digital images of type specimens

[Peter Rauch]

>Date:         Tue, 22 Aug 1995 22:22:29 -0500
>From: LINGAFELTER STEVEN WAYNE <lingafel at FALCON.CC.UKANS.EDU>
>        Along a similar thread, I took a bunch of slides of types and was
>disappointed to find them all very dark.  Some color and most structures
>are visible, but these aren't good enough to use to answer many questions
>about these taxa.  Is there affordable software that is available to
>capture some of the hidden information?  In other words can I refine
>the dark areas into a broader spectrum of colors via some digital
>manipulation?

You might be able to do that. It depends on _how_ dark the important
detail areas are , and how much detail is actually contained in the
photo slide (i.e, if you studied the slide with a strong backlight and
a 12-15X handlens or dissecting scope, could you see important detail
in those dark areas?). If the detail is there, then with some hardware
(scanners; different brands/models have varying dynamic range
characteristics just like film does) and software (image-editing
programs), you might be able to capture some of that detail (at the
cost of losing some of the detail that in is the lightest areas of the
photo; but, you could scan a second time to optimize capture of the
light-area detail, too).

I assume that you _really_ want to scan those dark slides because
you have no practical opportunity to go back and re-photograph them?

>The last question, how do you scan a slide?  Do you need
>special hardware,

Yes (a scanner of some sort; as well as imaging software).

or can you just place it on a scanner?

Yes, also (I assume that you mean some kind of flatbed scanner; if it
has a "transparency" option/feature). The issue is, an noted above,
will the particular scanner have the characteristics you need to handle
these particular dark images.  Peter