Advice on 35mm to digital photos...services, etc.?

[madforrit]

Hey everyone,
I'm working on a project that requires me to import photos from about 12 disposable cameras to my mac so I can use them in FCP/DVDSP. It's going to be a pain in the rear to get all these developed and then scan them all!
Any cost-effective suggestions as to what I should do? Are there services that can provide me with a CD of decent resolution pics I can use? I know most online photo services do this, but you have to pay for the developing of the film first, plus the price for a photo cd, AND they don't tell you what resolution the pics are on the cd. Snapfish, for instance, charges 49 cents per "high resolution (for download)" photo! Help! Is the best way for me to develop and then scan scan and more scan???????
Thanks.

[Mr. Anderson]

Well, I doubt you're going to use all the photos. You'll need to get them developed and determine which ones you want to use.

Do you have access to a scanner or are you willing to rely on someone else to do the work for you?

Who's wedding was it for?

D

[arn]

Hey...

I just got 32 rolls developed.

I ended up getting them done at my local Ritz... and the film pictures came out well ($9.99/roll for double prints) but the scans ($5/roll) came out crappy.

Snapfish, I thought, posted a rez.... something like 1600 or so... as I recall.

arn

[firestarter]

Check out http://photo.net/ and their forums for photo information.

I've been doing photography for a few years - and the usual advice for a problem like this is to check out labs that do Kodak PhotoCD service.

You pay for the scanning to be done at the same time as the film development, and it costs a bit more, but you end up with very good quality 6 megapixel images. They sometimes need a bit of sharpening, and the colour needs a bit of tuning - but they're better quality scans than a high street discount lab.

Photo.net has a page of advice on the post processing you need to do.

[acj]

You obviously must get the film developed for it to be scanned, but you don't need to get prints made.

Sams club and Wal Mart will develope film and give you a CD instead of prints, for under $10 (maybe $6, I can't remember). The resolution will be 4x6" @ 300DPI, or 1200x1800 pixels. This is barely enough to make an 8x12" print look really good.

Even though 1200x1800 is about what you get out of a 2MP digicam, the quality will be much higher because each pixel is full color where digicams interpolate. A 2 MP digicam has 1MP of green and only .5MP of red and blue. You still get a file with 2 million full color pixels, but they use data from surrounding pixels, and therefore give lower resolution, especially noticable if you have a sharp red/blue line.

[acj]

By the way, the quality is quite good. I've done it before.

[madforrit]

Thanks everyone for replying so quickly. :)

Arn - 32 rolls??? Youch!

Acj - That sounds perfect...though we have Costco instead of Sam's...but I had heard they did something like this for around $6. Thanks for telling me the res...that's exactly what I needed to know! It'll definitely do.
Also pressed for time so I don't want to mess with the online services. I will check out Costco/WalMart ASAP.

Duke - photo scavenger hunt type of thing....although I do believe one of their tasks was to photograph someone proposing to another....we may have a wedding yet.
:D