This page presents the results of my attempt to find the cheapest way of making digital photos and still keep them as much as possible to look like professional ones. The reader couldn't find here the comparison of the different types of hardware or software, but there are a few useful hints how to get and keep the best quality of your pictures. Finally you can download the freeware "Slides" program, which allows you to build and view your own slide presentation. This application offers an easy manipulation of the large files (about 4 Mb jpeg), automatically build small preview thumbnails for them, and provides a tool for selection the viewable area of the image to be optimally fitted to the computer screen. There is also links to very smart shareware software (see bellow) from WinSite and ACD.  

Digital camera versus film camera

Scanning tips

Slides - free software to make slide presentation

Shareware slides software from WinSite package

Shareware file viewer and slides organizer from ACD

1. Affordable digital camera has resolution about 1600x1200 pixels. This is definitely not enough for making 20" x 30 " posters. Friend of mine likes put such posters on walls at his home, and this limitation gives him no choice. Such poster costs about $6 at Clark Color Laboratories to make it from negative film. I have found only one place where the pictures in digital form are accepted for posters (about $25) but did not try it yet. I hope that images with the scanned resolution of 3300 x 2300 pixels will be enough for making posters, and I let you now after trying this service. (See also scanning tips).
2. Limited resolution of digital camera typically fit to the monitor screen resolution now. It means that you could not show even third part of the image without loosing its quality. It will happen with the prints too. It means that by having digital camera you should professionally select composition to fit the full image size. A scanned image allows showing quarter of the picture without any visible quality change.
3. Limited resolution of images will not be enough to show them using the higher resolution computer monitors and projectors.
4. To save memory space digital camera uses JPEG format (or some other types with comparable compression rates). It means that you have to avoid editing this image. This is intrinsic property of JPEG files. Being read and saved into the file it is loosing its quality. Bigger images more tolerant to such editing.
5. The most rigid limitation of using digital cameras is the relatively low color resolution, which is hardly defined by the space occupied by image in the camera flash memory. Let me explain. If you see background picture of this web-site in full colors, you probably using High Color (16 bit) or True Color (24 bit) setting at your computer video driver. It means many millions of colors. Do we really can see them? The answer is YES. Every color can be made from three basic colors: red, green, and blue. It is good idea to save images with color depth of 24 bits (True Color) to reserve 8 bits for each basic color. Thus each basic color will have 256 gradations of brightness. Imaging white-black photo. Would it be enough to draw it with 256 gradations of tone? Probably yes, what about 64 or 32? I don't think it will look good. The same may happen with the color image too. This can be verified experimentally by saving image to files with different color depth. Typical scanned image at resolution of 3300 x 2300 pixels and 24 bit color depth occupied 23 Mb memory as BMP file, which can be rewritten many times (see note 4 above). This can be as twice improved by using not distracting (which is not a JPEG) packer like zip. How real to have such images in camera? How long it will take to copy them into computer? Probably it will not be so bad in a few years, but it is not now. I am still using JPEG files to keep digitized images at size of 2.5 Mb (see also scanning tips), but if later I'll find I don't like one of them, there is still negative in a shoe box.

1. Scan negative or slide at maximum resolution. There is very important feature offered by HP scanner software. It makes fast preview, which enables to see the effect of changing the scanner parameters. It is worth to spend more time finding proper parameters of scanning, than trying later to improve the image with the photo editor. Save file as BMP with 24-bit color depth (Micrografx Photo Magic).
2. Remove dust and scratches over the all picture using Adobe Deluxe Home Edition version 3.1, which came with my flatbed HP scanner. This is amazing how this software works for small spots leaving the same image quality. For 35 mm slide scanned at resolution 2400 I am using Threshold 20 levels and Radius 3 pixels.
3. Use Microsft PictureIt (which is came with HP Photo Scanner) to remove the rest of dust and scratches in all areas except of faces, which typically require to use cloning technique. It is important to set this software to use maximum resolution, which is not a default setting. If you don’t have Adobe software never try to remove all dust at once if you are using oldest than PictureIt99 version of the software. With PictureIt99 enlarge eyes, or other part of the image with small details, and start dust removing with the smallest dust search area. The dust clicking works amazingly in background areas, you'll enjoy it. For scratches better to use a specially designed tool than the dust remover. Don't forget to say NO when asked to save picture in one of the formats rather then BMP file if you are completely satisfied with the editing result. Use Microsoft suggested format, if you are not sure about results. This file is huge, but it keeps track of changes, which allows you step back later (not always).
4. Use Micrografx Photo Magic (which is came with my flatbed scanner) to gently remove dust and make small color changes in faces and other important parts of composition, which can not be classified as a background ones. The main tool is copying portion of the image into another portion of the image (area cloning) using different settings.
5. Back to Micrografx Photo Magic. Sometimes it is difficult to remove big dust spots with the PictureIt. It is good time to do this now. Than I going to the Image menu item, click Effects, Select Median method, and Amount one or two depending on the film sensitivity, and how important the small details for the whole composition. The averaging step sometime may be skipped if you were using automatic dust remove procedure in PictureIt.
6. To save file (still in Photo Magic) use jpg file type, with the High resolution SubSampling and Compression Factor 2. This will reduce 23 Mb bmp file to the 2 Mb jpg file. Remember, if you have deleted bmp file, try to avoid jpg file editing, rescan picture instead.
7. Add picture reference to slide presentation. Keeping only references makes your catalog smaller and faster, but require your images to be in the same folders. I also have found very useful of making 1 Mb slide presentation with PictureIt in order to send it to my friends. Than if someone ask for bigger picture I am sending bigger JPEG files.

This freeware software offers two main features. It makes catalog file, which keeps only references to the images, but not the images itself. This makes it easy to maintain huge library of pictures, which may occupy a few megabyte spaces each. Another feature, I consider very useful for computer-generated presentation, is the simple way to select an area of the image to be shown. Same image can be used to show it with the different magnification.

We strongly recommend using this software only to prepare slide presentation. For image editing better to use any available in-store commercial software. This is because we are using non-commercial version of the DLL to display images. It does not affect the quality of images, since you are not editing image colors and do not save images. One of the negative features of this software is that some pictures could not be open with the slide show. We didn't see any problems with the high resolution JPEG files, but we would recommend testing your favorite imaging editor for compatibility with the used image library. Please see built-in help for more information.

Minimum computer requirements

1. Pentium 75 MHz or higher

2. Win95,98 or NT

3. 16 Mb or more extended memory.

4. Video card and monitor, which support High Color (16 bit) , True Color (24 bit) or better color resolution mode.

 The file "Slides.zip" is an archived file. Create temporary directory, put this file there, find any zip unpacking utility (i.e. Windows Commander) and unpack this file. After procedure is completed, you will see two new folders: DISK1, and DISK2. You can move their content into one directory or can copy them into two 1.44Mb floppy disks. Find file setup.exe in DISK1 folder, run it and follow the installation guide. Let me know if you have any problems during installation. Examples and documentation are included. Slides upgrade can be installed above the existing version. To remove program use standard add/remove utility located at the control panel.

Current version 1.2. It uses new graphic library, which support latest jpeg compression and many other formats except of GIF files. There is conversion tool that saves picture with different formats without size modification.

To download archive file "Slides.zip"(1931k, version 1.23), please click here.

Click here if there is a problem to run program after installation

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This page was last updated on January 09, 2002