Technical Details

1. Exposing the Film

   All pictures in the gallery were taken with a Canon 35mm SLR camera and various EOS lenses. I've used slide film exclusively.

2. Scanning Slides

   After slides come back from the developer, I throw away a lot of bad ones, and pick a few good ones to scan onto a Kodak PhotoCD. I prefer this to spending time and energy on scanning the slides myself.

3. Converting PhotoCD Images

   The method I use for converting PCD (PhotoCD) images into JPEG images is a variation of the technique that Philip Greenspun describes in his Web Tools Review. For every PhotoCD, I create a description file in a certain strict format. To every image on the CD, that description gives a file name, a descriptive label, and, optionally, specifications on how to crop that image.

   I then pass this description to a Perl script that uses Image Magick tools to convert the whole disk automatically. If I am short on time, I can have the script produce ready-to-use JPEG files so I can skip to the next step in this sequence. But if I want to clean and tweak the images individually, I have the script produce images in some intermediate format, such as TIFF.

4. Cleaning and Tweaking

   Given time and patience, I open the images in intermediate format, such as TIFF, in Photoshop for individual adjustment. This is where I can fix imperfections of the scanning process (typically, dirty spots), adjust the color balance of the image (Adjust->Levels and Adjust->Hue&Saturation), perform dodging and burning, etc. I only work with an image in the highest resolution needed and then save it in several sizes (e.g. for thumbnails), if necessary. I can either run the images through an action list in batch mode under Photoshop or execute the script on them again to add borders, copyright messages, or whatnot and save them as JPEGs.