[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 Photoshop CS: best waytoscan
Ed, I think what I'm trying to get at is: Given a person with good Photoshop skills, is it an easier path to simply scan the neg in and modify it in Photoshop vs tweaking it in the scanning program and modifying it with the scan software? I'm coming from the viewpoint that the scanning software, be it Minolta's, Silverfast Ai, or vuescan, just is doing a crappier job of modifying the file POST scan, just as I could do with Photoshop in a better way. I've read reports to that effect. So, I'm asking if either of the above software packages modify anything PRE scan. If they don't, then: - does it matter what software package you use with the 5400, - what is the best setting to get the neg (both color and bw) scanned (16 bit, 16 bit linear, positive, whatever). Best, -David Ray Carson web: http://www.davidraycarson.com/ At 01:46 AM 8/18/2004, you wrote: Ok, my head is swimming here. I've read elsewhere that the Minolta 1.1.5 software (actually, any software, silverfast and vuescan too) just modifies the scan at the software level, not the hardware level. I'm talking about 'exposure compensation' tab and 'image correction tab.' Also, for background, I'm a very competent Photoshop user, and I don't have a problem modifying the scan with PS levels, curves, hue, etc. I'm a newbie at scanning. So, my question to you guys is what is the best way (fastest, highest quality file) to use the 5400, especially with color neg: - scan in 16 bit color neg, or - scan in 16 bit linear color neg, or - scan in as color positive, either 16 bit or 16 bit linear - And what about black and white film? - Will either of the two commercial scanning software packages (silverfast or vuescan) give me better results if you look at my premise? I just can't seem to find the resources anywhere for these questions. Will the resultant file be a sort of 'digital neg' in the same fashion a RAW file is for digital cameras? I figure since PS CS can manipulate 16 bit files, it's faster and easier for me to adjust things like color balance, leves, etc in PS rather than dither away my time in whatever scanning software I'm using. Thoughts? Best, -David Ray Carson web: http://www.davidraycarson.com/ - --- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body -- -- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] RE: Minolta 5400 Photoshop CS: best waytoscan
There are several things that film scanner software do whiich are difficulat if not impossible to do with post scanner image editing programs such as Photoshop. 1. Many scanner software permits the user to do multi-pass scans which may enable one to capture additional detail in the shadow areas of positive films or the highlight areas of negative films. 2. Many scanner software packages have digital ICE3 provisions which rely on the scanner's hardware based infrared channel, which would otherwise not be available from progframs like Photoshop. 3. With respect to color negative, scanner software frequently has facilities to remove the orange masking from color negatives which is not possible in the case of programs like Photoshop. In addition, I would use 16 bit linear or raw scans for the scanning of positive transparancies but not with color negatives since the 16 bit scan does not permit one to eliminate the effect of the color negative's orange masking from the outputted file. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ed, I think what I'm trying to get at is: Given a person with good Photoshop skills, is it an easier path to simply scan the neg in and modify it in Photoshop vs tweaking it in the scanning program and modifying it with the scan software? I'm coming from the viewpoint that the scanning software, be it Minolta's, Silverfast Ai, or vuescan, just is doing a crappier job of modifying the file POST scan, just as I could do with Photoshop in a better way. I've read reports to that effect. So, I'm asking if either of the above software packages modify anything PRE scan. If they don't, then: - does it matter what software package you use with the 5400, - what is the best setting to get the neg (both color and bw) scanned (16 bit, 16 bit linear, positive, whatever). Best, -David Ray Carson web: http://www.davidraycarson.com/ At 01:46 AM 8/18/2004, you wrote: Ok, my head is swimming here. I've read elsewhere that the Minolta 1.1.5 software (actually, any software, silverfast and vuescan too) just modifies the scan at the software level, not the hardware level. I'm talking about 'exposure compensation' tab and 'image correction tab.' Also, for background, I'm a very competent Photoshop user, and I don't have a problem modifying the scan with PS levels, curves, hue, etc. I'm a newbie at scanning. So, my question to you guys is what is the best way (fastest, highest quality file) to use the 5400, especially with color neg: - scan in 16 bit color neg, or - scan in 16 bit linear color neg, or - scan in as color positive, either 16 bit or 16 bit linear - And what about black and white film? - Will either of the two commercial scanning software packages (silverfast or vuescan) give me better results if you look at my premise? I just can't seem to find the resources anywhere for these questions. Will the resultant file be a sort of 'digital neg' in the same fashion a RAW file is for digital cameras? I figure since PS CS can manipulate 16 bit files, it's faster and easier for me to adjust things like color balance, leves, etc in PS rather than dither away my time in whatever scanning software I'm using. Thoughts? Best, -David Ray Carson web: http://www.davidraycarson.com/ --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.735 / Virus Database: 489 - Release Date: 8/6/2004 Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 Photoshop CS: best way toscan
