11/1    A friend has his film X-rays on loan from the lab but needs to
        transfer them to digital format so's he can take them for a second
        opinion. What's a reliable method of doing this without sacrificing
        image quality (and thereby rendering the exercise worthless)? Would
        the old lamp and scanner trick work here, or would there be too many
        flaws to make it worthwhile? Since this is to document the progress
        of arthritis in his back, the level of detail must remain high.
        TIA. --erikred
        \_ Kodak PHOTO CD.  you need to find who does it though.  This would
           cost you $75 per scan.  it is probably your best option besides
           real drum scan.  I would not trust regular flat-bed scan due to
           lack of dynamic range for most of CCD scan.  do *NOT* mistaken
           "PHOTO CD" service with "Picture CD" service.   kngharv
           \_ What's the difference between the two?
              \_ *HUGE* difference.  PHOTO CD is designed for art works and
                  professionals who requires very deep (wide dynamic range)
                  scanning.  picture CD is a nice version of negative
                  scan which is relatively consistant, to JPEG files.
                  Given the fact that you are scanning a B/W X-rate
                  positive film, I would not trust regular CCD scanning
                  as your life is probably depend upon how well these various
                  degree of shades are represented.
        \_ He can just have copies made/sent to the other doctor. Why
           bother with digitizing unless this is somehow just fun for him?
           \_ His films are stored at various and sundry labs. It would be
              more time-consuming to coordinate the copy/send than to
              digitize. --erikred
              \_ He already went to the trouble to get the x-rays on loan.
                 He could've just asked for his own copy at that time.
                 \_ Thank you. I'll pass that on. Now, do you have any
                    suggestions pertaining to the original request? --erikred
                    \_ Have him ask for his x-rays in DICOM format.  There are
                       free DICOM viewers.  Typically film like this (if
                       scanned) uses a proprietary scanner (cost is thousands
                       of dollars) to scan to a standard image format (BMP or
                       JPEG2K, etc.).  -emarkp
                       \_ What ever happened to JPEG2K?  It was the next big
                          thing, woo!  woo!.. then silence.  Not being built
                          into Mozilla, that I can see, which pretty much
                          implies it's dead... unless I'm missing something.
                          \_ I guess this answers my question: legal crap:
                             <DEAD>bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=36351<DEAD>
                             -pp
        \_ Just out of stupid curiosity, can't you just scan them?  -John