Re: filmscanners: Another Mission Completed
- Original Message - From: Edwin Eleazer [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 15:42 Subject: Re: filmscanners: Another Mission Completed Just make sure you stay clear of Washington DC this weekend, Art. We'd sure hate to lose you from this list! See the following. On May 9, 2001, a historic event at the National Press Club will take place. Nearly two dozen military, intelligence, government and other witnesses to UFO and extraterrestrial events and projects will for the first time come forward as a group to disclose the truth to the world. This is the kickoff for The Campaign for Disclosure - a campaign to get open hearings in the Congress, ban weapons from space and get the Earth-saving technologies related to UFO energy and propulsion systems out to benefit an ailing world. This Campaign will continue until its goals are met. CLIP Most interesting... If you want to see it (must have Real Player), check http://www.connectlive.com/events/disclosureproject/ for the archive. Since we are all sort of Space Cadets anyway, I trust this is not too far OT ô¿ô Mike
Re: filmscanners: A Good Epson Customer Service Story
If I remember correctly, the 2000P Color Cart is 3 color vs. 5 for the 1270 MIke - Original Message - From: Arthur Entlich [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2001 21:40 Subject: Re: filmscanners: A Good Epson Customer Service Story Some of you 1270 owners might be interested in something I picked up at a web site which deals with ink refilling. Apparently, the 1270 and 2000P color cartridge (Don't know about the black) is the same shell. However, when if you normally try to put a 2000P cart into a 1270 it shows up as being empty (via info from the chip). One person claimed that by using the trick to re-write the chip using a brand new Epson cartridge, he was able to trick his 1270 to think it had a 1270 color cart in it, when actually it had the 2000P cart in it. He claims to be happily printing away with the 2000P cart in his 1270. Now, if this is true, it means you can get a pretty inexpensive archival printer by buying the 1270 and using the reprogrammed 2000P carts in it. To say I wouldn't be surprised that Epson might have made two basically identical printers, but charges over twice the price for the 2000P does not surprise me lately. As much as I like Epson's product line this thing with the chipped cart burns me. BTW, the same site had a rumor that Epson is re-writing the software so the chip trick to reprogram an empty as full, will no longer work. I stand by none of this info as accurate. Art Jeffrey Goggin wrote: With all the complaining we do about the hardware and software manufacturers, I felt a need to tell a good story for a change. To my surprise, when the refurbished 1270 I recently purchased proved DOA, they sent me a NEW one as a replacement instead of another refurbished one. So, for $261 delivered and a few days of downtime, I ended up with a new 1270 ... too bad they don't have any refurb 2000s or 5500s available yet. :^( Jeff Goggin Scottsdale, AZ
Re: filmscanners: Stellar ghosts and Nikon Coolscan IVED (LS40)
I am not sure if you picked up this post by Ed. I agree that it sounds very like an exposure problem. As well as Ed's suggested Vuescan solution you could try Nikonscan / Extras / Autoexposure / Lowcontrast low key (or lowcontrast neutral) I hope you can sort this otherwise it seems to be a serious deficiency in what one hopes is a great scanner. Julian At 19:56 10/05/01, you wrote: In a message dated 5/10/2001 3:20:02 AM EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: When I scan an image containing black sky and bright stellar images with a Nikon Coolscan IVED (=LS40) , then close to the edge of the field every bright (saturated) stellar image has a faint ghost image separated from the main image (by 20- 40 pixels). All the ghost images are on the outside. These are not present in the center 1/3 by 1/3 of the field. Multiscanning with vuescan appears to make these features more striking because it reduces the background noise but not these images. The CCD might be over-exposed near the star, causing CCD charge bleeding. It might also be some kind of optical side effect. Try turning off Device|Auto exposure and set RGB exposure to 1.0. Regards, Ed Hamrick Julian Robinson in usually sunny, smog free Canberra, Australia
Re: filmscanners: A Good Epson Customer Service Story
Mike, The 2000P Color Cartridge is also 5 color, but uses a pigment based ink, while the 1270 uses a dye based ink. --- Jerry M. Pine Photographs are made, not taken. - Original Message - From: Mystic [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 10:19 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: A Good Epson Customer Service Story If I remember correctly, the 2000P Color Cart is 3 color vs. 5 for the 1270 MIke
Re: filmscanners: A Good Epson Customer Service Story
Definitely 5 colour + black. This is the main reason for the better photographic quality. http://www.epson.co.uk/product/printers/inkjet/styphoto2000p/spec.htm Steve If I remember correctly, the 2000P Color Cart is 3 color vs. 5 for the 1270 MIke
Re: filmscanners: Heading OT - Archive CD's, was 'Another Mission..
