Re: filmscanners: SS 4000 Scan Pixel Color Noise?
Rick Trankle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Where does one get a piece of ND filter? Does this refer to NEUTRAL DENSITY (ND) FILTER? Will a piece of lighting gel do? If you just want film without colour, wouldn't a silver based BW film work? Rob
filmscanners: Photoshop
I have a copy of Photoshop 5.0 which has never been opened/registered as I did not have a computer system that could operate the program. I have now acquired a suitable system (Dell 4100, 866 MHz, 256 RAM, 40 GB HD) but P.S. is now up to version 6.0. I have PS LE and am eligible for the upgrade (and yes it is $299). I am wondering if 6.0 is enough of an improvement for me to try to sell the 5.0 and further defray my costs for 6.0, or just stick with the 5.0. I am a complete newbie to scanning and for me nothing in computers is intuitive. Therefore I would especially like to know if 6.0 might be more user friendly than prior versions. I thank you in advance for your comments. Burt
Re: filmscanners: Second Hard Drive/Umax scanner
Rob Geraghty wrote: Bill Ross wrote: Just a thought - getting a small 10k rpm drive for current work plus a cheap large 5400 to park stuff might make for faster overall workflow at comparable price. From what I've seen, 7200rpm drives are cheap enough that it's hardly worth getting a 5400rpm drive. However as far as speed is concerned, the 16MB/s limit of IDE is the pain - even if an IDE drive is 10K rpm it can't do sustained transfers at over 16MB/s. That means (cache affects aside) a 30MB scan I thought that the UDMA/100 IDE interface was good for up to 100MB/s which according to reviews is much faster than the speed of the data coming off of the physical platters within the disk drives (and that even the older UDMA/66 is fast enough (66 MB/s) to be faster than the physical disk speed). I don't think "plain" IDE has been what drives have used for quite a few years. To get faster, I've read that one just needs to get faster (spin) disks with faster track access times to get the overall speed up, so it's not the IDE interface that's limiting factor, but the disk "underneath". Because high-end systems use SCSI, the high end fast-spin ( 7200 rpm) and fast access time disks ( 8ms )are SCSI ones. So for really fast speed one does need SCSI disks, but not because of the interface. There are some other theoretical advantages to SCSI in a multi-user server application but I don't know if they apply to the users in this newsgroup (not me anyway :-). Mike K. P.S - Magazines like P.C. Magazine has done benchmarking of servers using IDE vs SCSI disks, and I recall their conclusions to be that they were very surprised to find that it didn't make much difference in the actual system performance.
filmscanners: RAID (was: Second Hard Drive)
In writing a sequential stream of scan data, writing to RAID 5 could be slower than writing to one disk, depending on the RAID controller write algorithms. When comparing RAID vs. disk, you need to know how the RAID is configured. Standard RAID sets - (note I may have 1 0 named backwards) Edited from some of my 1991 notes and papers: UC Berkeley work(*) introduced the Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) terminology, in which 5 RAID levels are defined: RAID-1 - Mirrored disks, RAID-2 - Byte-interleaved disks with Hamming code on several additional disks, RAID-3 - Byte-interleaved disks with one additional parity disk, RAID-4 - Record-interleaved disks (for small R/W) with one additional parity disk, RAID-5 - Record-interleaved disks with parity distributed on all disks. In 1990-91 (maybe still) RAID-0 has been used to describe a non-redundant array (striping, no parity), which can support a higher bandwidth without the fault tolerant characteristic (a RAID config without the "R"). Additional configurations undoubtedly have been described since then. A RAID config is N data disks plus P parity disks (P most commonly =1). Scanning is write intensive, so for optimal performance use Stripes. Writing to a single disk will be faster than RAID 5. RAID-3 would give the highest write data rate. Writes to RAID 5 could be slower than to a single disk, depending on the RAID controller design. - (*)The term 'disk array' or 'DASD array' is used with different meanings, but for RAID configurations we use it to mean a group of N+P disk drives that appears as one unit to the host and that supports fault tolerant data storage. A disk array may also support higher bandwidth data transfer than is achievable by a single disk drive via concurrent data transfer. This is done by striping (interleaving) the file system over multiple disks. The amount of logically contiguous data to store (interleave) on each disk could be bit, byte, record, etc. This view of arrays was first introduced by Ouchi[1] then popularized by work done at UC Berkeley by Patterson, Gibson and Katz[2]. [1] N.K.Ouchi, "System for Recovering Data Stored in Failed Memory Unit", U.S.Patent 4,092,732, 1978. [2] Patterson, G. Gibson, R. Katz, "A Case for Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID)", ACM SIGMOD Conference, Chicago IL, 6/88. -- Bob Shomler http://www.shomler.com/gallery.htm
Re: filmscanners: Monitor Calibration And Others
Hi Rob Rob Geraghty wrote: I'm just curious how they can make an accurate and sensitive enough photometer for that money. Define "accurate enough". Accurate enough for what and whom? Accurate enough as in; good enough for the job. Even a cheap monitor is capable of a 600 to 1 brightness range, and if you're going to feed this entire range back into the computer from a photometer, then you need the equivalent of 10 bit accuracy. It's unlikely that they'd use an 8 channel 10 bit A/D converter, given the price. I'm just curious about the device, that's all. For instance: Does it profile the entire brightness range of the monitor, or just act as a comparative brightness checker at a fixed brightness? I'm all for applied ingenuity, because 'cheap' solutions can often find applications in other areas. Hang on I've just read this. Andrew Rodney quoted: "Monitor Spyder features the convenience of USB communication. Its eight sensors and seven long-pass edge filters allow the Spyder to more closely match the human eye response than three-and four-filter colorimeters." "Long-pass edge filters"!! - What?? I challenge anyone, (apart from a technically illiterate advertising copy writer) to define that phrase. Also strange that anyone should think more than 3 channels are necessary, when a monitor is only a tri-colour device. I'm not doubting that the device works, but why advertise it with sheer BS? Regards, Pete.
