Re: filmscanners: high res wwwsites
cinu writes ... ... I would really appreciate if any of you could point me to a site which has a few pictures scanned on some of the real expensive (600$)scanners at high resolutions (=2700dpi). Although many wwwsites may present images which were originally scanned at PPI2700, they will be reduced in resolution and made appropriate for wwweb presentation. The best site for posted comparisons is probably Tony's site: http://www.halftone.co.uk/ ... follow the "film scanner's" link to "scanner reviews". Another good site on the general topic is: http://www.scantips.com HTH ... shAf :o)
filmscanners: Noise (was: Printing A3 from a 2700dpi scan
Joe wrote: File compression (such as with jpeg) can also contribute to noise in the blue channel. Curiously enough, JPEG compression (along with resizing) can also (and only sometimes) *reduce* the amount of noise in a picture. Which, to me, indicates that noise *and* JPEG are not exactly predictable. --LRA --- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com
filmscanners: Noise (was: Printing A3 from a 2700dpi scan
It appears to me that Rob is talking about "grain-aliasing" (in negs), and Joe is talking about "noise" (in the blue channel). To me the "noise" phenomenon looks almost identical to aliasing in either slides or negs, and yes, it's predominant in the (dark) blue channel in both cases. It always appears in the same scenario--dark blue subject matter and/or shadow detail in bright sun, which adds the matter of "dynamic range" to the equation. I'm less interested in the "why's" of the problem than in a means of dealing with it. After all, what's done is done, and getting acceptible results--short of retouching a picture pixel-by-pixel--is the next consideration. Best regards--LRA Joe wrote: CCD's (Charged Couple Device) used in scanners and digital cameras are least sensitive to blues, making it difficult for them to interpret those colors correctly. File compression (such as with jpeg) can also contribute to noise in the blue channel. Rob wrote: OK, but as I mentioned earlier - we're talking about *negatives* where this problem is most evident, not transparencies, so the colour the CCD sees isn't blue at all. --- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com
Re: filmscanners: OT: JPEG on Amiga
--- You wrote: I will explain the rest to you in private email, since this is OT. But the thing you need to know is that JPEG decompressors now used are standardized, and you will see little, if any difference between them. Art --- end of quote --- That explains it and does answer my question exactly. The package I used when I saw the problem was TurboPrint which cost about $80 and did a pretty good job driving the Epson at the time. I wonder if they've upgraded their jpeg decompressor in a later version. Vuescan upgrades do seem amazing. I fianlly downloaded it to my SuperMac last night and it would not run, even locked up the computer. Constant revision can do that sort of thing. Wait until the next microscopic revision. I watched that kind of responsive development with the Picasso driver software on the Amiga and it was actually very satisfying,though a little frustrating at times, when a new version accidently undid something that had been stable for months. That's how it works. Thanks again, Rich
Re: filmscanners: negative and skin tones
Mike wrote: All this discussion of skin tones, etc., only underlines my contention that the best way to get calibrated for color and stay there is to get a shot of a black/18%gray/white card under the same light conditions your subject and set your points to that Absolutely, 100-per-cent!!! Anything else is "color memory," on the part of the operator. This is the "Art Director" in me talkin': I only met one person in 40-years who had a flawless color memory; there are others, I'm sure, but he was the only guy I could verify was right every time. In my particular case, adding the color card is a little like chasing the horses after leaving the doors open, but for others it's an inexpensive and useful precaution. Do it! :-) Best regards--LRA --- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com
RE: filmscanners: Burning CD's
Good post, Mike. When this topic first came up, 6-8 months ago on the List (and not everybody was "here" then), we learned that a)there is no definitive study of which discs are the most stable and/or compatible, and that b)the only studies *at all* are sponsored by the media manufacturers--possibly not the most objective source. I promptly switched to gold-backed discs and redundant copies, but the jury's still out (for the next 20-30 years). ;-) Since so many List members are in fact professional photographers and since Writable CD-ROM (as opposed to DVD, which is not currently "writable" in a real-world, everyday sense), it seems to me that some joint studies by the various photographers' associations would be very much in order. You can't do much about the *time* factor, but the compatibility factor seems to need work. Best regards--LRA Mike wrote: Just found this at CretaiveProse.com it's a well written and concise article on the storage medium that most of us trusting our hard won images to. One thing it says, is that the green CD-R's are the worst when it comes to compatibility with DVD drives as well as other CD drives.. http://www.creativepro.com/story/feature/12503.html?cprose=2-14 Mike M. --- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com
RE: filmscanners: AcerScanwit but also generic calibration
I had assumed that VueScan and other scanner software already did black and white point compensation, but I think you may be right that they do not do black point compensation. I have done BW compensation for area CCD cameras I use at work and it greatly improves the uniformity.