1. Many scanner software permits the user to do multi-pass scans which may enable one to capture additional detail in the shadow areas of positive films or the highlight areas of negative films. 2. Many scanner software packages have digital ICE3 provisions which rely on the scanner's hardware based infrared channel, which would otherwise not be available from progframs like Photoshop. Yes, I'm not talking about these functions. These things are good, and the multi-pass scan is a hardware function (albeit controlled by sw). I don't know what ICE is, but I love it. If other sw can do a better raw-scan by opening some secret hardware-level nirvana, what are the sw settings to do so? 3. With respect to color negative, scanner software frequently has facilities to remove the orange masking from color negatives which is not possible in the case of programs like Photoshop. Well, I've removed it in Photoshop. In addition, I would use 16 bit linear or raw scans for the scanning of positive transparancies but not with color negatives since the 16 bit scan does not permit one to eliminate the effect of the color negative's orange masking from the outputted file. See above. My guesses, and I'd love responses, of the Minolta software settings so to get a 'raw' type scan are: - 16bit linear (vs 16 bit)...and if you know the difference, let me know, - don't know about about autoexposure vs manual, - autofocus unless there's a problem - don't know about multi-sampling - don't know about color matching output space (adobe RGB?) and ICC profiles - Color neg: best to scan as neg or positive? If positive, invert in PS? - B/W neg: best to scan as neg or positive? If positive, invert in PS? - Fuj chromes: no idea - ICE on, at least with color neg. - Grain dissolver off with color neg, don't know with b/w neg Best, David Carson web: http://www.davidraycarson.com [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Ed, I think what I'm trying to get at is: Given a person with good Photoshop skills, is it an easier path to simply scan the neg in and modify it in Photoshop vs tweaking it in the scanning program and modifying it with the scan software? I'm coming from the viewpoint that the scanning software, be it Minolta's, Silverfast Ai, or vuescan, just is doing a crappier job of modifying the file POST scan, just as I could do with Photoshop in a better way. I've read reports to that effect. So, I'm asking if either of the above software packages modify anything PRE scan. If they don't, then: - does it matter what software package you use with the 5400, - what is the best setting to get the neg (both color and bw) scanned (16 bit, 16 bit linear, positive, whatever). Best, -David Ray Carson web: http://www.davidraycarson.com/ At 01:46 AM 8/18/2004, you wrote: Ok, my head is swimming here. I've read elsewhere that the Minolta 1.1.5 software (actually, any software, silverfast and vuescan too) just modifies the scan at the software level, not the hardware level. I'm talking about 'exposure compensation' tab and 'image correction tab.' Also, for background, I'm a very competent Photoshop user, and I don't have a problem modifying the scan with PS levels, curves, hue, etc. I'm a newbie at scanning. So, my question to you guys is what is the best way (fastest, highest quality file) to use the 5400, especially with color neg: - scan in 16 bit color neg, or - scan in 16 bit linear color neg, or - scan in as color positive, either 16 bit or 16 bit linear - And what about black and white film? - Will either of the two commercial scanning software packages (silverfast or vuescan) give me better results if you look at my premise? I just can't seem to find the resources anywhere for these questions. Will the resultant file be a sort of 'digital neg' in the same fashion a RAW file is for digital cameras? I figure since PS CS can manipulate 16 bit files, it's faster and easier for me to adjust things like color balance, leves, etc in PS rather than dither away my time in whatever scanning software I'm using. Thoughts? Best, -David Ray Carson web: http://www.davidraycarson.com/ --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.735 / Virus Database: 489 - Release Date: 8/6/2004 -- -- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: MInolta 5400
I haven't seen significant grain with my 5400, at least scanning fine grain film. Make sure you're using the grain dissolver. As for the color, I recommend getting Vuescan for your scanning software and use it to generate a scanner profile. Vuescan has worked much better for me than the manufacturer's lousy software with both the 5400 and LS5000, . I generally have to tweak the color a tad from the Vuescan profile, but no more than 0.1 usually. You need IT8 transparency targets to do this, available from Kodak, or Wolf Faust at http://www.coloraid.de/. You can get Vuescan at http://www.hamrick.com. BTW, on a slightly different topic, Vuescan now functions in scan from preview mode on the LS5000, as of version 8.04. Thanks for the tip, Tony. Ed Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400
