[filmscanners] LS-2000 - shadow noise banding developing
Hi All Been using my LS-2000 for a couple of years and it's been a great workhorse - having done thousands of scans. However, I've just started noticing VERY pronounced bands of noise in shadow areas that streak across the image - i.e. the same CCD cells are not performing. It's random but about 20% of the CCD 'cells' appear to be performing poorly. What's worse is this is at 16x sampling which is normally very good at limiting shadow noise. The unit is not exposed to smoke, or in a dusty environment. Could it just be that the CCD is getting tired? Any one else experienced this, or have ideas?? Cheers Rob Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
That is not so Dave. Edge to edge sharpness is not a software issue, it is a film flatness issue in the scaner, and an area where the curving of the film in the Flextight helps greatly. Shadow detail, and particularly noise in teh shadow detail, is not a software issue, it is an issue of how the scanning light source and hardware create the noise and accentuate grain. The depth of detail extracted from the shadow areas is not a software issue (altough software can help) but also to do with the Dmax of the scanner. Colour and clarity can also be assisted using Vuwscan, but the scanner has to be able to record them reasonably accurately in the first place. I am confident that Vuescan will not help to resolve some of these issue, particularly edge to edge sharpness. I use Vuescan all the time and will try and re-do my comparison using it with the SS120 and MSMP. Simon Dave King wrpte: When you're scanning color negs software is the determining factor in all the parameters you mention except detail resolution. I don't know how much the price of the Flextight has fallen, but those using the other scanners you mention can take heart in the fact that Vuescan exists. Dave - Original Message - From: Simon Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 5:39 PM Subject: [filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK David Lewiston wrote: Simon To answer my own question about 'how much scanner?'... Just did another websearch on Imacon. At the Luminous Landscape site I found the following entry for Oct 24, 2001: At the beginning of this month Imacon announced that they had reduced the price of the Imacon Flextight Photo to US$6,495 from its original price of $9,995. I have just been informed that Imacon is currently offering a limited-time US$1,500 mail-in rebate which effectively reduces the net cost to the end-user to $4,995. It seems to be the Flextight 1, which does 35mm only at a resolution of 3,200 dpi, about half the resolution of its big brother. David It is indeed the Flextight Photo. I used this in the dealer to scan a 35mm and 6x6 neg on a Sprintscan 120, Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro and the Flextight Photo. At 3200 dpi and with a Dmax of 4.1 the Flextight blew the others away with far superior scans in detail (shadow and highlight), clarity, colour, edge to edge sharpness etc. etc. I will be getting my one on Monday :-) Simon -- -- 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: cdrw drives
Speaking of off brand units...I'd heard great things years ago about Smart and Friendly. I have one, was top of the line about 3.5 years ago, 4x, SCSI. Smart and Friendly were actually a higher end manufacturer; good hardware. Smart and Friendly OEM'ed their CD-RW drives from Yamaha according to what I read a while back. Cary Enoch Reinstein aka Enoch's Vision, Inc., Peach County, Georgia http://www.enochsvision.com -- Behind all these manifestations is the one radiance, which shines through all things. The function of art is to reveal this radiance through the created object. ~Joseph Campbell Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] unsubscribe filmscanner_digest
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[filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
From: Simon Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 11:08:16 - Simon! I think you have done a good conclusion here. If you go back in the mailing list you found what I have been written about film flatness problems . I did last summer a test with my own 3 scanners LS2000. LS4000 and Polaroid 35+ against Imacon Photo. None of them could match the Imacon scanner in sharpness and Dmax. Comparing a picture from LS4000 and Imacon Photo , the Nikon LS 4000 picture are so inferior to the Imacon that I recommend Nikon to rebuild and improve the scanner before they are selling this crap. Last week I did a new scanner test who shows that also a Minolta Elite 2 scanner at 2800ppi outperformed my LS4000 regarding over all sharpness. The Minolta scanner cost about the half price of a Nikon LS 4000 scanner. , Nikonscan , Silverfast and now Vuescan allows us to decide focus point manually. This helps a little bit against curved film problem but not 100% The depth of field are still to short in the LS4000 and LS 2000 scanner construction. Some people believes that Vuescan are doing something else that Nikonscan or Silverfast or other scanner software's not are capable to do. All software's are working in a similar way regarding calculation of a picture. The Imacons software and scanners are outstanding regarding all parameters and counts to the semi or high end destop scanners leuge.The rest are still mid end scanners. Mikael Risedal That is not so Dave. Edge to edge sharpness is not a software issue, it is a film flatness issue in the scaner, and an area where the curving of the film in the Flextight helps greatly. Shadow detail, and particularly noise in teh shadow detail, is not a software issue, it is an issue