May I strongly agree with the alien (Art) - if any of us keep any 'treasures' on just one CD (or one *anything*), we're asking for trouble! Ignoring how they might be stored, even the best manufacturers of CD's have bad days - they can't replace your lost data (and the replacement CD you might get is not exactly much compensation..) As a paranoid, I keep 2 copies of everything, and 3 copies of anything important :) I also periodically check my media (copy the whole CD to a temporary folder), and if in doubt, just burn another from the backup copy. Any backup expert will tell you an untested backup has almost exactly the same value as no copy at all.. And one day soon a suitable new technology will mature and I'll copy 'em all over to it (twice!) and toss them away.. In 10/15 years time, will your 'PC' read CD's? (Does it still have a 5.25 drive?) At least by then any *new* stuff will probably be from *decent* (eg 100 megapixel) digital cameras. ..can't wait! Mark T.
Re: filmscanners: Stellar ghosts and Nikon Coolscan IVED (LS40)
On Fri, 11 May 2001, Rob Geraghty wrote: OK, it sounds like some sort of aberration in the scanner lens system. Is there anyone near you with another film scanner you could send a sample slide to in order to test it? Maybe with a Polaroid scanner? Out of interest, does it make any difference if you insert the slide into the scanner the other way up? Yes, it makes a difference... I did some further testing last night. I turned the slide 90 degrees, and sure enough the ghost rotated 90 degrees in repect to the stars (that is if you keep the orientation of the stars fixed) = so clearly due to the scanner and not the slide. Furthermore, I measured the effect on about 10 bright stars in the field, and noticed the following behavior. Along the line that is parallel with the long edge and goes through the center of the slide you seem to have no ghosts, but as you approach the longer edges of the slide you see these the ghosts emerging from the stellar image, the closer you are to one of the long edges of the slide the more pronounced the effect is. You can understand this as internal reflections (as was suggested by Art in the messages that arrived last night) if you consider that the scanner scans perpendicular to the long edge of the slide. Clearly such a process is optimized to the centerline. Actually the ghost images are also there on the center line, but they are superimposed on the stellar images making a nearly unnoticeable halo. Yes, replying to several of you, I have a neighbour just down the road who has a scanner too.. It's not a polaroid, but a Canon FS 2710. So I ran the same picture on through his scanner - similar resolution. And boy that must have been one of those moments, when I was happy to see an optical distortion. A similar phenomenon was visible in the images scanned with the Canon scanner, but here the image looked like a small comet (similar to a coma distortion), but with two separate tails, a red one and a green one. So instead of one blue-green ghost spot, there were two more noticeable tails of different colors pointing in the same general direction as the spot is in the picture scanned with the Nikon. The size of the distortion was more or less similar to what I had in the Nikon scanner. It appeared that the tails had a significantly higher level than the ghost spot I saw with the Nikon. It appears that I hit the ( not so bad afterall) limit of the Coolscan IV scanner. It seems also that this phenomenon may be a common problem to desktop scanners. I think you should see it at any bright source (e.g streetlight) against a (nearly) pitch black background and here only on edge of the light that is closer to the edge of the slide. It should not effect significantly ordinary day time images. The web reference had one typo in it... So here they are again. http://www.astro.utu.fi/~hlehto/nikontest/crop0016.JPG http://www.astro.utu.fi/~hlehto/nikontest/crop0020.JPG Since it appears that I'll have to live with it, are there any remedies for removing this effect from the images? It appears that if I could scale the image by a few % in y direction only, skysubrtact and multiply the new image by a suitably small number, I would have a mask that I could subtract from the orginal image to get rid of the effect. Can this be done easily? Regards Harry
Re: filmscanners: Stellar ghosts and Nikon Coolscan IVED (LS40)
I think I would clone them out. Steve - Original Message - From: Harry Lehto [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 8:25 AM Subject: Re: filmscanners: Stellar ghosts and Nikon Coolscan IVED (LS40) On Fri, 11 May 2001, Rob Geraghty wrote: OK, it sounds like some sort of aberration in the scanner lens system. Is there anyone near you with another film scanner you could send a sample slide to in order to test it? Maybe with a Polaroid scanner? Out of interest, does it make any difference if you insert the slide into the scanner the other way up? Yes, it makes a difference... I did some further testing last night. I turned the slide 90 degrees, and sure enough the ghost rotated 90 degrees in repect to the stars (that is if you keep the orientation of the stars fixed) = so clearly due