Re: filmscanners: SS 4000 Scan Pixel Color Noise?
Hi again Rob. Rob Geraghty wrote: Rick Trankle [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Where does one get a piece of ND filter? Does this refer to NEUTRAL DENSITY (ND) FILTER? Will a piece of lighting gel do? If you just want film without colour, wouldn't a silver based BW film work? No, it still has grain. If you really want to test a scanner's noise, then you have to get rid of any grain artefacts altogether. I think a lot of people on this list would be surprised at how much so-called scanner 'noise' is due to film grain/dye clouds. Regards,Pete.
Re: filmscanners: SS 4000 Scan Pixel Color Noise?
Hi again Rick. Rick Trankle wrote: Where does one get a piece of ND filter? Does this refer to NEUTRAL DENSITY (ND) FILTER? Sorry about the shorthaND. Yes, a neutral density filter is what I meant. Will a piece of lighting gel do? Lighting gel, sweetie wrapper, anything that hasn't got a grain structure. Regards, Pete. PS To avoid further confusion a 'sweetie wrapper' is a candy wrapper.
Re: filmscanners: Photoshop
Hi. [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I have a copy of Photoshop 5.0 which has never been opened/registered as I did not have a computer system that could operate the program. I have now acquired a suitable system (Dell 4100, 866 MHz, 256 RAM, 40 GB HD) but P.S. is now up to version 6.0. I have PS LE and am eligible for the upgrade (and yes it is $299). I am wondering if 6.0 is enough of an improvement for me to try to sell the 5.0 and further defray my costs for 6.0, or just stick with the 5.0. If you're just starting with Photoshop, stick with version 5.0, there's (slightly) less to learn. PS5 will do more than most people will ever need. As others have said, the upgrade from the full version 5 to version 6 is less than $299 anyway. I am a complete newbie to scanning and for me nothing in computers is intuitive. Therefore I would especially like to know if 6.0 might be more user friendly than prior versions. Definitely not! I don't think that Adobe know the meaning of the words 'intuitive' and 'user-friendly'. Regards, Pete.