of how the scanning light source and hardware create the noise and accentuate grain. The depth of detail extracted from the shadow areas is not a software issue (altough software can help) but also to do with the Dmax of the scanner. Colour and clarity can also be assisted using Vuwscan, but the scanner has to be able to record them reasonably accurately in the first place. I am confident that Vuescan will not help to resolve some of these issue, particularly edge to edge sharpness. I use Vuescan all the time and will try and re-do my comparison using it with the SS120 and MSMP. Simon Dave King wrpte: When you're scanning color negs software is the determining factor in all the parameters you mention except detail resolution. I don't know how much the price of the Flextight has fallen, but those using the other scanners you mention can take heart in the fact that Vuescan exists. Dave - Original Message - From: Simon Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 5:39 PM Subject: [filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK David Lewiston wrote: Simon To answer my own question about 'how much scanner?'... Just did another websearch on Imacon. At the Luminous Landscape site I found the following entry for Oct 24, 2001: At the beginning of this month Imacon announced that they had reduced the price of the Imacon Flextight Photo to US$6,495 from its original price of $9,995. I have just been informed that Imacon is currently offering a limited-time US$1,500 mail-in rebate which effectively reduces the net cost to the end-user to $4,995. It seems to be the Flextight 1, which does 35mm only at a resolution of 3,200 dpi, about half the resolution of its big brother. David It is indeed the Flextight Photo. I used this in the dealer to scan a 35mm and 6x6 neg on a Sprintscan 120, Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro and the Flextight Photo. At 3200 dpi and with a Dmax of 4.1 the Flextight blew the others away with far superior scans in detail (shadow and highlight), clarity, colour, edge to edge sharpness etc. etc. I will be getting my one on Monday :-) Simon -- -- 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 Mikael Risedal Photographer _ Kom med i världens största e-posttjänst; MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com/sv Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as
[filmscanners] Flattening negatives
Any good tips for flattening negatives before you scan them? When I get negatives back from the lab, they have a pronounced side to side curl that makes loading theming to the scanner a problem, much less getting good edge to edge resolution. Pre-flattening seems a much better option than glass carriers or new scanners. Thanks! Ed Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] RE: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
I think you have done a good conclusion here. If you go back in the mailing list you found what I have been written about film flatness problems . I did last summer a test with my own 3 scanners LS2000. LS4000 and Polaroid 35+ against Imacon Photo. None of them could match the Imacon scanner in sharpness and Dmax. How do you know that any of the scanners weren't doing some sharpening on their own? I'm asking if you confirmed that they weren't... I would specifically suspect the Imacon did some sharpening...I don't know about the others. Austin Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] RE: Flattening negatives
Books -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Edward P. Richards Sent: 09 March 2002 14:56 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [filmscanners] Flattening negatives Any good tips for flattening negatives before you scan them? When I get negatives back from the lab, they have a pronounced side to side curl that makes loading theming to the scanner a problem, much less getting good edge to edge resolution. Pre-flattening seems a much better option than glass carriers or new scanners. Thanks! Ed 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: Flattening negatives
Edward P. Richards schrieb: Any good tips for flattening negatives before you scan them? Hi, Ed, I just store them laid flat in the paper sleeves they come in for a week or so which significantly reduces curl. If stored this way for a longer period, e.g. a month or so, they're almost completely flat. I have a Nikon LS-40 which is said to have DOF problems with curled film but I still have to meet a negative or slide I cannot get a scan of which is sharp from corner to corner. See ya - Ralf -- My animal photo page on the WWW: http://schmode.net Find my PGP keys (RSA and DSS/DH) on PGP key servers (use TrustCenter certified keys only) Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
From: Austin Franklin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [filmscanners] RE: New price on Flextight Photo in UK Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 10:17:14 -0500 Imacon has a build in USM equal to about 60%.. radius 1+ tresh. 1 in the sofware Even if I try to increase sharpness a lot in PS with other scanners pictures they are not good as Imacon in sharpness. Mikael Risedal I think you have done a good conclusion here. If you go back in the mailing list you found what I have been written about film flatness problems . I did last summer a test with my own 3 scanners LS2000. LS4000 and Polaroid 35+ against Imacon Photo. None of them could match the Imacon scanner in sharpness and Dmax. How do you know that any of the scanners weren't doing some sharpening on their own? I'm asking if you confirmed that they weren't... I would specifically suspect the Imacon did some sharpening...I don't know about the others. Austin Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body Mikael Risedal Photographer _ Chatta med vänner online, prova MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.se Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
