Kodak Picture CD™
Hints

Gee... the prints I got look really good but...
If you were disappointed when you popped in the CD of the wonderful pictures you took on your trip and thought that the scans didn't look anything like your prints or slides your not alone.

I thought I'd try getting a Kodak Picture CD™ with the test roll from my last trip just to see if the time it would save me was worth the cost. I looked at the CD images before I looked at the slides. They looked pretty awful, real flat and drab. I had used a new film and I thought I made a big mistake. Until I got out the actual transparencies and saw they were indeed as beautiful as I remembered. I made a scan myself and easily made it look like the slide. Then I opened the same image from the CD and played with it in PhotoShop until I got it to look reasonably close to the actual slide it came from.

Scanning is an art. 30-40 cents a pop is a good deal even if all the scans do look flat and drab. The image on the right is an actual unretouched file from my Kodak Picture CD™ scan. It looks OK if you didn't know it was a bright day. Luckily most of the needed information was there, it just needed to be rescued.

They can be saved... ( Just Take a look at the adjusted file compared to a real scan. )
If you're not a PhotoShop whiz don't worry, we'll fix 'em before we put 'em on QuietJourney. For those of you who joke that you are lucky that you even know how to turn your computer on, follow the instructions below and your mother won't be the only one that thinks you're a good photographer.

  1. Select the image.
    (If you a purest and don't want to crop your image can skip down to #7)
  2. Click Modify
  3. Crop it with just a little extra room around the edges.
  4. Apply the crop.
  5. Pretend the auto-enhance button doesn't exist.
  6. Click Return - saving changes.
  7. Click Save As
  8. Click Save As again then choose
    Image Size: Reprint (640 x 427)
    Compression/Quality: None/Best
  9. Click OK and save it someplace you can find it like your desktop, giving it a name including .jpg at the end.
  10. Attach it to the e-mail you received from QuietJourney. Don't forget to include captions or whatever text other visitors might enjoy.