to the scanner and not the slide. Furthermore, I measured the effect on about 10 bright stars in the field, and noticed the following behavior. Along the line that is parallel with the long edge and goes through the center of the slide you seem to have no ghosts, but as you approach the longer edges of the slide you see these the ghosts emerging from the stellar image, the closer you are to one of the long edges of the slide the more pronounced the effect is. You can understand this as internal reflections (as was suggested by Art in the messages that arrived last night) if you consider that the scanner scans perpendicular to the long edge of the slide. Clearly such a process is optimized to the centerline. Actually the ghost images are also there on the center line, but they are superimposed on the stellar images making a nearly unnoticeable halo. Yes, replying to several of you, I have a neighbour just down the road who has a scanner too.. It's not a polaroid, but a Canon FS 2710. So I ran the same picture on through his scanner - similar resolution. And boy that must have been one of those moments, when I was happy to see an optical distortion. A similar phenomenon was visible in the images scanned with the Canon scanner, but here the image looked like a small comet (similar to a coma distortion), but with two separate tails, a red one and a green one. So instead of one blue-green ghost spot, there were two more noticeable tails of different colors pointing in the same general direction as the spot is in the picture scanned with the Nikon. The size of the distortion was more or less similar to what I had in the Nikon scanner. It appeared that the tails had a significantly higher level than the ghost spot I saw with the Nikon. It appears that I hit the ( not so bad afterall) limit of the Coolscan IV scanner. It seems also that this phenomenon may be a common problem to desktop scanners. I think you should see it at any bright source (e.g streetlight) against a (nearly) pitch black background and here only on edge of the light that is closer to the edge of the slide. It should not effect significantly ordinary day time images. The web reference had one typo in it... So here they are again. http://www.astro.utu.fi/~hlehto/nikontest/crop0016.JPG http://www.astro.utu.fi/~hlehto/nikontest/crop0020.JPG Since it appears that I'll have to live with it, are there any remedies for removing this effect from the images? It appears that if I could scale the image by a few % in y direction only, skysubrtact and multiply the new image by a suitably small number, I would have a mask that I could subtract from the orginal image to get rid of the effect. Can this be done easily? Regards Harry
Re: filmscanners: Another Mission Completed
Congratulations to Lynn - how long did it take and how many images have you archived ? I am attempting a similar project and finding it difficult even to get going. When I bought my scanner I had already seen the results (even A3) that could be had with a 3Mpixel digicam (which is technically 8 bit colour depth and less than 0.75Mpixel Red Blue and 1.5Mpixel Green) and an Epson 1270. I figured with a decent scanner 20Mpixel (full RGB 12bit colour) image A3 would be a breeze provided the original image was OK. Oh dear, how wrong you can be. After the initial shock of my first scan I decided that this noise was normal and caused by grain, CCD noise and faults in the film and have been struggling around these problems ever since. Some slides are relatively easy others are near on impossible. Obviously I don't want to print them all A3 but I do want to archive them to CD at full scan resolution dust and other imperfections removed and colour balanced. At a later date I would then like to get the best print possible, from any image selected, with minimal fuss. I could accept that most images will only ever be viewed on the screen or printed 6x4 and this would be easy, but I am hoping to be able to print : most A3 minimum (roughly 4000dpi slide scan equates to 300dpi print) a few bigger still (after all I have had good 20x30 Cibachromes) and for the odd photographic duffer that is special for other reasons - anything will do! Am I asking too much ? To date I have only seen my own 4000dpi scans so I don't really know if these are the facts of scanning life or if my machine is duff : There will be significant noise in all continous tones ? The scanned image at any comparable size will always appear terribly soft compared to when projected unless significantly sharpened in software which generally amplifies all the flaws ? High contrast images (most slides) are a complete pain in the rear ? It will take forever just to figure out how to use the damn thing. There will always be dust (and I should have got a scanner with ICE so don't bother to rub my nose in it, please) Steve
Re: filmscanners: Another Mission Completed
John wrote: I'm curious how you, or others, store their cds. Not a problem, for me, since I made about 30 copies of the first 1000 images and distributed them to family members, with several in reserve and one in a safe-deposit box. That way, if one is destroyed, it can be copied from one in another location. And let's face it, fires and floods happen. Currently, there are another 1000+ *not* in a safety-deposit box, and thanks for reminding me! :-) Best regards--LRA --- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com