At 10:08 PM + 11/14/03, Al Bond wrote: David, Need to replace a Polaroid SS4000. Googling around I see many people complain that the Minolta 5400 produces fine lines it some scans, sometimes, with some software. They look very much to me like a dud pixel in the CCD - a one pixel wide line running the length of the scan. Usually seen in darker areas. Many people report the exact same trouble and show images with the same lines. I've had a very similar experience with the original Elite - I got through 4 units before I found one that was generally acceptable! I tried the Elite II as well which was very similar. It seems to be a CCD calibration issue, rather than dud pixel, as the lines only appear in the deep shadows (the highlights/midtones are fine) and will blend in with the adjacent lines with careful adjustment of the line's black point in the affected channel. In other respects the Elite series generally perform well (hence consistently good reviews). I can only assume that reviewers tend not to use very dense slides for the tests or, if they do, don't try to pull out the detail from the deep shadows. Certainly, if you only use negative film, you would never notice these problems. I also tries an SS4000 at one stage. The shadows were very clean with little noise but could not get to the deep shadow details that the Elite could. Minolta seem happy to pull out everything from the CCD, even if it shows up its shortcomings, whereas the Polaroid seemed to aim for a slightly more restricted but more graceful performance. If you are happy with the shadow performance of your SS4000, you might well find that the Elite 5400 meets your needs (even if you have to abandon some shadow detail to get rid of any CCD anomalies). Maybe this is fixed in a firmware update, maybe not. Who can tell me more? If the problem stems from individual CCD elements being outside the ability of the calibration to cope with, then updates to the firmware might not help. Certainly, since this has been a common issue with both the Scan Elite and Scan Dual ranges for several years, there doesn't seem to be an easy fix! From what I've read (on other lists, in other places) this is a scanner to avoid. I am still tempted by it but would definately have to try it (or find someone in the UK who would be happy to scan some sample slides) before I parted with any hard cash. I am particularly interested in how well the hardware based grain diffuser works in conjunction with ICE. With the Elite (and Elite II) at least, ICE did cause some minor but definite loss of detail. Another consideration is DOF. I haven't seen anything at all about how the Elite 5400 performs in this respect (or whether the new Nikons are any better than their predecessors). My post on October 19 after I had used the scanner for a week covered a number of these issues, including the DOF (fine). Al Bond Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body -- *Henning J. Wulff /|\ Wulff Photography Design /###\ mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] |[ ]| http://www.archiphoto.com Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400
david.gordon wrote: I've not been here for a while, humour me if this has just been done to death but there's no archive... Need to replace a Polaroid SS4000. Googling around I see many people complain that the Minolta 5400 produces fine lines it some scans, sometimes, with some software. They look very much to me like a dud pixel in the CCD - a one pixel wide line running the length of the scan. Usually seen in darker areas. Many people report the exact same trouble and show images with the same lines. Maybe this is fixed in a firmware update, maybe not. Who can tell me more? From what I've read (on other lists, in other places) this is a scanner to avoid. FWIW, I have this scanner and have seen none of this problem. I use the accompanying Minolta software and Vuescan. YMMV, obviously. Haakon Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400
on 11/14/03 6:18 AM, Arthur Entlich at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: That's interesting. The Minolta Dual Dimage II also suffered from the same problem. I went through several before getting one with minimal defects. My scanner was apparently made by Avision for Minolta, I don't know who is making the 5400. Another interesting tidbit. As some may know, Minolta has been floundering for some time now in terms of business structure, and I imagine finances as well. Well, the company was recently purchased by Konica, and they are in the mist of integrating the companies together, including the QMS division (which Minolta bought a few years back). The company's new name is Konica-Minolta, suggesting the money went it that direction. I would expect a stronger company to come of this, but as often occurs in this kind of merger, we'll have to wait and see which divisions survive. I disappointed the new company didn't decide to call itself MiKon ;-) Art david.gordon wrote: I've not been here for a while, humour me if this has just been done to death but there's no archive... Need to replace a Polaroid SS4000. Googling around I see many people complain that the Minolta 5400 produces fine lines it some scans, sometimes, with some software. They look very much to me like a dud pixel in the CCD - a one pixel wide line running the length of the scan. Usually seen in darker areas. Many people report the exact same trouble and show images with the same lines. Maybe this is fixed in a firmware update, maybe not. Who can tell me more? From what I've read (on other lists, in other places) this is a scanner to avoid. My Scan Dual II also had a similar problem, and had to be returned. It has worked fine ever since. Berry Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400
