Scanning the Secrets of a Photo Disc Film

Please note that this post is a rough draft (at best), it may have spelling errors and other issues. If I have time to come back and fix it I will, if I don’t at least it’s a good bulk of info some users may find useful. 🙂

Disc film was a low-cost photography film format for consumes introduced by Kodak in 1982. Before being developed the film was in a flat plastic disc, similar to a cartridge. Wikipedia has some fascinating facts about this outdated film medium, so I’ll spare you from the geeky details, but in short it was a unique format.

The photos were stored on a single spherical wheel. These wheels were discs, not the type you put in your computer though, of course not. These discs held 15 photos on them, the negatives were very, very – only tiny measuring about 11 x 8 mm in size.

Now if you were born in the eighties or earlier chance has it that your parents have some of these film discs still laying around. Or if you’re old enough you yourself might have these film discs laying around too. Now with most film photography you give the camera or the negatives to the photo store and they give you your selected prints and your negatives back. The negatives are the originals where your prints come from. Sort of like the master copy of your photos. If they were damaged it was impossible to get a new print unless you had a fancy photocopier. This was years before the first version of Photoshop and long before color scanners were the norm around offices and homes.

So if your parents were ‘lucky’ enough to have these film disc cameras, one problem occurs. How do you get the photos off of these discs? Sure you may have some of them printed, but maybe not. Maybe they were ripped or lost or damaged. Maybe all you have left is the negative. Well you have two options, one is you can find a specialized film photo shop and they can do it for you… the Disc Film wikipedia article lists some places that still do this today. But this can get pricey. It may be the best option however if you have a lot of them to do. But if you’re looking a the do it yourself route then stay put and I’ll show you what I figured out. Be warned though, it takes a steady hand and scanning in one film disc took me about an hour. That’s 15 photos in total.

These steps hopefully will work on any flatbed or film scanner with a backlight and enough space for the photo discs to be placed. For my scanner I’m using an All-In-One Canon Pixma MP810. It’s a nice scanner and has the option to scan negatives and slides at up to 4800 dpi. The higher the resolution the better, but also the longer it will take to scan in. However at 4800 dpi I got pretty good results (all things considering) on these negatives. Remember these are teeny tiny at 11 x 8 mm. So the higher the resolution your scanner can handle the better results you’ll get. 2400 dpi was decent, but 4800 was much nicer. Anyway…

Notes before you start: Clean your scanner glass and try to handle the negatives carefully. It may not hurt to use a Q-tip or a soft micro-fiber cloth to clean the negative before putting it in the scanner. Unless you have a medial cleaning room it’s likely you’l get some dust on the negative or scanner flatbed, but it shouldn’t be that big of an issue. With negatives, especially photo discs, since you’re zooming in and scanning so much a tiny object, even a spec of dust or hair, will look big once it’s scanned.

1: So with your scanner software installed (which is needed to properly activate the film/negative backlight on your scanner) you are able to select the type of source you are using. There should be an option for Film or 35mm negative. Something along those lines. In my menu I was given a choice of: Color Negative Film, Positive Negative Film, Grayscale film, etc. So for the Disc Film I found I selected Color Negative Film.

2: Find the best place to lay down the negatives. Since the scanner is not meant to scan in these disc film photos you’ll have to be creative. The Canon scanner I’m using has a small removable plastic guide for placing in 35mm film negatives. With the plastic guide removed there’s space enough for a Disc film negative. However the backlight (which makes it possible for the scanner to scan in the film) is in this case only wide enough for the 35mm film negatives. So instead of being able to scan in the whole disc at once you’ll need to keep rotating it. In my case for the 15 photos on the disc I moved the disc 15 times. Time consuming yes, but if you’re going through all this work to begin with you may as well get it right the first time.

3: Click the “Preview” or “Overview” button in your scanning software. You should see the tiny negatives on the wheel. Now draw a box around one photo on the negative. With my scanner if I selected too much besides the negative the photo would “auto balance” and correct the color. Giving me a bad image. There may have been a way around this, but I dealt with it by carefully selecting my photo. When the color looked fine it was okay to scan. See the attached photo for details.