re: filmscanners:Focusing with Acer Scanwit WAS SS4000
If you use VueScan you can certainly manually enter focus values. With the new version 7.0.10 and a better alignment for multipass scans I'm going to try with a negative that is grain aliased badly in skin tones a multipass scan with focus set to SCAN so the multiple images are focused at slightly different values and observe the difference. alan I can! I'm experimenting with many different ways to help with grain-aliasing on neg's on my Acer 2720, and de-focussing can help.. Because the Acer does not have manual focus, I have to trick it by using a dummy frame, but it can be done.. It's not the holy grail, but it is one more useful tool.
RE: filmscanners: AcerScanwit
Collin and Todd-- I got this informtion from one of our Acer scanner users. It may help answer your questions. Jack Phipps Applied Science Fiction Jack: - here is the information that Maury pulled together to respond to your chat-room's comments regarding Acer 2740S performance. - as you relay this data, please let them know that Digital ICE is rapidly becoming a de facto standard, not only for consumer film scanners (particularly w/ the introduction of the 3 Nikon DICE3 units, plus the Minolta Multi II and Elite, and the Acer unit), but also in the DML environment (Noritsu 2711, Noritsu 2801, Noritsu 2802, and Gretag D1008). - so perhaps, "ICE should rank high in most people's list of dinner-party conversation topics" Within miraphoto (Acer Software) the autopreview was turned on. In each case a series of four slides were scanned and the times given below are the total times to scan the four images. Images were gathered using a 600MHz Pentium III computer with 512MB RAM. w/o ICE w/ICE ICE time factor Auto Preview73 sec. 138 sec.1.89 X Scan 300 dpi (High Speed) 102 sec.225 sec.2.21 X Scan 2700 dpi (High Speed) 155 sec.350 sec.2.26 X Scan 2700 dpi (High Quality)155 sec.369 sec.2.38 X Possibilities for much longer times from this customer might be due to computer configuration. Best regards, Jorge Gamez -Original Message- From: Todd Radel [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, April 02, 2001 11:58 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: AcerScanwit From: "Collin Ong" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Can you give some real-world numbers on how long a normal scan and a ICE scan take? I can certainly do so. Every few days I scan another batch. Next time I'll try to remind myself to grab a stopwatch first. -- Todd -- Todd Radel - [EMAIL PROTECTED] SCHWAG.ORG - Where Freaks and Geeks Come Together http://www.schwag.org/ PGP key available at http://www.schwag.org/~thr/pgpkey.txt
RE: filmscanners: AcerScanwit but also generic calibration
Dean wrote: I had assumed that VueScan and other scanner software already did black and white point compensation, but I think you may be right that they do not do black point compensation. I have done BW compensation for area CCD cameras I use at work and it greatly improves the uniformity. My "experiments" are not very good, but when I coupled a totally dense (color) neg with a totally clear neg on a single frame in my Scanwit, neither the native MiraPhoto driver nor Vuescan did much of a job of compensating. Both halves of the "frame" wound up very noisy on the first (and supposedly calibrating) pass. It was easily possible to compensate--that is, to adjust half of the frame to black and the other half to white--but the results of subsequent neg scans wasn't something you'd want to send home to your mother! ;-) There's some good chance that I did the experiment wrong, so if others have tried it with success, I'd welcome your reports. Best regards--LRA --- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com
RE: filmscanners: Burning CD's
Note that kodak doesn't make gold disks anymore - only the new silver alloy ones or something. I think Quantegy may still make them? Tim A -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Todd Radel Sent: April 4, 2001 8:11 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Burning CD's One thing it says, is that the green CD-R's are the worst when it comes to compatibility with DVD drives as well as other CD drives.. IIRC the dyes use two colors together. It's not green that is the worst, but blue/green. Kodak uses gold/green, which is fairly stable. I've had better luck with Kodak InfoGuard discs than any others, but note that Kodak now has a cheaper line also. The Kodaks are $1.50-$2 per disc, much more expensive than others, but I guess you get what you pay for. TANSTAAFL. -- Todd Radel - [EMAIL PROTECTED] SCHWAG.ORG - Where Freaks and Geeks Come Together http://www.schwag.org/ PGP key available at http://www.schwag.org/~thr/pgpkey.txt