David, Need to replace a Polaroid SS4000. Googling around I see many people complain that the Minolta 5400 produces fine lines it some scans, sometimes, with some software. They look very much to me like a dud pixel in the CCD - a one pixel wide line running the length of the scan. Usually seen in darker areas. Many people report the exact same trouble and show images with the same lines. I've had a very similar experience with the original Elite - I got through 4 units before I found one that was generally acceptable! I tried the Elite II as well which was very similar. It seems to be a CCD calibration issue, rather than dud pixel, as the lines only appear in the deep shadows (the highlights/midtones are fine) and will blend in with the adjacent lines with careful adjustment of the line's black point in the affected channel. In other respects the Elite series generally perform well (hence consistently good reviews). I can only assume that reviewers tend not to use very dense slides for the tests or, if they do, don't try to pull out the detail from the deep shadows. Certainly, if you only use negative film, you would never notice these problems. I also tries an SS4000 at one stage. The shadows were very clean with little noise but could not get to the deep shadow details that the Elite could. Minolta seem happy to pull out everything from the CCD, even if it shows up its shortcomings, whereas the Polaroid seemed to aim for a slightly more restricted but more graceful performance. If you are happy with the shadow performance of your SS4000, you might well find that the Elite 5400 meets your needs (even if you have to abandon some shadow detail to get rid of any CCD anomalies). Maybe this is fixed in a firmware update, maybe not. Who can tell me more? If the problem stems from individual CCD elements being outside the ability of the calibration to cope with, then updates to the firmware might not help. Certainly, since this has been a common issue with both the Scan Elite and Scan Dual ranges for several years, there doesn't seem to be an easy fix! From what I've read (on other lists, in other places) this is a scanner to avoid. I am still tempted by it but would definately have to try it (or find someone in the UK who would be happy to scan some sample slides) before I parted with any hard cash. I am particularly interested in how well the hardware based grain diffuser works in conjunction with ICE. With the Elite (and Elite II) at least, ICE did cause some minor but definite loss of detail. Another consideration is DOF. I haven't seen anything at all about how the Elite 5400 performs in this respect (or whether the new Nikons are any better than their predecessors). Al Bond Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 scan Elite Tests
- Original Message - From: Bob Frost [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks Bob In my few tests with it, I've found that manual focussing 'on-screen' rather than using the knob on the front of the scanner seemed to give me much better results. Does that mean several preview scans while changing focusing in between or is there another way? I have, so far, found at least one slide which the 5400 simply could not find focus on. I set it to manual focus after setting focus on the previous slide. I hope there won't be too many of them. And saving the files as tiffs with lossless LZW compression reduces them to about a third. I have found that when I save a 16 bit file as a tiff (using PS6) with LZW compression on, the file size does not reduce by much. It only changes from about 260Mb to about 240Mb. When I change the file to an 8 bit poer colour image and save it then as Tif with LZW on, it is much smaller (40-50Mb) I don't think LZW compression works on 16 bit files? - Thys van der Merwe Portfolio of African Images: http://mysite.mweb.co.za/residents/teknovis Cell: (+27) 83-441-3108 Tel: (+27) 35-753-3766 Fax: (+27) 35-753-4489 --- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 scan Elite Tests
- Original Message - From: Henning Wulff [EMAIL PROTECTED] Vuescan does nominally support the scanner, but it always wants to 'warm up the lamp' for 3 or 4 minutes before every step, so it takes 40 minutes to do one scan. Useless. Henning Maybe you should check Vuescan again, because I think Ed fixed that. (I've just downloaded the latest version and it certainly does not do that any more - it starts to scan very quickly now) Regards Thys - Thys van der Merwe Portfolio of African Images: http://mysite.mweb.co.za/residents/teknovis Cell: (+27) 83-441-3108 Tel: (+27) 35-753-3766 Fax: (+27) 35-753-4489 --- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 scan Elite Tests
The Canon scans still seems slightly sharper, but with a few levels of sharpening on PS, there is no real difference. I am quite fussy about the sharpness of my slides and the test slide I chose is very sharp under a 10x loupe. Maybe I should try the manual focus thing on the Minolta? I've seen some posts that, for some reason, the default on the Minolta software is to have auto focus switched off! Also that the manual focus gave even better results than the auto focus. I assume that autofocus would be switched on in Vuescan by default but I don't know whether (or how) manual focus has been implemented in it. Al Bond Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 scan Elite Tests