In my Fujifilm branded wheel of film the photos were nicely labeled 1 through 15. This helped me keep track of things since from far away they all look the same. With the photo selected and the mode set to ‘Color Negative Film’ and with your selected DPI resolution and file format set you’re good to go. I suggest .TIFF files these can be easily opened with Photoshop and are not compressed or blocky like JPEGs can be. Now click “Scan” and wait for your scan to be finished. My negatives took about 4-5 minutes to complete each photo.

Your photo should look pretty good. If not check your settings and try again, you may need to play around with your scanning software to get the right result. If the colors are almost there try using Photoshop, GIMP, iPhoto or another photo editor to play around with things like Levels, Brightness, and Contrast to help your photos look okay. Remember they may not look perfect, but they may not have been taken under the best conditions either.

4: Now it’s time to rotate or flip your photo. Why? Because in my case I managed to scan in all the photos backwards. This is very easy to do with negatives, either the scanner flips them and scans them in backwards, or it’s just hard to tell what side is right. This is fixed by a simple “horizontal” flip in a photo editing program. If you happen to have the Photo Disc upside down the photos will come out flipped, but it’s easy to fix so don’t worry about getting it right the first time. The easiest way to tell if the photo is flipped is finding text in the picture when it’s scanned in. Sometimes there is no hints to help you so you have to use your best judgement. I scanned in the disc with the numbers printed on the plastic piece (not on the negative) facing up and my photos were flipped. But your milage may vary.

5: When you have successfully scanned in 1 photo of the 15 on the negative turn the disc to the next photo and repeat the process. If you have a pretty good looking scan then you’re all done. My father has told me that these cameras didn’t have the best quality, most of the photos were grainy and blurry. I see what he means looking at my results, but considering this photo disc was from 1984 and I was using a standard scanner the results were surprising. I’m happy I was able to at least digitize these photos which were not in the envelope beside the negatives.

I hope these steps and information has helped you learn a bit about these Disc Film negatives and the ability to unlock the secrets from these negatives and view them once again.

Computer Quality: You Get What You Pay For

So everyone seems to have their own opinions on computer hardware. And this will be just that, my opinion.

A lot of people have the notion that Apple’s computers are highly expensive, being a frugal person I’ll be the first one to agree with them, but this is truly a case of you get what you pay for. It’s very true in the case of computers. I repair them on the side, I take them apart, put them back together, solder their broken points, and try to repair them as best I can. Now no computer is perfect, all computers have their flaws, Macs and PCs alike. However it’s the cheaper side of the spectrum that is always prone to more problems.

Here’s lookin’ at you Gateway…

So why are PCs so cheap? Well they basically tend to use the same parts, and cheaper ones at that. The chips, boards, connectors, cables and plastics they use in their laptops are usually similar or the same items used in other models or other competitor’s products. The same cheap plastic bottom case or cheap AC adapter jack is probably used in all their products to save costs. While it may be smart for some items, say an integrated sound chip on the motherboard, it’s bad for some parts which may wear easily. For instance a popular repair that is usually done on PC laptops is the AC adapter jack. The port where you plug in the power cord to charge the battery and run the computer.

Now you think most people would be careful with an expensive laptop, but they usually don’t think of the power cord. They plug it in, let it charge and don’t think about it. The cord tends to snag, bend, and even fray. It can easily yank the soldered power jack off the motherboard with continued use… or worse. Fry the motherboard. So instead of $15 for a new 3rd-party AC adapter and a AC jack on eBay, you’re out a whole computer and probably have to replace the motherboard. Which will cost at least a hundred dollars or so. This cheap cost-cutting solution is not the way to go. Now it can be blamed that users are most at fault for this. However some models, like the Gateway MA7 have a bad design. The AC jack is right near the USB port, this cramped space filled with tiny circuits and connectors is begging for disaster. My brother passed me a laptop of a friend that had the “it wont’ turn on” issue. I suspected the power jack. I was right. Within a few seconds I did a google search and soon found out I was not alone. I was surprised to find that even if the power jack was replaced, it’s not likely to fix the issue, as the power socket usually will eat away a the motherboard, causing the layers to be exposed and damaged. Making a repair very complex and expensive to perform. I had to inform my brother that while the hard drive on the machine is probably okay, it will most likely never boot again.

The cheap cases of the PC don’t help you too much either, but I suppose they are less prone to complaints. They are made of plastic, and they can chip, break and crack easily. But this would only really happen from a fall or a drop. Or if you hate the machine enough to toss it out the window. And if you’re really that bad with your computer, anything will break with that kind of abuse. Even a MacBook.

