filmscanners: brandnew user queries

["David Lewiston" <dlewistn@maui.net>]

After reading filmscanners digest for several months, I've finally broken
down & ordered a Polaroid 4000 -- found the ecost price irresistible ($550
after rebate, including a hefty shipping fee, an extra slide holder & a neg
holder)! Fedex tracking indicates it should arrive tomorrow.

I'll be scanning mostly slides K25, K64, E200, as well as some Ektachrome
160 from the '70s; more recently I've started shooting neg so eventually
I'll need to get up to speed on that as well.

I've downloaded Vuescan.

Kihei, down by the beach on Maui where I live, is both humid & dusty. Plan
to get a sewing machine cover, and lay in a supply of PEC 12, as recommended
by list members. Other advice that I remember: antistatic brush -- but I
don't recall the particular model; and a large lenscleaning cloth. Which
brand of compressed air/gas is recommended? And I'll need to get the
Polaroid brush.

Plan to archive to Mitsui Gold CDRs. I use them for audio engineering, and
they seem to be satisfactory. Until I get up to speed, I'm thinking of
archiving the raw scans

Monitor is inadequate (15" Sony Trinitron) but tight cash prevents me from
ordering a 19" or 21" at the present time. Same applies to Photoshop, but I
have 5.5LE on hand.

I'm leaving the whole issue of printing until a later date. Getting the raw
data into the computer, & archiving it, seem to be the essentials.

One impediment: My most important transparencies, more than 50 of them, have
been removed from their holders by the pro lab that printed them, in order
to make neg masks. I expect I'll have to separate them from the neg masks in
order to scan them -- which will make the Ilfochrome printer (Rob at the
Lightroom in Berkeley) none too happy when I take them to him for more
prints.

What have I overlooked?

Thanks & salutations, David Lewiston