- Original Message - From: Ellis Vener [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks for the reply and tips Ellis. three items here: 1.) at full resolution the Minolta (@5400ppi and true 16 bit per channel color depth) is going to be creating larger data files than the Canon FS4000. 2.) Firewire and USB 2.0 are much, much faster than regular USB, which I assume you were using. USB 2.0 maybe faster than firewire depending on the implementation. 3.) ICE will slow you down. After battling with extremely long scan times I managed to find a usb 2.0 driver on the Intel site that actually got the USB2 going on my motherboard. Just did a test and scan times are down from 30 minutes per slide to less than 10! (5400 dpi, 48 bit, 3x sampling on Vuescan). I managed to fiddle with the colour settings and the scans are now fantastic! The Canon scans still seems slightly sharper, but with a few levels of sharpening on PS, there is no real difference. I am quite fussy about the sharpness of my slides and the test slide I chose is very sharp under a 10x loupe. Maybe I should try the manual focus thing on the Minolta? Another note: Ice works much better than Fare, but it does soften the image substantially. That is why I'm not using Ice at full blast, but rather at medium setting, which in comparison has about the same effect (noise reduction) as Fare at its highest setting. Also at extremely high magnification, my FS4000 scans had some strange black pixels (random) in thedarker areas, which I thought were Fare artifacts, since I once checked and they weren't there without Fare. The Minolta with Ice has none of that. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a substitute for properly cleaning slides. (I normally take the slides out of the frame, give them a good wipe with a very soft, lint free cloth, put them back in the frame, then brush them off with a soft brush, and just before they go into the scanner, I blow them with compressed air. If any dirt is still left behind after that, it really wants to be there :-)!) Thanks for this first look. I think in general you are going to b helped by more RAM and switching from USB to USB 2.0 or Firewire. what would really like to see is a Firewire 800 implementation as it is a 2x faster standard than Firewire or USB 2.0 Thanks, I've ordered 512Mb more RAM. Unfortunately, living at the end of the world, everything takes at least a week, so I'll see next week when it comes. Thanks for the Firewire 800 tip; I never knew about it. Maybe I'll upgrade to that, but I'm quite happy for the time being with USB2 since I got it working. Now, If only I could figure out how to archive these massive files? At 3 or less scans per cd, it could become an expensive exercise by the time I have re-scanned most of my 5000+ slide library :-(. I know I could store them in 8 bit format (file size now 'only' 100Mb) but I feel as if too much data has been lost? Regards Thys - Thys van der Merwe Portfolio of African Images: http://mysite.mweb.co.za/residents/teknovis Cell: (+27) 83-441-3108 Tel: (+27) 35-753-3766 Fax: (+27) 35-753-4489 --- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 scan Elite Tests
Thys, In my few tests with it, I've found that manual focussing 'on-screen' rather than using the knob on the front of the scanner seemed to give me much better results. And saving the files as tiffs with lossless LZW compression reduces them to about a third. Bob Frost. - Original Message - From: Thys [EMAIL PROTECTED] Maybe I should try the manual focus thing on the Minolta? Now, If only I could figure out how to archive these massive files? At 3 or less scans per cd, it could become an expensive exercise by the time I have re-scanned most of my 5000+ slide library :-(. I know I could store them in 8 bit format (file size now 'only' 100Mb) but I feel as if too much data has been lost? Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 scan Elite Tests
- Original Message - From: Ellis Vener [EMAIL PROTECTED] Thanks for the reply and tips Ellis. three items here: 1.) at full resolution the Minolta (@5400ppi and true 16 bit per channel color depth) is going to be creating larger data files than the Canon FS4000. 2.) Firewire and USB 2.0 are much, much faster than regular USB, which I assume you were using. USB 2.0 maybe faster than firewire depending on the implementation. 3.) ICE will slow you down. After battling with extremely long scan times I managed to find a usb 2.0 driver on the Intel site that actually got the USB2 going on my motherboard. Just did a test and scan times are down from 30 minutes per slide to less than 10! (5400 dpi, 48 bit, 3x sampling on Vuescan). I had this scanner for a week; my main reason for getting it was to do BW scans which the Nikon 8000ED that I've had for a while is not as good at. Scan times with the Minolta software for full res, 16bit and no processing connected via firewire to a Mac were about 1min. 10 sec.; nearly twice as fast as the Nikon 8000. The couple of colour scans I did were excellent and also very fast, but I did not time them. They did not seem to take longer than the BW scans, though. I managed to fiddle with the colour settings and the scans are now fantastic! The Canon scans still seems slightly sharper, but with a few levels of sharpening on PS, there is no real difference. I am quite fussy about the sharpness of my slides and the test slide I chose is very sharp under a 10x loupe. Maybe I should try the manual focus thing on the Minolta? The scans I did with the 