Dear Gang, Does anyone on the list have experience scanning color zone plate negatives?
Despite 19 years in the computer trade, I have no experience with photographic scanners, Photoshop, etc. After doing some research, it looked like the the Umax Power Look 1100 would be the best combination of features and price for my use. One of the things I hoped to do was scan color negatives to produce quick proofs and eventually finished prints. I took a couple of 4x5 zone plate color negatives (Kodak) to the local photo store to see how the scanner would handle then. One of the store's digital imaging folks spent an hour trying to scan the negs with no success, or more precisely the scans didn't produce images that looked anything like the prints I made using standard enlarger / chemical processes. His guess was that the zone plate negatives were just too wacky for the scanner; the density was poor compared to what the scanner is used to dealing with. Scanning 4x5 color negs taken with a lens camera worked great. Darn, I was looking forward to taking the plunge into digital. Also, the store is arguably the best one locally for working with professional photographers, so I don't think this was a case of operator error. Any ideas? Would a dedicated large format negative scanner have worked better that the flatbed scanner (for a similar price)? Would another brand of flatbed scanner work any better? Or is the default option of waiting for the price to drop and the quality to go up the only viable one? Thanks, Tom
