Hey, I did find a quirk with the 3200 that I must share with you. I tried scanning a 8x10 negative assuming I would be able to get a 4x9 crop of it because that is the size of the overhead lamp. I did not use any of the film holders, I just laid the negative on the glass.
Result? I thought the scanner was broken because all I got was an overly contrasty and badly streaked image. I nearly sent it back for service. On a whim, I tried going back to 4x5 and the scanner came back to life! While I haven't confirmed this completely, it seems that the transparency mode does not work properly without one of the film holders in place. Of course, Epson makes no claims that the scanner can do 8X10 or 4X9 for that matter, so I have no beef with them. I may try to make a holder of my own to hold the 8x10's with a 4x9 crop and see if that works. I may use cardboard as a prototype. JCO ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- J.C. O'Connell mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://jcoconnell.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -----Original Message----- From: Derby Chang [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, December 25, 2003 8:42 PM To: Pentax Discuss Subject: Epson 3200 (was: New Scanner) JC, Sorry for the late response, but I've only just been catching up on PDML mails since Nov. Love the 3200. No big issues with it, scans beautifully. Only minor quibbles: * Wish the 120 film holder could do strips instead of one frame at a time. * The Epson photoshop driver could be better. Can't scan at an arbitrary resolution - I would like to do 2400dpi for small proof prints from neg scans, but it only lets you do 1200 or 3200 (I can downsample in photoshop, but then thats double much more work). On the plus side, the 12-frames a scan is very useful for proofing. I've downloaded v1.25 of the driver and there doesn't seem to be that much of a change. The software dust removal now seems to work sort of, but is more trouble than it's worth IMHO - some nasty artifacts pop up with detailed areas like hair and specular highlights. *Silverfast LE is pretty handy for serious scans, although it only seems to do one scan at a time (but moving the marquee each scan is not _that_ much of a hass). Don't use the dust removal much in this either. The big plus is that it has profiles for different neg types. Saves mucho time colour balancing. Wish it could do 48-bit scans' tho. * Wish it scanned to the edge of the glass, only because that would make it easier to align things against the bezel. I think I've saved its cost already just from not having to develop all the "mucking around" rolls I've been shooting lately, as well as the weekly 8x12s that I print at home instead of handing over to the labs. I can't compare to a proper 4000dpi film scan, but it looks pretty good to me compared to the wet prints I used to spend a fortune on. D -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://homepages.ihug.com.au/~derbyc