5400 showed grain without aliasing artifacts on Delta 100 dev. in Xtol 1:3, let alone Tri-X or HP5+. That is fine performance. It showed this level of sharpness evenly across the frame, from center to the corners, and that without glass carriers. It definitely showed more detail than the 8000 could, even with HP+ shot at 800 (my usual). Dynamic range is very slightly better than that of the 8000ED. Unfortunately, I could not figure out how to get true raw scans, so some exposure manipulation by the scanner software always happened. Vuescan does nominally support the scanner, but it always wants to 'warm up the lamp' for 3 or 4 minutes before every step, so it takes 40 minutes to do one scan. Useless. The scanning software could only see the scanner just after I rebooted, and generally could not do so again after closing the software. It would only respond to the scanner if it was plugged in directly to the computer, not through a hub. A USB2.0 card I bought was not recognized by the scanner. The Photoshop plugin crashed Photoshop continually. So, the scanner hardware seems very good; the film holders are excellent, the software sucks and therefore the scanner went back. I have thousands of BW negs I want to scan, but not with this software. Maybe I'll try to talk to Ed Hamrick to see if he can fix his implementation, and maybe after Minolta fixes their firewire implementation. I think there might have been a firmware problem with the continual inability of the software to find the scanner (even Vuescan had problems). My machine is a Dual 1Ghz G4 with 1.5Gb of RAM. I have three other scanners attached to the machine, as well as 7 hard drives, a couple of DVD and CD drives, and all is plug and play, instantly recognized and solidly stable except for this Minolta machine. Another note: Ice works much better than Fare, but it does soften the image substantially. That is why I'm not using Ice at full blast, but rather at medium setting, which in comparison has about the same effect (noise reduction) as Fare at its highest setting. Also at extremely high magnification, my FS4000 scans had some strange black pixels (random) in thedarker areas, which I thought were Fare artifacts, since I once checked and they weren't there without Fare. The Minolta with Ice has none of that. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a substitute for properly cleaning slides. (I normally take the slides out of the frame, give them a good wipe with a very soft, lint free cloth, put them back in the frame, then brush them off with a soft brush, and just before they go into the scanner, I blow them with compressed air. If any dirt is still left behind after that, it really wants to be there :-)!) Thanks for this first look. I think in general you are going to b helped by more RAM and switching from USB to USB 2.0 or Firewire. what would really like to see is a Firewire 800 implementation as it is a 2x faster standard than Firewire or USB 2.0 Thanks, I've ordered 512Mb more RAM. Unfortunately, living at the end of the world, everything takes at least a week, so I'll see next week when it comes. Thanks for the Firewire 800 tip; I never knew about it. Maybe I'll upgrade to that, but I'm quite happy for the time being with USB2 since I got it working. Now, If only I could figure out how to archive these massive files? At 3 or less scans per cd, it
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 scan Elite Tests
Thys, I too bought one of these about a week ago. I'm just starting on the learning curve. After opening the box, I was very disappointed to find it had an external power supply which was an American version only. (110V fixed, with a very strange looking 2 bladed plug). How can they sell an $800 scanner and not at least have a 110-240V input power supply included? In fact, why not just build the Power supply into the scanner like everybody else? Ok, so I hauled out my old 0-24 variable power supply and connected it to the scanner. I'll go look for a power supply later. I don't like external power supplies either, but it allows one model of scanner to be used world-wide and presumably keeps cost down. I feel you should have been supplied with a PSU suitable for your local supply (mine came with a 240V supply with UK plug) - I would go back to the supplier and complain long and loud until they gave you the correct one. My suspicion is that you have an imported US model. I've never had a filmscanner before so I can't compare anything, but using the firewire connection I can do a straight scan (no ICE) of a colour slide at maximum resolution (giving a file of 118MB) in about 3 minutes. Including the index scan probably 5 minutes. Peter Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 scan Elite Tests