Re: filmscanners: Another Mission Completed
Hi Lynn, What size files did you decide upon for your family images. How many images per CD and what file format (this'll start another discussion for sure). Larry Not a problem, for me, since I made about 30 copies of the first 1000 images and distributed them to family members, with several in reserve and one in a safe-deposit box. That way, if one is destroyed, it can be copied from one in another location. And let's face it, fires and floods happen. Currently, there are another 1000+ *not* in a safety-deposit box, and thanks for reminding me! :-) *** Larry Berman http://BermanGraphics.com http://IRDreams.com http://ImageCompress.com ***
RE: filmscanners: Stellar ghosts and Nikon Coolscan IVED (LS40)
Harry writes ... Yes, it makes a difference... I did some further testing last night. I turned the slide 90 degrees, and sure enough the ghost rotated 90 degrees in repect to the stars (that is if you keep the orientation of the stars fixed) = so clearly due to the scanner and not the slide. To me this implies the problem is with respect to the film ... a problem with the scanner, yes ... but the problem rotates with the film. If I were to guess, and try something different ... I would snip off the sprocket holes ... possibly all those edges are the source for the internal relections(???) shAf :o)
RE: filmscanners: What causes this and is there any easy solution ?
As a preface, when you project the slide much of that grain is masked by the surface texture of the screen you are projecting on as well as by the distance you need to use to project to those projection sizes as well as to view the projected image; but the grain is probably still there just as it is in the scanned image ( this can be determined by looking at the transparency under a high powered loupe). When you scan at 4000 dpi, you are probably both picking up the grain as well as any other noise and exaggerating it so as to make it more sharply defined and apparent. Why are you scanning at an optical 4000 dpi? Could you scan at a lower optical resolution if necessary? While for 35mm slides and negatives 4000 dpi optical resolutions may be good if you are going to engage in extreme enlargement and/or cropping, they may not be required ( and even be problematic in the case of some films and images) for prints 8x10 and under. I have heard that one sometimes can scan materials that generate the sorts of problems that you are experiencing at lower resolutions and save them in Genuine Fractals' lossless mode to a .stn file, which upon opening can be both resized to almost any size as well as upsampled with the added bonus of frequently smoothing out the sharpness of the grain presentation being displayed via its use of fractal and wavelet technologies. I have not tried it for that purpose (e.g., to smooth out the sharp appearance of grain structure displays); but if you are having the problem it might be worth a try. None the less, I would reduce the scan resolutions and see how low you need to go to eliminate the problem versus the minimum resolution you need to output the portion of the image that you want at the size you want. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Steve Greenbank Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 6:15 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: What causes this and is there any easy solution ? Today I'm going for the dual prize of most boring picture (see attachment) and most dumb question ever on the list. Mark asked me about a problem in the background of some pictures http://www.grafphoto.com/grain.html The problem is that my sample (a bit of sky) from a slide projects with perfect continuous tones at any size even 40 inch by 60 inch and it still looks reasonably sharp (within reason) but yet when I scan it at 4000dpi I get a grainy effect that will show up in an A3 print and a soft image in general. The problem often gets worse with sharpening . I have found that a unsharp mask threshold 9+ usually avoids sharpening the graininess. Alternatively a gaussian blur removes it but if you do this to the whole image you end up with an even more soft image but on the plus side you can sharpen it more aggressively and use a threshold of 3-4 which means much more gets sharpened. Obviously carefully selecting the sky/problem area and blurring that separately is probably the best option but it takes ages to do this accurately and you still may get noise problems elsewhere. Am I right to assume the noise is grain, CCD noise and chemical faults on the film ? Does every see this noise ? Should I see less with SS4000/A4000 scanner (is mine and Mark's a bit duff) ? And what do you do about it ? Steve
Re: filmscanners: Corrupted Photo CD
Larry wrote: Any thoughts. I hope you have a backup. I'll keep an eye on my collection over the years and see if I have any problems. -- - Ted Felix | http://www.tedfelix.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] | What's an Mwave?