filmscanners: Reducing the wait while loading and saving files
Mike wrote: I thought that the UDMA/100 IDE interface was good for up to 100MB/s which according to reviews is much faster than the speed of the data coming off of the physical platters within the disk drives Yes, the peak transfer rate of UDMA100 is 100MB/s. (and that even the older UDMA/66 is fast enough (66 MB/s) to be faster than the physical disk speed). Even UDMA33 is more than enough for 5400rpm drives. To get faster, I've read that one just needs to get faster (spin) disks with faster track access times to get the overall speed up, so it's not the IDE interface that's limiting factor, but the disk "underneath". In terms of sustained transfer rates and not taking into account other factors like multitasking and CPU load, and provided that your computer really is running UDMA33(or 66 or 100) correctly. I did some research at http://www.storagereview.com and this appears to be true. Because high-end systems use SCSI, the high end fast-spin ( 7200 rpm) and fast access time disks ( 8ms )are SCSI ones. So for really fast speed one does need SCSI disks, but not because of the interface. Used to be true, but not any more. The seek times certainly seem generally shorter for SCSI drives, and the CPU utilisation of SCSI is lower than for IDE, but there's now 7200 and 10K rpm IDE drives. There are some other theoretical advantages to SCSI in a multi-user server application but I don't know if they apply to the users in this newsgroup (not me anyway :-). Not just theoretical. SCSI multitasks better - and that would apply to single user multitasking as well as multi-user multitasking. There's other advantages in SCSI drive design which I don't fully understand myself - such as the ability to do multiple reads on a single disk rotation. In any case for the best speed, have your operating system on one physical drive and your data on a different physical drive (not just different logical partitions on the same physical drive). P.S - Magazines like P.C. Magazine has done benchmarking of servers using IDE vs SCSI disks, and I recall their conclusions to be that they were very surprised to find that it didn't make much difference in the actual system performance. I'd have to read how they did the actual testing. It depends completely on the application. I look after an NT server which has the OS and applications on a mere 5400rpm IDE drive and the machine runs just fine - because it has heaps of RAM, and the disk intensive operations are no SCSI hard drives and CDROM drives. All our servers which support many users are built using SCSI RAID arrays for hot swap reliability. The arrays are also striped for speed. To try to bring this back to some relevence to film scanning, the only reason I'm talking about drive performance at all is that film scanners generate really big files which can't be cached by either the drive or the OS. Consequently it's the sustained transfer rate of the drive which will determine how long you have to twiddle your thumbs waiting for scans to load and save from apps like Photoshop or PSP. The bottom line is - for the fastest sustained transfer rates from an IDE drive, get the fastest rpm drive you can, and put it on a bus mastering interface preferably without any other device on the same cable. Use one physical drive for the OS and another for the data - that way the background operations of the OS won't interfere with the data transfer. If a single spindle doesn't give a fast enough transfer rate, only a striped RAID array will go faster (hence why I mentioned IDE RAID arrays elsewhere). Rob Rob Geraghty [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wordweb.com
Re: filmscanners: scan artifact
What scanner are you using? =shAf= wrote: Anyone know what this is? (see attachment) I originally thought it was a problem with my scanner, but it appears the same if I reverse the scan direction. I have my own thoughts as to what it may be, but I'd like to make sure.
Re: filmscanners: SS 4000 Scan Pixel Color Noise?
- Original Message - From: "photoscientia" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 27, 2000 3:22 PM Subject: Re: filmscanners: SS 4000 Scan Pixel Color Noise? Rick Trankle wrote: Where does one get a piece of ND filter? Does this refer to NEUTRAL DENSITY (ND) FILTER? Sorry about the shorthaND. Yes, a neutral density filter is what I meant. Will a piece of lighting gel do? Lighting gel, sweetie wrapper, anything that hasn't got a grain structure. I just scan an empty slide mount for noise testing. Selected to give me maximum white, maximum black, no-aliasing and black/white (and white/black) transitions for a quick check on reflection and flare. The black level histogram works well for scanner noise. Cheers, Byron
filmscanners: Film Scanners and what they see.
Hi all, I hope today finds most of you in decent spirits. I have been doing some product and demonstration shots in our small studio with my old mechanical 35mm camera using 100 asa slide film. Fuji Sensia II. The spots and floods are supposed to have the blue UV bulbs in them. On my light table the slides look okay. Some shots have a brown "light" haze to them and some don't. If you looked at the 10 slides you could find a few useable ones. But when I put them into the Nikon LS-30 they come out considerably out of focus and the brownish "light" is amplified. Again, on the light table the slides do not look out of focus. In fact, they look great. The craggy old rotted wood really has a lot of contrast. I am using the Nikon Scan driver without the ICE. I have tried scanning at 400 dpi, 1250 and 2600 dpi. I've tried focusing the scanner and so forth. My question is, do film scanners considerably amplify imperfections in the film that you are scanning? I can handle the brownish light problem. I believe, most of it is exposure. I thought using both the light meter in my camera and a handheld would do it. Now I believe I need to dig out my 18% grey card. That should give me a far better exposure setting. I am also going to use another lens. I knew better than to use the one that I did, but it was convenient. I need this shot/scan to be as sharp as a tack. It will be our flagship advertisement brochure going to representatives nation and probably world wide. (my knees are shaking). Thank you in advance. Guy
Re: filmscanners: What would you recommend?
Suggestions for a gentle (and low cost) introduction to film scanning... While your dad learns about digital imaging, any old flatbed will do, on which he should scan his old prints (6x4 or bigger) to start with, and make some enlargements. He's likely to be pleased with the results, unless he's a very fussy amateur photographer who does his own enlargements. If the bundled image processing software isn't too good, try PaintShopPro v7. Meanwhile, he should use Kodak PhotoCD processing for the next few films from his camera, giving him standard prints to scan, but also some higher resolution images on CD to play with. If he likes this approach, he should consider getting a film scanner, using all the advice available here. Ed Hamrick's $40 Vuescan software is a nearly essential extra. Good luck, Alan T - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, November 27, 2000 10:27 PM Subject: filmscanners: What would you recommend? Hi, My dad just got a new printer with which he can print photos on, so now he is thinking of getting a scanner. He wants to know what to get--a flatbed or a flatbed with an adapter to do negatives?