- Image quality - sharpness: The Canon was definitely sharper and more snappy on the same image. This could be (and I suspect it is) the effect of Digital Ice vs Canon Fare. I intend to do another test with Ice off (unfortunately I scanned all my Canon samples with Fare on) The difference was very obvious and before sharpening, the Minolta scans looked pretty bad compared to the Canon's. Is this the experience of other people too? i am planning to buy this scanner. but sharpness is crucial. At 5400 dpi you have too make pretty sharp pictures and for that you need high grade camera lenses. Also a difference may be the use of diffuse or colimated lightsources in the scanners. Colimated lightsources will give apparently a higher sharpness, it enhances grain perception. Also, seeing more apparent grain is not an indication of more resolution. Furthermore, ice and fare both reduce sharpness, this is inherent to the process, and some of this software does better than others. What i like to know, is how well it does on a raw scan, without any postprocessing except for filmprofiling and global tonal range adjustments. No sharpening, ice, gem, fare, whatever. Does it fine with darker slides or dense negatives? How much noise does it generate actually? And at what temperature was this measured? (chips tend to make more noise when they get warmer) I prefer to keep scans as pure as posssible in order to archive my images. Ice gem etc are postprocessings subject to future improvements. And for definitive images nothing can compete with skillfull manual retouching. Sharpening i do always just before sending the image to the printer, because it depends on print size and the end state of the image. According to others the minolta is definitely sharper than the existing 4000 dpi scanners, and has better actual dynamic range. Is this true for most people? sirius Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 scan Elite Tests
sirius wrote: - Image quality - sharpness: The Canon was definitely sharper and more snappy on the same image. This could be (and I suspect it is) the effect of Digital Ice vs Canon Fare. I intend to do another test with Ice off (unfortunately I scanned all my Canon samples with Fare on) The difference was very obvious and before sharpening, the Minolta scans looked pretty bad compared to the Canon's. Is this the experience of other people too? i am planning to buy this scanner. but sharpness is crucial. Not for me, but I am a pure amateur and have only had this scanner for a few weeks. It was an upgrade for the Nikon Coolscan III (ls30) and to me it seems far superior (in all aspects, contrast included). I have no Canon scanner to compare with, so I have no idea how it works compared to that. I also find that there is less reason to use ICE with this scanner than the LS30. Haakon Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 scan Elite Tests
On Friday, October 17, 2003, at 06:13 AM, Thys wrote: Hi After hunting everywhere for a proper review of the Minolta 5400, and not really finding any, I decided to buy the thing. I have been playing around with it for a short while only, but I thought I'll share my initial impressions with the group... I have made several scans with a Canon FS4000 which I borrowed for a while and therefore can compare the Minolta with scans made with the Canon. ... Compared to the FS4000 on a 2.4GHz P4 with 512Mb RAM on Win2k, I found the following: - Scan times: At highest resolution, it is slower than the Canon. Using an Adaptec SCSi card on the Canon, I was doing 4 scans @ 4000dpi with Fare on and 3x multi scan (on Vuescan) in about 1 hour. On the Minolta, 4 scans on Vuescan with Ice on Medium at 3x multi scan took about 1hour 15 minutes using USB1. I was rather hoping for the Minolta to be a bit faster, but maybe if I upgrade to USB 2 or get Firewire... three items here: 1.) at full resolution the Minolta (@5400ppi and true 16 bit per channel color depth) is going to be creating larger data files than the Canon FS4000. 2.) Firewire and USB 2.0 are much, much faster than regular USB, which I assume you were using. USB 2.0 maybe faster than firewire depending on the implementation. 3.) ICE will slow you down. - Image quality - Colour: Looking at the scans side by side, I noticed that the Canon's colours are much richer and saturated than the Minolta. The Minolta looked duller by comparison, but I hope I can improve that with some scan settings. The true colour of the slide (Fuji Velvia) was actually somewhere in between these two results. What color space (workspace) are you using? Is your monitor accurately calibrated and profiled? - Image quality - sharpness: The Canon was definitely sharper and more snappy on the same image. This could be (and I suspect it is) the effect of Digital Ice vs Canon Fare. I intend to do another test with Ice off (unfortunately I scanned all my Canon samples with Fare on) The difference was very obvious and before sharpening, the Minolta scans looked pretty bad compared to the Canon's. - Dynamic range: I was very upbeat when I saw the amount of shadow detail and low shadow noise recorded by the Minolta as compared to the Canon, until I looked at the highlight detail. The highlights in the Minolta was much more blown out than on the Canon. I noted that, for example in a landscape with clouds, I could make out a lot more subtle white variations in the clouds of the Canon scan than the Minolta. It is clear to me that I have some exposure settings to tune. I suspect, in spite of the much higher specification of the Minolta in DRange, there won't not that much difference between the 2 in the end. I'll do more testing there. - Other: File sizes are, off course huge (200Mb plus). At high resolutions the difference in pixel size between the two scanners does become quite obvious (which is why I bought it in the first place). I also noted that there were some artifacts visible in one or two places of the Minolta scan (like a line with a few disjointed pixels running across the width of the scan) I wonder if that has anything to do with the scan speed (it stops several times during the duration of a scan). I saw something similar in the Canon scans, using USB, until I plugged it into the SCSI card and it disappeared. (With the SCSI, the Canon scanned continuously, without stopping) I don't have any definite conclusions yet, because I would be doing a lot more scanning and testing with the new Minolta, but so far, I just realized that that the Canon FS4000 is in fact a remarkable scanner for the money, compared to the Minolta which is, at least on paper, the best available today. Regards Thys Thys, Thanks for this first look. I think in general you are going to b helped by more RAM and switching from USB to USB 2.0 or Firewire. what would really like to see is a Firewire 800 implementation as it is a 2x faster standard than Firewire or USB 2.0 Ellis Vener Atlanta, GA I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers. - Mahatma Gandhi Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Minolta 5400 scan Elite Tests