RE: filmscanners:Focusing film flatness
--- You wrote: When I bought an expensive slide-projector about 10 years ago, I took it straight back when it gave out of focus edges on curved slides. After some argument, they ended up relenting and giving me a much better lens with sufficient depth of field. It copes easily with flat and curved slides, and so does my current scanner, a low end 2720 model. --- end of quote --- This is an interesting statement. The only things that affects depth of field in a lens is its apeture or focal length. A 'much better lens' doesn't necessarily imply either. What would affect edge sharpness is the flatness of the lens' focal field (not necessarily the correct technical term.) Not all camera lenses focus correctly on a flat surface and we are likely to spend extra bucks on a flat field macro lens for really accurate copying work, for example. We assume our expensive enlarging lenses are flat field. But under some practical conditions, where film planes aren't actually flat, a lens with a somewhat concave field is actually an advantage since it would give you a sharp image on a curved surface. In the projector business, it is likely that a 'better lens' has a slightly curved field to match the assumed curvature of a slide. Increasing a projector lens' depth of field by reducing it's apeture is impractical since it would result in a much dimmer image on the screen. So the question is, are the lenses in film scanners flat field, or are they slightly dished to accomodate film curvature? Or are some small apeture, high depth of field lenses working with more sensitive ccds. Tony praises a fixed focus Minolta scanner which would have to fit the later category. How about some others? Rich
RE: filmscanners: AcerScanwit
On Wed, 4 Apr 2001, Jack Phipps wrote: total times to scan the four images. Images were gathered using a 600MHz Pentium III computer with 512MB RAM. w/o ICE w/ICE ICE time factor Auto Preview 73 sec. 138 sec.1.89 X Scan 300 dpi (High Speed) 102 sec.225 sec.2.21 X Scan 2700 dpi (High Speed)155 sec.350 sec.2.26 X Scan 2700 dpi (High Quality) 155 sec.369 sec.2.38 X Jack, thanks for following up with the data. I'm shocked at the 6 min, 9 sec scan time with ICE at high quality. I'm wondering how this compares to other ICE-enabled scanners, because that scan time would be intolerable for me at least. Collin
Re: filmscanners: Burning CD's
I am producing masterized music CDs in quantity (for personal use ! ) about 10-12 new CDRs every week ... the reader of Mercedes Benz (Becker) is one of the most difficult to satisfy and so for an old Nakamichi audio CDP the OMS1. after many trials (TDK, Kodak, Verbatim, Sony, Memorex, Imation and many others ) I have found that SKC (using the old SONY production lines) are well accepted either by Becker reader either by Nakamichi . The SKC are also very cheap , you can buy boxes of 125 CD for 50$. ... my 2 cents Sincerely. Ezio www.lucenti.com e-photography site - Original Message - From: "Todd Radel" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 5:11 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: Burning CD's One thing it says, is that the green CD-R's are the worst when it comes to compatibility with DVD drives as well as other CD drives.. IIRC the dyes use two colors together. It's not green that is the worst, but blue/green. Kodak uses gold/green, which is fairly stable. I've had better luck with Kodak InfoGuard discs than any others, but note that Kodak now has a cheaper line also. The Kodaks are $1.50-$2 per disc, much more expensive than others, but I guess you get what you pay for. TANSTAAFL. -- Todd Radel - [EMAIL PROTECTED] SCHWAG.ORG - Where Freaks and Geeks Come Together http://www.schwag.org/ PGP key available at http://www.schwag.org/~thr/pgpkey.txt
RE: filmscanners: File format