filmscanners: CD Storage (was:Another Mission Completed
Rob wrote: I have some folders with CD slip-sheets which I'm storing them in. Keeps them in a much more compact state than normal jewel cases. I've already scuffed one printer-driver CD, smack-dang out of the envelope it came in, which unfortunately made it completely unreadable. Luckily, Lexmark sent me another one by return mail. While I was waiting for the postman, I went out and bought several dozen jewel cases. Haven't scratched one since. :-) OTOH, there *are* thin-profile polyurethane cases which are fairly sturdy, reduce the depth of storage to about 1/2 that of a jewel case, and still bypass the in-and-out dangers of scratching or scuffing. Generally, I only buy CD-Rs and RWs that already have jewel cases. More expensive, I know, but losing data is more expensive still. Best regards--LRA --- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com
filmscanners: Digest mail
Due to the high numbers of messages I wish to switch to digest , I have tried to do this but failed miserably what message must I send to get my mail switched to digest, Thanks Robert Smith - Original Message - From: Cliff Ober [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 2:34 PM Subject: RE: filmscanners: Corrupted Photo CD Larry, I too have a Photo-CD with problems. It doesn't exhibit the banding problem you see, but there a couple of files that read only with great difficulty, and one file that will not read at all. This disk is also a couple of years old. So much for Kodak's vaunted 30 year Photo-CD lifespan... -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Larry Berman Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 6:18 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: Corrupted Photo CD I just had something scary happen. I put in a Kodak Photo CD to demonstrate how Photoshop allows choice of resolution when opening and discovered that every image on the disk had corrupting horizontal lines. I hadn't opened the CD in about two years. Any thoughts. I just created a web page with an example image. http://www.bermangraphics.com/problems/photocd.htm Larry *** Larry Berman http://BermanGraphics.com http://IRDreams.com http://ImageCompress.com ***
Re: filmscanners: Stellar ghosts and Nikon Coolscan IVED (LS40)
On Fri, 11 May 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You didn't try what I suggested: 1) Turn off Device|Auto exposure 2) Set Device|RGB exposure to 1.0 3) Press Scan button Yes I did. In addition to your suggestion of 1.0 I tried also with exposure 0.5 and 0.1. using single scans and multi scans. In some exposures I loose all the stars (due to shortness of exposure or due to elevated noise), but I don't seem to get rid of the ghosts, so that I can still see the stars. Maybe I should spend more time exploring the available parameter space. regards Harry
filmscanners: Another Mission Completed
On storage of CDs
Out of curiosity, anyone live in humid coastal areas (eg Florida)?
My CDs develop mould very quickly, the only workable solution seems
to be these demhumidifier cabinets. Gets filled fast, and cabinets
are expensive.
Needless to say, mould has attacked many early slides ('twas young
and careless then).
Anyone has better and/or cheaper alternatives?
Cheers
Lawrence
--
Sent through GMX FreeMail - http://www.gmx.net
Re: filmscanners: Another Mission Completed
Lary wrote: What size files did you decide upon for your family images. How many images per CD and what file format (this'll start another discussion for sure). Yeah--talk about opening a whole new can of worms! :-) I had two goals: 1) to digitize *all* the family pictures of my parents' generation and 2)to get them onto a CD medium where they'd be available to the next generation, with as little confusion as possible. Actually, there was a 3rd goal--to identify the subjects and where the photos were as of the publishing date. That made for some rather long file-names, I can tell you! :-) Getting the file sizes down to under 100kb each involved quite a bit with both pixel-dimensions and JPEGing. Purists will say That's not really archiving, and to an extent they're right--JPEG is a lossy compression format. But compromises had to be made to get that many pictures onto one CD (there were over 6,000 files--not all graphics), and more than one CD would just add complexity to the distribution and storage. I standardized at 3 @ 300dpi (900-pixel) maximum dimension, because this will make a reasonably good print. For some group pictures, I upped the size to 1200-pixels. For *very* large groups, even this is not adequate, but neither is it very legible on a computer screen, so I largely begged the question and left those for someone else to do. ;-) Keeping the file sizes under or close to 100kb also made them transmittable via email, which definitely came in handy for some identifications! B/W photo-files are easy to keep that small--in fact the average was closer to 50kb, but the RGB files were of course larger. Few of those would go under 70kb without some deterioration. I did, in fact, specially buy Micrografx PP8 just for its superior file compression abilities. In hindsight, I can see that I could have made the files slightly larger, but at start time I had no idea of how many photos there'd be--not even of my own. Naturally, there had to be a little editing along the way--but I dutifully and very reluctantly included that traditional naked-baby-picture of me so nobody could say I wasn't being even-handed. ;-) Anyway, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it! :-) Best regards--LRA --- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com
Re: filmscanners: LS-2000 VS LS-40
I'm thinking about buying either a Nikon Coolscan IV (LS-40) or a refurbished LS-2000. Both nearly same price. What do you think? The current little brother model or the older middle brother model. Thanks for any comparisons or input. The specs are nearly identical. Dave
Re: filmscanners: Another Mission Completed
How about wrap them in groups of say 10 in food wrap (cling film in the UK)
and include some silica gel which could be replaced every couple of years.
