[MacDV] Slide show approach

[Jim Simmons]

>On Mar 21, 2006, at 6:42 PM, Jim Simmons wrote:
>
>>I have successfully transfer video tapes to DVD format and achieved 
>>good results. Now I am getting set to transfer a large number of 35 
>>mm slides to a DVD for a slide show. Before I get too far down this 
>>road I feel that I should get some comments and suggestions on the 
>>approach I have in mind.
>>
>>I plan on creating the slide show in iMovie HD and iDVD 5.0. I will 
>>be adding sound to the slide presentation. I am scanning the slides 
>>at 300 dpi and saving in the TIFF format. I then open them in 
>>Photoshop CS2 and perform color corrections because some of these 
>>slide are 45 to 50 years old. I then save them in the Photoshop 
>>format and will eventually create an album for iPhoto and them 
>>insert into iMovie. The image size of the scans are the same as the 
>>size of the original slides. Does this sound like a reasonable 
>>approach or should the scan resolution be increased?
>
>If I understand you correctly, you say you will be scanning the 
>slides at 100% and 300 dpi. Is this correct? I would think that 
>would be too small, especially considering all the time you will be 
>spending on color correction, etc.
>
>I would think that you would want to scan at a resolution that you 
>could make reasonably large prints with them and have them still 
>look good. Usually, if you want good 4x6 prints you would want at 
>least 150 dpi. (approx. 600x800) if not way more (1200x1600 +?). 
>Scanning a slide 100% - 300 dpi would yeild what, 480x640 at best?.
>
>Personally I would scan at the highest optical resolution of your 
>scanner and go from there. If you scan higher than the optical 
>resolution, then your scanning software is introducing interpolation 
>(guesses) into the scan.
>
>iDVD provides a method to store Hi-Res images from the slide show on 
>DVD. This would provide the best of both worlds. You can view the 
>pictures on your DVD player and also put the DVD into a computer for 
>printing of the pictures.
>
>Good luck,
>--
>Nick Scalise
>nickscalise at cox.net
>

Hi Nick,

So far I've only scanned one slide at  100% and 300 dpi. My scanner, 
an Epson Expression 1600, can scan at 1600 dpi with no problem. I am 
using the VueScan software program as my scanning software of choice. 
I can set the scanned output to be any of the sizes in which 
photographic prints are produced. So should I select a scanned image 
which is larger than the original 35 mm slide?

I think I have trouble trying to visualize how iMovie will handle 
different sizes in images. Eventually I will be scanning 8x10 
photographs and combining these with scans of smaller photos and 
slides in a slide show. I guess my question is this, does iMovie 
handle different sizes in input images to produce video images of 
approximately the same size on a video screen, or will the 35mm 
slides appear small and the larger photos too large? Should all input 
images be the same size before being put into iMovie or iDVD? I have 
a feeling that they should all be the same size but at the present 
don't know what that size is.

Thanks,

Jim