That wouldn't help as different programs use different scales in their Options or Save As boxes to determine JPEG compression levels, there doesn't seem to be a standard. Also as other people in this thread have pointed out, even repeatedly saving the file at the same compression level in the same program can lose stuff... [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Laurie Solomon) wrote: I must admit that when I wrote my comments below I was only considering files openened and saved as .jpg files from within editing applications like Photoshop and did not take into account files saved to .jpg files automatically by such devices as cameras. Just speculating; but wouldn't opening the camera created .jpg in an image editing program allow one to determine the compression level of that file via one of the dialog boxes; but that evidently is not the case. Thus, the only suggestion that I would have is if your camera saves automatically to .jpg and does not let you select a compression level then the manufacture should be able to tell you the default compression leve that the camera uses. However, your point is well taken. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Derek Clarke Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 12:04 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: filmscanners: File format The difficult part is re-saving the file with the same compression ratio as it had originally. Even the mighty Photoshop just uses one compression ratio for all JPEG file saves. That compression ratio can be set manually , but how do you ensure it is exactly the same as the original ratio, especially if the camera saved it originally? To me, that is the main reason why it is sensible to store a picture you intend to do anything with in an uncompressed format, irrespective of whether the original file was a JPEG or not. [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Laurie Solomon) wrote: Each time there would be some generational loss. Not necessarily true. If you open and close ( or resave) the compressed file without changing the compression from one quality level to another in the case of .jog or without resampling the image prior to closing or resaving the file, there will be no more degradation than opening and closing or resaving a raw uncompressed file. When you open a compressed file you have uncompressed it, so resaving it with the same compression as before or without engaging in any resampling prior to resaving the file should not result in any additional losses in data or quality. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Larry Berman Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 8:31 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: File format What would be the point of storing and reopening and saving the same image in a compressed format repeatedly. Each time there would be some generational loss. Store in an uncompressed native format to your graphics program. If you open a jpeg in Photoshop it automatically takes on the characteristics of a PSD. That's why you should save it as a PSD prior to working on it. Then use Photoshop's "Save for the Web" to create your compressed jpeg.
Re: filmscanners: AcerScanwit but also generic calibration
AIUI, there is no software control of *exposure* available to the Scanwit programmer, so you're stuck with the automatic exposure that the machine decides is appropriate for the frame being scanned. All Vuescan (or any other software) can do is twiddle the raw scan after scanning. So scanning 'black' or 'white' frames would have no point, because the scanner would still do its own thing on the real frame. The only place where this has proved seriously problematical for me with my Scanwit is that it disables the suggestions in the Vuescan Help file for getting consistency in multi-shot panoramas and the like. You can be careful to expose consistently in the camera, and set the orange mask values to be identical, but the scanner will still not give matching tones from frame to frame. Another place where it's a handicap is in badly over or underexposed frames, where it would be nice to experiment with the scanning exposure to get tone in the most desired details. Regards, Alan T - Original Message - From: Shough, Dean [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 1:56 PM Subject: RE: filmscanners: AcerScanwit but also generic calibration I had assumed that VueScan and other scanner software already did black and white point compensation, but I think you may be right that they do not do black point compensation
RE: filmscanners:Focusing film flatness
So the question is, are the lenses in film scanners flat field, or are they slightly dished to accomodate film curvature? Or are some small apeture, high depth of field lenses working with more sensitive ccds. Kodak and others used to make projection lenses with field curvature designed to match the expected curvature of cardboard mounted slides. Worked well unless the slide was reversed or mounted in glass. It would be worthwhile to reverse the film in a scanner showing insufficient depth of field (a.k.a. the recent Nikon 4000 review). If the field curvature of the lens looks like ) but the film looks like ( then reversing the film would make both look like ).