Should be very cheap and I dont see why it shouldn't work. A more expensive
but more durable option would be to replace the cling film with air tight
plastic food boxes - you'd still need the cling film.
Steve
- Original Message -
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, May 11, 2001 7:47 PM
Subject: filmscanners: Another Mission Completed
On storage of CDs
Out of curiosity, anyone live in humid coastal areas (eg Florida)?
My CDs develop mould very quickly, the only workable solution seems
to be these demhumidifier cabinets. Gets filled fast, and cabinets
are expensive.
Needless to say, mould has attacked many early slides ('twas young
and careless then).
Anyone has better and/or cheaper alternatives?
Cheers
Lawrence
--
Sent through GMX FreeMail - http://www.gmx.net
filmscanners: the Lehto effect (was Stellar ghosts ...)
Harry writes ... On Fri, 11 May 2001, shAf wrote: To me this implies the problem is with respect to the film ... The slides are framed. The ghost does not rotate with the film (it rotates in respect to the stars) - am I choosing the right words here? ... Ok! ... I thought after I wrote I may have misunderstood. Thanx especially for bringing this phenomenon to light (so to speak), and troubleshooting it properly ... and since you have duplicated a very similar effect with another scanner ... it becomes a general phenomenon we all should be aware of (... altho the effect is probably insignificant for normally exposed films ...). Still ... as general as the effect might be, we might refer to it after this as the Lehto effect (... just tell us how to pronounce it G ...) But clarify for us ... (1) the effect is always outward from the middle ... and perpendicular to how the film is scanned? ... or is it always on a specific side? ... (2) Are you scanning slides or negatives??, and can you duplicate this problem with the other film type? ... (3) Can you duplicate the effect with a pinhole?? shAf :o)
RE: filmscanners: Stellar ghosts and Nikon Coolscan IVED (LS40)
Harry - maybe this is a bit obvious, but why don't you write to Nikon with a sample and ask them what they suggest? They may not be the world's best at customer relations (perhaps because they are trying to avoid a jaggies fiasco) but IME they always answer emails I send to ... Nikon - Digital Imaging [EMAIL PROTECTED] It seems to be a real problem you have there, and one which may turn out to be fixable or may be something that Nikon need to look at. Best of luck, Julian At 07:10 12/05/01, you wrote: On Fri, 11 May 2001, shAf wrote: To me this implies the problem is with respect to the film ... a problem with the scanner, yes ... but the problem rotates with the film. If I were to guess, and try something different ... I would snip off the sprocket holes ... possibly all those edges are the source for the internal relections(???) The slides are framed. The ghost does not rotate with the film (it rotates in respect to the stars) - am I choosing the right words here? I have scanned two more pictures http://www.astro.utu.fi/~hlehto/nikontest/crop0041.jpg Here the slide is put in the scanner as should and when viewed with vuescan this image is at the bottom, somewhat to the right. You can see the ghosts below the two stars in the field. Then I turn the slide counterclockwise by 90 degrees. Now the scene is on the top edge of the vuescan window and again on the right side. Now I get http://www.astro.utu.fi/~hlehto/nikontest/crop0042.jpg. Now you can see the ghosts pointing up on the screen. Exposure is set manually on 1 sec. Gamma curves are used in processing. This image is taken with a 300mm lens, on EPH ISO 1600 - the other images mentioned earlier were taken with a 50mm lens and Kodachrome 200. Thanks for all the suggestions and tips I have had from this group. Regards Harry Julian Robinson in usually sunny, smog free Canberra, Australia
Re: filmscanners: Another Mission Completed
Lynn Allen wrote: Naturally, there had to be a little editing along the way--but I dutifully and very reluctantly included that traditional naked-baby-picture of me so nobody could say I wasn't being even-handed. ;-) Obviously, that was before all the one hour lab print techs were deputized are sex crime experts for the police. Otherwise, you might be an orphan right now! ;-) Art
Re: filmscanners: Another Mission Completed
Hi there,
I live in a humid coastal area, but it is not sub-tropical as yours is,
and our summers dry out, sort of, so we can start over again in the fall
waterlogging everything. I have not experienced mould problems on
either slides or CDs/CD-Rs. Perhaps keeping them in a cooler place
might help? My computer system and storage materials (and film) are in
a ground level location which is a good 5-10 degrees F cooler than the
upper part of the house. I assume because of that, the humidity level
drops since the air can't hold it as well. We do run a dehumidifier
during the winter months about 24 hours once a week to dry things out.