Just to make a side note: for a sustained transfer Firewire is still beating USB2.0 attaining full ~40 MB/s (or even more) whilst USB2.0 performance is still highly-depedent on particular drivers and chipsets. So far having USB2.0 HDD remote device I wasn't able to go over 17 MB/s hooked up to my USB2.0 capable MB. If there is choice of IEEE1394 vs USB2.0, I woudl certainly vote for Firewire (not to be fogotten that teh USB also captures CPU resources - about 20-30%, while Firewire is peer-to-peer almost freeing your CPU completely for another tasks). Alex --- Ellis Vener [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Friday, October 17, 2003, at 06:13 AM, Thys wrote: Hi After hunting everywhere for a proper review of the Minolta 5400, and not really finding any, I decided to buy the thing. I have been playing around with it for a short while only, but I thought I'll share my initial impressions with the group... I have made several scans with a Canon FS4000 which I borrowed for a while and therefore can compare the Minolta with scans made with the Canon. ... Compared to the FS4000 on a 2.4GHz P4 with 512Mb RAM on Win2k, I found the following: - Scan times: At highest resolution, it is slower than the Canon. Using an Adaptec SCSi card on the Canon, I was doing 4 scans @ 4000dpi with Fare on and 3x multi scan (on Vuescan) in about 1 hour. On the Minolta, 4 scans on Vuescan with Ice on Medium at 3x multi scan took about 1hour 15 minutes using USB1. I was rather hoping for the Minolta to be a bit faster, but maybe if I upgrade to USB 2 or get Firewire... three items here: 1.) at full resolution the Minolta (@5400ppi and true 16 bit per channel color depth) is going to be creating larger data files than the Canon FS4000. 2.) Firewire and USB 2.0 are much, much faster than regular USB, which I assume you were using. USB 2.0 maybe faster than firewire depending on the implementation. 3.) ICE will slow you down. - Image quality - Colour: Looking at the scans side by side, I noticed that the Canon's colours are much richer and saturated than the Minolta. The Minolta looked duller by comparison, but I hope I can improve that with some scan settings. The true colour of the slide (Fuji Velvia) was actually somewhere in between these two results. What color space (workspace) are you using? Is your monitor accurately calibrated and profiled? - Image quality - sharpness: The Canon was definitely sharper and more snappy on the same image. This could be (and I suspect it is) the effect of Digital Ice vs Canon Fare. I intend to do another test with Ice off (unfortunately I scanned all my Canon samples with Fare on) The difference was very obvious and before sharpening, the Minolta scans looked pretty bad compared to the Canon's. - Dynamic range: I was very upbeat when I saw the amount of shadow detail and low shadow noise recorded by the Minolta as compared to the Canon, until I looked at the highlight detail. The highlights in the Minolta was much more blown out than on the Canon. I noted that, for example in a landscape with clouds, I could make out a lot more subtle white variations in the clouds of the Canon scan than the Minolta. It is clear to me that I have some exposure settings to tune. I suspect, in spite of the much higher specification of the Minolta in DRange, there won't not that much difference between the 2 in the end. I'll do more testing there. - Other: File sizes are, off course huge (200Mb plus). At high resolutions the difference in pixel size between the two scanners does become quite obvious (which is why I bought it in the first place). I also noted that there were some artifacts visible in one or two places of the Minolta scan (like a line with a few disjointed pixels running across the width of the scan) I wonder if that has anything to do with the scan speed (it stops several times during the duration of a scan). I saw something similar in the Canon scans, using USB, until I plugged it into the SCSI card and it disappeared. (With the SCSI, the Canon scanned continuously, without stopping) I don't have any definite conclusions yet, because I would be doing a lot more scanning and testing with the new Minolta, but so far, I just realized that that the Canon FS4000 is in fact a remarkable scanner for the money, compared to the Minolta which is, at least on paper, the best available today. Regards Thys Thys, Thanks for this first look. I think in general you are going to b helped by more RAM and switching from USB to USB 2.0 or Firewire. what would really like to see is a Firewire 800 implementation as it is a 2x faster standard than Firewire or USB 2.0 Ellis Vener Atlanta, GA I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers. - Mahatma Gandhi
