Beginner Beginners with a few questions

[tarnold]

Hi I posted this in the Welcome forum but it was suggested I might get a better response by posting in here:

Hi,

I'm just starting out in photography. After a long marriage the "other half" decided to walk out without telling me why. All the legal things have been done and its been 2 years now. I'm therefore trying to fill my time and keep myself occupied now that the marriage is over and my kids are grown and no longer need me so much.

One of the things that I always said I would do when I had time was to sort out all the family photos and learn how to use a camera properly.

I have a number of little projects I want to begin with.


In order of priority

1) She wants half the portraits of the kids so I need to do copies of these for myself. They were professionally taken but we never got the negatives/digital files and can't trace the photographer who took most of them. As money is tight I need the most economic way of doing this but I wouldn't like to lose any quality. If this means get good digital copies which I can then get printed when I can afford it then so be it. Most of them are around A4 in size

At the moment the equipment I have is a good compact digital camera, my Samsung phone, my ipad , a scanner on my multifunction printer and a colour laser printer.

If someone could give any advice or point me in the right direction for reading matter I would be very grateful.

Is buying a better scanner the way to go? Getting them scanned professionally? When it comes to printing them where should I go etc?


2) I have a lot of 35mm negatives and normal photos I want to scan to keep as backups and give to family. Are there any good videos , instructions on equipment and techniques to go about doing this?

3) After I learn how to use my compact digital camera properly and some basics in photography I would like to get myself a digital SLR , again money is an issue


I apologise if I have posted these questions in the wrong place and look forward to being active on here.


Terence

 

[troutfisher]

Well if it was me I would scan them onto a memory stick and give her that and say " you want them printing you get them done"

 

[tarnold]

Well if it was me I would scan them onto a memory stick and give her that and say " you want them printing you get them done"

Yeah I thought so too, but sharing the actual physical pictures was part of the settlement. I wouldn't mind but she's the one who has the money to get as many printed professionally as she wants.

 

[droj]

Your existing scanner might do it for the A4's. (If you tried the option of photographing them you'd likely have trouble with reflections.) I'd want to employ the scan software as thoroughly as possible and set the black and white points etc. The enemy might be dust which'll show up as whitish specks on the scanned images - so keep things clean to minimise it.

If dust still seems a problem, I don't imagine that you're going to invest in a Photoshop subscription but there are cheaper photo apps in which you can 'clone' out intrusions - and tweak parameters like tone. After that, it might be better to upload to a good value print service than use your own printer.

The negs will be a problem. Even with a photo scanner (one with a light source embedded) it's very time-consuming. You might consider sending them off to a lab for printing.

Smaller prints - try with the existing scanner. I couldn't comment further w/o seeing what its output's like.

 

[andrewc]

I would scan the portraits using the scanner on your MFD. Scan at a reasonably high DPI. Tweak in an image editor, such as Affinity Photo to straighten etc., and then use somewhere like photobox (cheap), DS Colour Labs or other labs for duplicates. If you're being fair, share the originals and copies between yourselves. Technically you are breaking the photographers copyright but if you can't trace them, what else can you do.

For scanning negatives, either buy a dedicated negative scanner and resell afterwards - or outsource the job to a lab.

 

[tarnold]

Your existing scanner might do it for the A4's. (If you tried the option of photographing them you'd likely have trouble with reflections.) I'd want to employ the scan software as thoroughly as possible and set the black and white points etc. The enemy might be dust which'll show up as whitish specks on the scanned images - so keep things clean to minimise it.

If dust still seems a problem, I don't imagine that you're going to invest in a Photoshop subscription but there are cheaper photo apps in which you can 'clone' out intrusions - and tweak parameters like tone. After that, it might be better to upload to a good value print service than use your own printer.

The negs will be a problem. Even with a photo scanner (one with a light source embedded) it's very time-consuming. You might consider sending them off to a lab for printing.

Smaller prints - try with the existing scanner. I couldn't comment further w/o seeing what its output's like.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I work at a sixth form college and get free Adobe creative cloud with work so have access to Photoshop, I suspect its probably takes a lot to learn to use it from the ground up but if I searched on "clone out intrusions in Photoshop" I should be able to get some idea of how to learn to use the bits of it I need? Or could you point to a good video which would cover what I need? MY scanner software(HP) has been deprecated so any scanning(its just been documents) I have been doing using the windows app.

 

[tarnold]

I would scan the portraits using the scanner on your MFD. Scan at a reasonably high DPI. Tweak in an image editor, such as Affinity Photo to straighten etc., and then use somewhere like photobox (cheap), DS Colour Labs or other labs for duplicates. If you're being fair, share the originals and copies between yourselves. Technically you are breaking the photographers copyright but if you can't trace them, what else can you do.

For scanning negatives, either buy a dedicated negative scanner and resell afterwards - or outsource the job to a lab.

Thanks for the advice. I would much rather pay the original photographer , Its only about 7 portraits so would be much less trouble and I suspect expense to do this but the last portrait was about 8 years ago , the photographers premises are gone and I can't find them using google so needs must.

 

[andrewc]

There's always the chance the photographer has discarded the original files (if digital) or negatives (if film).

If you have access to Photoshop through your work, then that can do everything. There is a context aware healing brush which is very clever as well as rotate / crop / colour adjustments. Plenty of youtube tutorials too.

 

[sphexx]

Thanks for the advice. I would much rather pay the original photographer , Its only about 7 portraits so would be much less trouble and I suspect expense to do this but the last portrait was about 8 years ago , the photographers premises are gone and I can't find them using google so needs must.

If you’ve got Photoshop at work maybe there’s access to scanners — I expect you’ve already been down that route .

 

[Deleted member 34016]

Thanks for the advice. I would much rather pay the original photographer , Its only about 7 portraits so would be much less trouble and I suspect expense to do this but the last portrait was about 8 years ago , the photographers premises are gone and I can't find them using google so needs must.

I have a good working knowledge of Photoshop ( been using it for over 10 years) - if you need any help please feel free to drop me a PM - happy to assist with any editing requirements as and when - I'll PM you my contact details

Les

 

[tarnold]

There's always the chance the photographer has discarded the original files (if digital) or negatives (if film).

If you have access to Photoshop through your work, then that can do everything. There is a context aware healing brush which is very clever as well as rotate / crop / colour adjustments. Plenty of youtube tutorials too.

If you’ve got Photoshop at work maybe there’s access to scanners — I expect you’ve already been down that route .

Duh(smacks had against forehead!)..............no I hadn't actually thought of that. The college does teach BTEC IT but I don't know if they cover digital photograhy, I will ask.