Air conditioners pull a lot of humidity out of the air, and might be
cheaper in the long run in a warmer climate, while making it a lot more
pleasant. Do you have to replace or recharge a desiccant in your
dehumidifier cabinets?
We get gallons of water each time which my wife uses to rinse her hair,
claiming it makes her hair look better (our tap water is from a well and
is very hard).
Art
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On storage of CDs
Out of curiosity, anyone live in humid coastal areas (eg Florida)?
My CDs develop mould very quickly, the only workable solution seems
to be these demhumidifier cabinets. Gets filled fast, and cabinets
are expensive.
Needless to say, mould has attacked many early slides ('twas young
and careless then).
Anyone has better and/or cheaper alternatives?
Cheers
Lawrence
Re: filmscanners: Stellar ghosts and Nikon Coolscan IVED (LS40)
Harry Lehto wrote: On Fri, 11 May 2001, shAf wrote: To me this implies the problem is with respect to the film ... a problem with the scanner, yes ... but the problem rotates with the film. If I were to guess, and try something different ... I would snip off the sprocket holes ... possibly all those edges are the source for the internal relections(???) The slides are framed. The ghost does not rotate with the film (it rotates in respect to the stars) - am I choosing the right words here? I think I would translate this to say that the position of the ghosts remain constant in respect to the scanner, regardless of how the slide is inserted, which definitely points to the optics or other aspect of the scanner, not the source material of the image. Art
Re: filmscanners: What causes this and is there any easy solution ?
Hi Steve, I just took a look at your mottled sky within photoshop. I enlarged it, I sharpened it, I sent it through a spectral analysis, I looked for encrypted messages or codes, I ... ;-) And, you are absolutely right, it is the dullest picture I've ever seen on this list. ;-) OK, enough attempt at humor. I am beginning to develop a theory about these anomalies that appear in scanned images. Is it possible that the CCDs are recording information outside of the realm of human vision? What I mean is could we be seeing artifacts of either IR or UV (or other spectrums) information which are being translated into the visible spectrum? When people speak about these oddities, it is often a whole roll exhibiting the defect where another roll of the same film type doesn't. Could differences in manufacturing, processing or other chemical or structural differences in the film (say even variations in the thickness of some otherwise invisible film layers (remnants of the color filters within the film, gelatin layers, even film base) which for all normal viewing purposes would make no difference at all in the image quality, even at high magnification, be captured via the CCD sensor process, and then translated to visible artifacts? I imagine these things may never be tested for in the manufacturing or developing processes of the film. Does anyone know if CCDs are tested for sensitivity outside of the range of the human perceptible spectrum? I mean, bees see in UV, and their view of the world is vastly different from our own. Flowers with pollen and nectar send beacons to bees which get lost for us in the mix of brilliant colors and fancy shapes... then again, flowers aren't much interested in having me be attracted to their nectar or pollen. Phil Lippencott: does any of your equipment allow for testing CCD sensitivity for the IR or UV spectrum (or even higher or lower than that?)? So, Steve, that's my dumb answer to your exceedingly dumb question... ;-) I think we might all be missing something here, simply because it is outside of our normally responsive reality. Comments, criticisms, supporting or other views? Art Steve Greenbank wrote: Today I'm going for the dual prize of most boring picture (see attachment) and most dumb question ever on the list. Mark asked me about a problem in the background of some pictures http://www.grafphoto.com/grain.html The problem is that my sample (a bit of sky) from a slide projects with perfect continuous tones at any size even 40 inch by 60 inch and it still looks reasonably sharp (within reason) but yet when I scan it at 4000dpi I get a grainy effect that will show up in an A3 print and a soft image in general. The problem often gets worse with sharpening . I have found that a unsharp mask threshold 9+ usually avoids sharpening the graininess. Alternatively a gaussian blur removes it but if you do this to the whole image you end up with an even more soft image but on the plus side you can sharpen it more aggressively and use a threshold of 3-4 which means much more gets sharpened. Obviously carefully selecting the sky/problem area and blurring that separately is probably the best option but it takes ages to do this accurately and you still may get noise problems elsewhere. Am I right to assume the noise is grain, CCD noise and chemical faults on the film ? Does every see this noise ? Should I see less with SS4000/A4000 scanner (is mine and Mark's a bit duff) ? And what do you do about it ? Steve
