Some Random Links

I really like everything Randy Cassingham does, pretty much... In addition to This is True and The True Stella Awards, as well as HeroicStories, which he started, he has a site called Bonzer Web Sites of the Week. Each week in This is True, he publishes a new site, suggested by premium True readers. I actually just realized, as I put Bonzer into my list of favorite links, that all of the links that are there so far are Randy's...

Soon, I'm going to be checking out this recent entry: Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools. I'm interested already in a photography book he discusses. The Border's Books near my office didn't have it...

Now, it's not as if I'm going to try to do something really like Bonzer Sites, but I do think I'll have to at least start putting up things I find amusing or cool or... well, whatever. Maybe I'll even categorize them if I do it enough.

For tonight, I'm rather darkly amused by Whack Your Boss.

Since I'm trying to get back into serious photography, I may start looking at Photo Workshop.

And, since Dan and I are considering finding someone to scan all our old negatives and slides (and Duane is interested, and I might try to get my parents and my brother to join in), we were checking out Digital Pickle. Hell, I might pay to do my parents' myself if I have to... lots of cool family photos there... I don't think it will be cheap, but if we all go in together, we should get a decent volume discount. We're thinking of doing the 'regular' scan at medium resolution (2500 pixels per inch) in general. If there are some that we really want the high quality (4000 ppi) or special ('true color' or 'clean') scans, we can do those individually. For high res with both true color & clean scans, it's $1.97 per 35mm without volume discounts. The regular scan by itself is only $0.69...

The medium format stuff from our wedding is a harder decision... I don't believe we should need the extra processing, but the high res alone is 5.99 per vs 2.99 per for the medium res (which is only 2000 ppi for medium format). I don't remember how many there are... maybe I'll sort through them and do some at high and some at medium. Hmm...

Another site does negative & slide scanning at $0.39 per for 3000 ppi and $0.49 per for 4000 ppi. Actually, that might be more in line with the economy scans by Digital Pickle, which are .55 and .75 for 2500 & 4000 ppi. With PhotoShop correction, this place wants .69 and .89 vs Digital Pickle's .69 and .99. My Special Photos offers 4 scans free, so maybe I'll do that and see how they come out and then pay Digital Pickle to do the same ones and compare them.

And there's another site that wants .65 and .79 per for negatives or slides if you do 1001 or more, which we'll easily do if we get together. Dan has at least 4000 just from his two big trips (Europe and Africa). Duane and I don't even get close to that. Of course, 1000 pictures at .65 is still $650. Well, there are a bunch of sites that do it; of the four I've looked at, though, only Digital Pickle will a) do medium format and b) pick them up from me and drop them off again.