Apples to Apples

Since 2006 Apple’s laptops have come with a feature which is now standard across their line. It isn’t a Blu-Ray drive, a 3D display, or a fancy touch-screen. It’s a simple and practical feature. A power jack and power cord that is more resistant to damage and snagging. It’s called the MagSafe port and the MagSafe power adapter. You may have guessed by it’s name that the cord is helped by the use of a magnet to keep the cable connected to the computer. The magnet holds the power cord tightly on the machine, however if someone trips or tugs on the cord it’ll pop off the computer. Reducing damage to the port and the power cord. Now nothing is perfect and some MagSafe cords have gotten some bad press, but the newer metal tip design shipping with current models hopes to reduce that.

True you can argue that with the more expensive parts that Apple uses drives the cost of replacement way, way up. But the probability that they will fail drops way down. From my experience it’s more likely that the power jack on your cheaper Windows-type laptop will fail far more frequently than a Macs’ adapter would. Maybe somebody doesn’t think it’s that important to take care of a $399 Gateway laptop compared to a $999 MacBook? I honestly don’t know.

Apple uses higher quality materials in their machines. which includes their internal parts and their cases. Almost all of their machines are made out of solid and sturdy aluminum. This will help against some falls and bumps, but still you shouldn’t be tossing it out a window just yet. Laptops are still fragile, so unless you buy a Panasonic ToughBook I’d hold off on getting the baseball bat out just yet.

Price Tag

Now I know that when your’e shopping for a computer the first thing you do is think of the price. I do too, it’s the first thing we usually think of. But what you should also think about is quality. If it feels cheaply made it probably is. No-name brands are not known for a reason most of the time. Popular brands may seem okay, but you can run into trouble. eMachines, Gateway and Acer are basically all owned by one company. So if you think Gateways machines are of poor quality don’t go out and buy an eMachines either. They’re pretty much all the same.

Think of what you are getting with a higher priced machine, for this example a MacBook. The body of the machine isn’t plastic, the AC cord and port aren’t as weak, and the OS and multimedia software included (for free) is some of the best out there, if not the best. No serial numbers, no Windows activations, no viruses, no spyware. It doesn’t take a genius to make a right choice, and before you ask, yes, the Mac can run Windows too. And it runs it beautifully. So next time you’re looking to buy a cheap computer remember, you get what you pay for.

iDVD is still broken in iLife ’11

Apple recently announced their new version of their iLife suite. Now I love this series of programs. I use iMovie, iDVD and iPhoto very often. Recently I’ve been converting a bunch of home video VHS tapes from my family and my girlfriend’s family. They love being able to have their VHS home videos on DVD with chapters and nice menus.

The problem is that iDVD version 7.0.4 (the latest version from iLife ’09) is riddled with bugs. Things just don’t work. One frustrating example is that if you choose an older theme, such as the ‘Watercolor’ theme (which is nice for family DVDs) it is impossible to edit the text in the chapters menu! Or other places as well. You can select the button, you can right-click on it, but no matter what you do, you can not change the text. So after you’ve arranged the chapters, changed the frames, moved the boxes where you want them – you can’t edit the text. The only way for you to edit the text is to temporarily switch themes, edit the text, and switch back. Losing all of your custom placement, frames, and editing. This is beyond frustrating. The only thing you can edit is the name of the menu itself.

I hoped that since iLife ’11 included iDVD they would have updated it. This didn’t seem the case, however the Apple Store site mentions that iDVD is now version 7.1, instead of the current 7.0.4. I hoped they would have fixed these issues. Sadly they remain in version 7.1 – it seems 7.1 was just made to possibly be compatible with the new version of iMovie.

Yes the themes are older and Apple probably isn’t going to fix them, but why include them if they’re broken? It’s very frustrating, especially when working with a load of similar projects. I would also love the ability to use a previous project and replace just the main video. I would like a template of the chapter titles and visual button placement/theme to stay the same, and just edit the content. That is impossible as well.

Yes Apple may be running toward the notion of digital download videos, but making DVDs is still one of the easiest ways to share videos with your family. Especially for Grandma which doesn’t have a computer and already knows how to use a DVD player. Apple needs to fix iDVD, or create a whole new version like they did with iMovie.