The Sawara labeled 'Lutea' in the above picture appears to be a filifera form, perhaps casting some doubt on the identification. "P. mariana 'Wellspire' Introduced --A.L. Jacobson, North American Landscape Trees (1996, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley) Under the previous entry, P. mariana 'Fastigiata', Jacobson notes that trees sold in the 1980s under that name were a P. abies cultivar like 'Cupressina'. I have observed myself that stock coming from Wells in recent years as upright P. mariana forms have been the same as other plants labeled P. abies 'Cupressina' elsewhere.

candler, Back in the Win 95 era I bought a flat bed UMAX scanner. Really a good unit and came with Adobe Photo. The UMAX wouldn't work on the 98 system and I went through a couple scanners and ended up with an Epson 2480. In the meantime, I had I purchased Abobe Photo Delux Home Edition 4. It is the best of 4 or 5 software imaging packages I've tried. I finished scanning black and white family photos for the years 1916 to 1966 just before Christmas. Not really difficult, just time consuming. If you spend a little time learning your software you'll be surprized what it can do. For example, half of a B&W photo is in shade. So, with your image software you trace the shaded portion to define the working area and then begin to lighten and increase the contrast until it matches or comes close to the unshaded area. Creases in the photo can be overpainted with the clone function. Select the color or pattern at the crease and use that to paint over the crease. And the list goes on. It is astounding what can be done. Some will tell you that if the detail is not in the photo then there's nothing that can be done to enhance it. Don't believe it. I have copied eyes from one photo and pasted into another; change portions of the background that contain farm equipment or the neighbors dog. Get a decent scanner with a decent speed. Nothing is so frustrating as waiting for the thing to do what its supposed to do. Use the image software that comes with it and if it won't do what I've described, go to plan B. Hang in there. Its a wonderful project you're starting. Bob Central Arizona.

You need a scanner which can scan slides and negatives. Most of the ones which are called photo scanners will work, I used the Epson Perfection 1660 Photo to do mine. It cost around $80 when I bought it. A regular scanner will not work. To scan slides and negatives they have to be backlit. For editing the pictures after scanning something like adobe photoshop elements or corel paint shop pro is nice, but you may have other photo editing software on your computer that will work. If you have a dvd writer on your computer you should have everything else you need. There was a thread about this not long ago. You should find it if you do a search. Dont expect to finish the project in a hurry because it will take some time.

I have a HP PhotoSmart 3210xi All-In-One and it does all the things you specified above, and does it well. I have run 7000 sheets through it, some were photo paper, and encountered only one jam, and that was because an unnoticed dog eared sheet was in the paper supply. I don't think this model is available any more, but has been superceded by later models with similar capabilities. The major difference for the model that foll0wed this one is choices of connections to the computer. My model included frames for scanning 35 mm transparences, although a dedicated 35 mm scanner probably does a better job due to more pixels per inch. These frames store inside the lid of the printer - very handy. This printer series breaks with HP tradition of ink jets on the bottom of the ink cartridges, thus getting new jets each time a cartridge is changed. The advantage to this is if the ink jets become clogged, these can be tossed away and a new set loaded in. This technology was often limited to one black cartridge plus a 3 color cartridge. This combination was lacking a bit in print detail for photos compared to multi-colors of ink. The PhotSmart series uses fixed ink jets, similar to competitors, and 6 ink colors: Black, Yellow, Light Cyan, Cyan, Light Magenta, and Magenta. With these colors, the printer is able to produce a wide range of colors and shades. The ink is HP's Vivera, a much improved ink. it is fade resistant and supposedly more immune to smearing, however, I find that both printed paper and photo ptints still must be protected from water droplets, and are not smear proof, but are a little more smear proof than hte older ink. The major advantage is much better fade resistance. The ink cost is higher than the older 2 cartridge setup although one only needs to replace individaul colors when used up. Because ofthe fixed ink jet heads, HP has built in an automatic maintence routine to keep the jets clear. Periodically, the printer will enter this routine and purr for about 30 seconds while it runs the jet maintence. During this period, power should not be removed from the printer, and the printer is not available for printing. At first, it is startling when the printer, without waring, suddently makes a noise and enters the maintence routine. After awhile, the user gets accustomed to this noise and the startle factor goes away. Inks are available in single and double packs of individual colors. However, HP does supply a photo kit of inks and about 150 4x6 photo sheets. This kit is rasonable priced for the photo papers, but beware that the ink cartridges contain only enough ink to print the photo papers in the pack assuming average color mix. Some of the cartidges do not contain as much ink as a regular cartridge.