mel_lewis

I have many black and white negatives. It is my understanding that I would get a better quality scan if I were to have the negatives scanned on a Kodak CD as opposed to using my own scanner. My question is can I use the Kodak CD with PSE and edit the photos from the CD, and if so how would I do this?

nancy_s

Mel,

The quality of a scan is dependent both on the equipment and the skill level of the operator.

I believe there are two quality levels offered for Kodak CDs. The Kodak Picture CD holds low resolution digital images of your pictures (suitable for screen viewing or printing out at a very small size). The Kodak Photo CD contains higher resolution scans of your images, better quality, which would be more suitable for editing and printing in a choice of sizes.

When you receive the CD, first create a new folder on your hard drive in which to store the images. Display the contents of the CD on your CD ROM drive. Select all files and Copy/Paste or Drag them to your new folder. Consider these the equivalent to your negatives. Leave these undisturbed in the folder to preserve their unedited, pristine state. To edit a photo, work always on a copy of a file, never the original and put them in a different folder after edit. You can make a copy of a file within your browser, or open an original in PSE, duplicate it within the program and then close the original back to its original folder and work on the copy. You need always copy the files from the CD in order to edit them. They may copy to your HD as "Read Only" (which would disallow any editing) in which case you just change the properties for the files after they're copied to your system. In Windows, right click a file, choose Properties, uncheck the box which says "Read Only".

mac_mcdougald

To clarify:

Kodak PhotoCD are compressed 4.5MB .pcd files, with 5 imbedded
resolutions:
192x128 (72KB)
384x256 (288KB)
768x512 (1.125MB)
1536x1024 (4.5MB)
3072x2048 (18MB)

And Elements *will* open .pcd files.

And Nancy is quite right, the "PictureCD" files you get from places like
WalMart/Sam's/Costco are .jpg at much lower rez. These can be had from
negs only. The PhotoCD can be had from slides also.

Mac

w_bobrowski

One more thing: you can also request PhotoCD PRO, which are ~70MB files at maximum resolution! Of course, the cost will increase, but this is another choice for HQ digital scans. Also, if you don't fill up the PhotoCD disk, you can always add more images later. Don't be sold that you HAVE to buy another disk if you need additional scans. Oh, and the thumbnail INDEX sheet is typically an additional charge.

Tons of great information on PhotoCD and PictureCD at the Kodak site:
<http://www.kodak.com/US/en/digital/products/photoCD.shtml>

Best regards,
Walt

mac_mcdougald

Additional charge is right ... never seen them cheaper than $20.

And not as good as you can do yourself with Nikon 4000.
Almost same size, 61MB (or 122MB saved in 16 bit).

Mac

charlie

where have you gotten Kodak PhotoCD for just $20 ??

My labs wants $1 per scan.

charlie