Austin Franklin wrote: I think you have done a good conclusion here. If you go back in the mailing list you found what I have been written about film flatness problems . I did last summer a test with my own 3 scanners LS2000. LS4000 and Polaroid 35+ against Imacon Photo. None of them could match the Imacon scanner in sharpness and Dmax. How do you know that any of the scanners weren't doing some sharpening on their own? I'm asking if you confirmed that they weren't... I would specifically suspect the Imacon did some sharpening...I don't know about the others. Austin All sharpening was off, we double checked it to ensure an even test. We also turned it on to see the difference and, to be honest, the Flextight was as sharp with sharpening turned off as the other two were with it turned on. Turning sharpening on in the Flextight did produce absolutely stunning scans, the best I have seen I think. I have sent an email to Imacon to check that there is no hardware sharpening being done without the being aware of it. Simon Simon Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
I think you have done a good conclusion here. If you go back in the mailing list you found what I have been written about film flatness problems . I did last summer a test with my own 3 scanners LS2000. LS4000 and Polaroid 35+ against Imacon Photo. None of them could match the Imacon scanner in sharpness and Dmax. How do you know that any of the scanners weren't doing some sharpening on their own? I'm asking if you confirmed that they weren't... I would specifically suspect the Imacon did some sharpening...I don't know about the others. I tested a Flextight II last year, and later found out that even with software sharpening set at 0, there's still a significant amount of sharpening applied. To turn off software sharpening, a fairly large negative value has to be entered, something like -100 or -200. Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
I didn't say edge to edge sharpness is a software issue, but shadow detail and noise in color negs scans certainly is. That is the part of the neg that is the easiest for the hardware to deal with. Dave - Original Message - From: Simon Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 6:08 AM Subject: [filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK That is not so Dave. Edge to edge sharpness is not a software issue, it is a film flatness issue in the scaner, and an area where the curving of the film in the Flextight helps greatly. Shadow detail, and particularly noise in teh shadow detail, is not a software issue, it is an issue of how the scanning light source and hardware create the noise and accentuate grain. The depth of detail extracted from the shadow areas is not a software issue (altough software can help) but also to do with the Dmax of the scanner. Colour and clarity can also be assisted using Vuwscan, but the scanner has to be able to record them reasonably accurately in the first place. I am confident that Vuescan will not help to resolve some of these issue, particularly edge to edge sharpness. I use Vuescan all the time and will try and re-do my comparison using it with the SS120 and MSMP. Simon Dave King wrpte: When you're scanning color negs software is the determining factor in all the parameters you mention except detail resolution. I don't know how much the price of the Flextight has fallen, but those using the other scanners you mention can take heart in the fact that Vuescan exists. Dave - Original Message - From: Simon Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 5:39 PM Subject: [filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK David Lewiston wrote: Simon To answer my own question about 'how much scanner?'... Just did another websearch on Imacon. At the Luminous Landscape site I found the following entry for Oct 24, 2001: At the beginning of this month Imacon announced that they had reduced the price of the Imacon Flextight Photo to US$6,495 from its original price of $9,995. I have just been informed that Imacon is currently offering a limited-time US$1,500 mail-in rebate which effectively reduces the net cost to the end-user to $4,995. It seems to be the Flextight 1, which does 35mm only at a resolution of 3,200 dpi, about half the resolution of its big brother. David It is indeed the Flextight Photo. I used this in the dealer to scan a 35mm and 6x6 neg on a Sprintscan 120, Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro and the Flextight Photo. At 3200 dpi and with a Dmax of 4.1 the Flextight blew the others away with far superior scans in detail (shadow and highlight), clarity, colour, edge to edge sharpness etc. etc. I will be getting my one on Monday :-) Simon -- -- 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: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
