Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

To Digitize or Not Digitize the Family Photo Album?

Posted by Cliff on from the keeping-alive-the-good-times dept.

animys asks: "In the last few years, we have begun to witness the inevitable shift from 35mm cameras to high resolution, cheap, consumer oriented digital cameras; with this, the move away from a tangible photo album has also ensued. This change has obviously left many families with huge amounts of developed pictures and albums. For reasons of preservation and usability, some families would like to convert their previously taken pictures to a digital medium - yet many have hundreds or even thousands of pictures. What type of tools can the DIY'er use to make this process easier? Beyond the obvious scanner and graphics package, is there any good quality software that can augment this arduous and possibly over-daunting task?" What about folks looking to do the opposite? Most people take decent care of their albums, and the pictures are always viewable regardless of the changes in technology. What options are there for those folks looking to make near-picture-quality hardcopies of their digital photos for inclusion in their albums?

1 of 386 comments (clear)

  1. Re:iphoto by 3141 · · Score: 1, Offtopic

    Since when are options a bad thing?

    I agree with you, but how about a couple more options?

    Say, for example, you're installing a GNU/Linux system, and you don't know anything about hard drive partitioning. There should be both manual choice and a set of presets.

    I've often seen suggestions for partitioning that include formulas such as double the RAM for the swap partition, but not if you have more than 256 megs. I've also read that this is only true for SunOS 4. What's the truth? Well surely the coders are going to have a better idea than a LinuxNewbie just wanting to get some sort of dual-boot system up that won't trash all of his files.

    Would it be so hard to have presets, based on a combination of what packages were to be installed, the intended use of the box and the autodetected hardware present on said box?

    This is where the choice thing is going wrong. Sure, give the users the option for enough rope to hang themselves, but if it can be determined that they only need a little bit of string, suggest that first.