RE: filmscanners: Film Scanners and what they see.
I need this shot/scan to be as sharp as a tack. It will be our flagship advertisement brochure going to representatives nation and probably world wide. (my knees are shaking). If it's that important and it's of no significance whether you use the LS30, why not have the slide drum scanned? If it is of importance, it sounds like you need to shoot another roll of film to get the exposure right - then try the LS30 with both Nikonscan and Vuescan. Which version of Nikonscan are you using? Is the autofocus enabled? Rob Rob Geraghty [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://wordweb.com
Re: filmscanners: Film Scanners and what they see.
I find it hard to understand why people insist on using slide film for studio work...Especially people (me included) who don't do a lot of studio work and don't have an Art Director who insists on chromes because they look great on his light box. If I wuz you, and I do shoot a lot of mixed light architectural interiors that end up getting published, I would shoot Fuji Reala, get rid of the blue bulbs, light will all tungsten, halogen, whatever and have a good custom lab process the film, which you can then run through your scanner and end up with a great photo after a little tweaking in Photoshop... Mike Moore. www.arcportal.com Guy Prince wrote: Hi all, I hope today finds most of you in decent spirits. I have been doing some product and demonstration shots in our small studio with my old mechanical 35mm camera using 100 asa slide film. Fuji Sensia II. The spots and floods are supposed to have the blue UV bulbs in them. On my light table the slides look okay. Some shots have a brown "light" haze to them and some don't. If you looked at the 10 slides you could find a few useable ones. But when I put them into the Nikon LS-30 they come out considerably out of focus and the brownish "light" is amplified. Again, on the light table the slides do not look out of focus. In fact, they look great. The craggy old rotted wood really has a lot of contrast. I am using the Nikon Scan driver without the ICE. I have tried scanning at 400 dpi, 1250 and 2600 dpi. I've tried focusing the scanner and so forth. My question is, do film scanners considerably amplify imperfections in the film that you are scanning? I can handle the brownish light problem. I believe, most of it is exposure. I thought using both the light meter in my camera and a handheld would do it. Now I believe I need to dig out my 18% grey card. That should give me a far better exposure setting. I am also going to use another lens. I knew better than to use the one that I did, but it was convenient. I need this shot/scan to be as sharp as a tack. It will be our flagship advertisement brochure going to representatives nation and probably world wide. (my knees are shaking). Thank you in advance. Guy
RE: filmscanners: Photoshop
I think that you can upgrade 5 to 6 for $199, instead of LE to 6 for $299. Check it out on http://www.adobe.com/store/upgradecenter/main.html and see if I'm right. Either way, if you are as much a rookie at this as me, 5 will probably give you more than you can use, and you can probably upgrade later at the same price. -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Monday, November 27, 2000 8:54 AMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: filmscanners: PhotoshopI have a copy of Photoshop 5.0 which has never been opened/registered as I did not have a computer system that could operate the program. I have now acquired a suitable system (Dell 4100, 866 MHz, 256 RAM, 40 GB HD) but P.S. is now up to version 6.0. I have PS LE and am eligible for the upgrade (and yes it is $299). I am wondering if 6.0 is enough of an improvement for me to try to sell the 5.0 and further defray my costs for 6.0, or just stick with the 5.0. I am a complete newbie to scanning and for me nothing in computers is intuitive. Therefore I would especially like to know if 6.0 might be more user friendly than prior versions. I thank you in advance for your comments. Burt
RE: filmscanners: Photoshop
Here is the proper link for the 5 to 6 upgrade. http://www.adobe.com/store/products/photoshop.html -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]Sent: Monday, November 27, 2000 8:54 AMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject: filmscanners: PhotoshopI have a copy of Photoshop 5.0 which has never been opened/registered as I did not have a computer system that could operate the program. I have now acquired a suitable system (Dell 4100, 866 MHz, 256 RAM, 40 GB HD) but P.S. is now up to version 6.0. I have PS LE and am eligible for the upgrade (and yes it is $299). I am wondering if 6.0 is enough of an improvement for me to try to sell the 5.0 and further defray my costs for 6.0, or just stick with the 5.0. I am a complete newbie to scanning and for me nothing in computers is intuitive. Therefore I would especially like to know if 6.0 might be more user friendly than prior versions. I thank you in advance for your comments. Burt
