to some site like ImageShack if it will help.

If it turns out that you can't really get any better from slides that are over 30 years old then fair enough, it's just that if I knew it was possible to get much better quality than the ones I have then I'll be peeved! Does anyone know of any websites that show what to expect from scans of 35mm slides?

This is the website's page that promotes the scanners. I'm sure you'll find him/the company to be genuine so I don't want to criticize him/them without good reason.

Thanks again

Overread · Nov 4, 2012

I take it you used their home service instead of their professional service then?
Might be that for the higher resolution and quality you've got to jump up to the professional service option?