Re: filmscanners: Burning CD's
Kodak still has Gold Ultima on their website. Are your sure they stopped making them? http://www.kodak.com/US/en/digital/cdr/product/index.jhtml Maris - Original Message - From: "Tim Atherton" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2001 11:08 AM Subject: RE: filmscanners: Burning CD's | Note that kodak doesn't make gold disks anymore - only the new silver alloy | ones or something. | | I think Quantegy may still make them? | | Tim A | | -Original Message- | From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Todd Radel | Sent: April 4, 2001 8:11 AM | To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Subject: Re: filmscanners: Burning CD's | | | One thing it says, is that the green CD-R's are the worst | when it comes to compatibility with DVD drives as well as other CD | drives.. | | IIRC the dyes use two colors together. It's not green that is the | worst, but | blue/green. Kodak uses gold/green, which is fairly stable. I've had better | luck with Kodak InfoGuard discs than any others, but note that | Kodak now has | a cheaper line also. The Kodaks are $1.50-$2 per disc, much more expensive | than others, but I guess you get what you pay for. TANSTAAFL. | | -- | Todd Radel - [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | SCHWAG.ORG - Where Freaks and Geeks Come Together | http://www.schwag.org/ | | PGP key available at http://www.schwag.org/~thr/pgpkey.txt | | | |
filmscanners: FS: Nikon LS-2000
All, I could not find whether it is ok to post this sort of thing so if it is a no-no I apologize. I have a Nikon LS-2000 that I am going to sell. I thought I'd offer it here before putting it on ebay. If anyone is interested please contact me off list. Lawrence Smith http://lwsphoto.com mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
RE: filmscanners: Burning CD's
Tim wrote: Note that kodak doesn't make gold disks anymore - only the new silver alloy ones or something. I think Quantegy may still make them? I've note exactly that, unhappily (I don't mind paying for something that will last). What's the "Next Best Thing?" --LRA --- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com
Re: filmscanners: Burning CD's
Note that kodak doesn't make gold disks anymore - only the new silver alloy ones or something. Wow, I didn't know that. I better hoard the ones I have left, then. -- Todd Radel - [EMAIL PROTECTED] SCHWAG.ORG - Where Freaks and Geeks Come Together http://www.schwag.org/ PGP key available at http://www.schwag.org/~thr/pgpkey.txt
Re: filmscanners: Crashes with Nikon LS4000
Nikon have done the same mistake as Polaroid did with the pree released Sprintscan 4000 1.5 years ago. The Polaroid software Insight was terrible. ( Im not sure if it works today) The Nikon ED 4000 and software are not optimized and ready for the market yet. Polaroid 4000 and Nikon LS2000 comes together with Silverfast 5 (here in Sweden) and the scanners works well.. Only hope Nikon does the same thing with ED4000 as a choice to NikonScan. I think NikonScan can be a good software in next up date, it has the basic quality and have not so many errors as Insight in the beginning. Mikael Risedal -- From: "Jeremy Brookfield" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: Crashes with Nikon LS4000 Date: Wed, 04 Apr 2001 01:11:20 +0200 Has anyone had much success with Nikon Scan 3.0 and the LS4000? The software seems practically useless as it stands. I get repeated crashes in several different dlls. I have found some work arounds and have actually managed to do some scans but these workarounds are time consuming and extremely annoying. For example, I can't even save as TIFF but instead have to save as NEF, close Nikon Scan, restart it, open the NEF file and then save as TIFF. Such problems occur on each of the 3 machines (all Win 2000) I have tested. Thanks in advance, Jeremy Brookfield. _ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.
RE: filmscanners: File format
That wouldn't help as different programs use different scales in their Options or Save As boxes to determine JPEG compression levels, there doesn't seem to be a standard. Also as other people in this thread have pointed out, even repeatedly saving the file at the same compression level in the same program can lose stuff... There's a lot of good jpeg info of this type in the jpeg faqs: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/jpeg-faq/ -- Bob Shomler http://www.shomler.com/gallery.htm
Re: filmscanners: new Minolta Scan Dual II not working after oneday.
I'm not sure whether you already it this way, but here is what works on my G4. I have it plugged into one of my keyboard's USB sockets, with the mouse plugged into the other one. I never disconnect it. I wake up the G4, then turn on the Scan Dual, which must have the door completely closed at this point. I activate the Minolta SD software. Then I open the door to the narrow open position, and insert a loaded negative (or slide) holder. I can then hit the index scan button and it starts the process. This has never failed for me. I did not like the EasyScan alternative, but I can't remember why. Something did not seem to work correctly. So I always use the regular driver software. (However, I am sending my scanner to Minolta because of a "tram line", a narrow cyan band running the width of the scan. This problem started after I had done maybe 20 or so scans. I guess it is a faulty CCD, but don't know for sure yet.) Good luck, and let me know if you have any other questions that I can share my very limited experience on. -Berry
