I opened the large images in PS and viewed them there. The difference between the two scans was quite obvious, with the Epson scan looking a lot softer. When reduced to web-sized JPEG's the differences don't appear to be as great, and I had to look carefully to see them.
While this may not have been the best test to compare a consumer flatbed with a consumer film scanner, it does support my contention and experience that flatbed scanners provide inferior results compared to dedicated film scanners. I'm not sure if you'd find the print from the Epson scanned negative acceptable (I guess that depends on the size) but it certainly wouldn't cut it for me based on what you've shown here. Thanks for posting the comparison. Very useful .... Shel "You meet the nicest people with a Pentax" > [Original Message] > From: Godfrey DiGiorgi > For those interested to see what the difference between scanning with > the Epson Perfection 2450 and the Minolta Scan Dual II might be, I've > created a web page with a sample image: > > http://homepage.mac.com/godders/scannercmp/ > > The 600 pixel wide, post-processed images on the page are linked to > their respective scan originals (click on the pix to see the original > scans in separate windows). The scan originals are exactly as they > came out of the scanner, transformed only into high-quality JPEGs to > reduce size. Post-processing included downsampling to 600 pixels > wide, performing sharpening operations and a very minor tweak with > Curves to make the two different scans look as close as possible.