Re: filmscanners: Corrupted Photo CD
Oh, now you tell me, after I went out and bought hundreds of Kodak gold disks this week! ;-) I'm apt to say this is a software problem, not a corruption of data on the disk (haven't looked at your sample yet). Possible a problem within the Photoshop file that reads PCD? The likelihood of all the images being effected the same way, with a random loss of data which would be expected to occur, is less than that something consistent, on your system, has been corrupted. Is it only on the one disk? Does it happen on all PCD formatted disks? Do you have any commercially made disks with PCD files on them to test (like Corel?)? Do these lines show up in all resolutions? Are they in the same place on each image, or in a similar pattern? Art Larry Berman wrote: I just had something scary happen. I put in a Kodak Photo CD to demonstrate how Photoshop allows choice of resolution when opening and discovered that every image on the disk had corrupting horizontal lines. I hadn't opened the CD in about two years. Any thoughts. I just created a web page with an example image. http://www.bermangraphics.com/problems/photocd.htm Larry *** Larry Berman http://BermanGraphics.com http://IRDreams.com http://ImageCompress.com ***
RE: filmscanners: Stellar ghosts and Nikon Coolscan IVED (LS40)
This might be a silly question - but how closely have you looked at the original trannie? With exposures where you have a black background and very bright points of light you can get bounce back off film plate in the back of the camera that look like halos. Can remember what this effect is called. Cheers Rob Suisted Nature's Pic Images New Zealand Nature Scenic Photography Email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Have you checked out Nature's Pic Images on the Web yet?. Website: http://www.naturespic.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Harry Lehto Sent: Saturday, 12 May 2001 06:25 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Stellar ghosts and Nikon Coolscan IVED (LS40) On Fri, 11 May 2001 [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: You didn't try what I suggested: 1) Turn off Device|Auto exposure 2) Set Device|RGB exposure to 1.0 3) Press Scan button Yes I did. In addition to your suggestion of 1.0 I tried also with exposure 0.5 and 0.1. using single scans and multi scans. In some exposures I loose all the stars (due to shortness of exposure or due to elevated noise), but I don't seem to get rid of the ghosts, so that I can still see the stars. Maybe I should spend more time exploring the available parameter space. regards Harry
Re: filmscanners: LS-2000 VS LS-40
The only advantage I see to buying the older one is it is a proven. Of course, it is proven defective, but that's another story ;-) The main advantage of buying the newer one is a better warranty (ha,ha... it is a Nikon...) maybe better software support (I don't know if the firmware has been updated, or if new software features for it might not work with the LS-2000), better resale value since it is a newer model and you might be able to make Nikon feel more responsible to you if a problem occurs because it is newer. I can tell you that they pretty much dismiss you if you own their older products. Art shAf wrote: Dave writes ... I'm thinking about buying either a Nikon Coolscan IV (LS-40) or a refurbished LS-2000. Both nearly same price. What do you think? The current little brother model or the older middle brother model. ... The specs are nearly identical. The specs are identical. Personally, and using the LS-2000, I see no need to go upward to the LS-4000 ... but the ability to batch scan with the LS-2000 is somewhat deficient with respect to focus. It film strip feeder doesn't hold the film as flat as does the film strip holder, which cannot be used for multiple frame batch scans. Perhaps, the film feeder has improved(?) shAf :o)