Vuescans advantages over most software (haven't used Flextight's, but hear it's superb) has to do with the fact you can bring a scan into photoshop somewhere between raw and final, enabling difficult shadow transition edits that are far superior to most other software I've tried. It combines the qualities of editing raw files with the convenience of CM and good film terms Dave - Original Message - From: Mikael Risedal [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 9:35 AM Subject: [filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK From: Simon Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK Date: Sat, 9 Mar 2002 11:08:16 - Simon! I think you have done a good conclusion here. If you go back in the mailing list you found what I have been written about film flatness problems . I did last summer a test with my own 3 scanners LS2000. LS4000 and Polaroid 35+ against Imacon Photo. None of them could match the Imacon scanner in sharpness and Dmax. Comparing a picture from LS4000 and Imacon Photo , the Nikon LS 4000 picture are so inferior to the Imacon that I recommend Nikon to rebuild and improve the scanner before they are selling this crap. Last week I did a new scanner test who shows that also a Minolta Elite 2 scanner at 2800ppi outperformed my LS4000 regarding over all sharpness. The Minolta scanner cost about the half price of a Nikon LS 4000 scanner. , Nikonscan , Silverfast and now Vuescan allows us to decide focus point manually. This helps a little bit against curved film problem but not 100% The depth of field are still to short in the LS4000 and LS 2000 scanner construction. Some people believes that Vuescan are doing something else that Nikonscan or Silverfast or other scanner software's not are capable to do. All software's are working in a similar way regarding calculation of a picture. The Imacons software and scanners are outstanding regarding all parameters and counts to the semi or high end destop scanners leuge.The rest are still mid end scanners. Mikael Risedal That is not so Dave. Edge to edge sharpness is not a software issue, it is a film flatness issue in the scaner, and an area where the curving of the film in the Flextight helps greatly. Shadow detail, and particularly noise in teh shadow detail, is not a software issue, it is an issue of how the scanning light source and hardware create the noise and accentuate grain. The depth of detail extracted from the shadow areas is not a software issue (altough software can help) but also to do with the Dmax of the scanner. Colour and clarity can also be assisted using Vuwscan, but the scanner has to be able to record them reasonably accurately in the first place. I am confident that Vuescan will not help to resolve some of these issue, particularly edge to edge sharpness. I use Vuescan all the time and will try and re-do my comparison using it with the SS120 and MSMP. Simon Dave King wrpte: When you're scanning color negs software is the determining factor in all the parameters you mention except detail resolution. I don't know how much the price of the Flextight has fallen, but those using the other scanners you mention can take heart in the fact that Vuescan exists. Dave - Original Message - From: Simon Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 08, 2002 5:39 PM Subject: [filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK David Lewiston wrote: Simon To answer my own question about 'how much scanner?'... Just did another websearch on Imacon. At the Luminous Landscape site I found the following entry for Oct 24, 2001: At the beginning of this month Imacon announced that they had reduced the price of the Imacon Flextight Photo to US$6,495 from its original price of $9,995. I have just been informed that Imacon is currently offering a limited-time US$1,500 mail-in rebate which effectively reduces the net cost to the end-user to $4,995. It seems to be the Flextight 1, which does 35mm only at a resolution of 3,200 dpi, about half the resolution of its big brother. David It is indeed the Flextight Photo. I used this in the dealer to scan a 35mm and 6x6 neg on a Sprintscan 120, Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro and the Flextight Photo. At 3200 dpi and with a Dmax of 4.1 the Flextight blew the others away with far superior scans in detail (shadow and highlight), clarity, colour, edge to edge sharpness etc. etc. I will be getting my one on Monday :-) Simon -- -- Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Flattening negatives
First advice is go to a better lab:) That's not a normal result. If you can tape the film edges in the carrier that's one way. Otherwise about all you can do that doesn't risk damage is to flatten with weight and wait, or get a glass carrier. Dave - Original Message - From: Edward P. Richards [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 9:56 AM Subject: [filmscanners] Flattening negatives Any good tips for flattening negatives before you scan them? When I get negatives back from the lab, they have a pronounced side to side curl that makes loading theming to the scanner a problem, much less getting good edge to edge resolution. Pre-flattening seems a much better option than glass carriers or new scanners. Thanks! Ed Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] RE: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
Austin Franklin wrote: I think you have done a good conclusion here. If you go back in the mailing list you found what I have been written about film flatness problems . I did last summer a test with my own 3 scanners LS2000. LS4000 and Polaroid 35+ against Imacon Photo. None of them could match the Imacon scanner in sharpness and Dmax. How do you know that any of the scanners weren't doing some sharpening on their own? I'm asking if you confirmed that they weren't... I would specifically suspect the Imacon did some sharpening...I don't know about the others. Austin All sharpening was off, we double checked it to ensure an even test. We also turned it on to see the difference and, to be honest, the Flextight was as sharp with sharpening turned off as the other two were with it turned on. Turning sharpening on in the Flextight did produce absolutely stunning scans, the best I have seen I think. I have sent an email to Imacon to check that there is no hardware sharpening being done without the being aware of it. Hi Simon, How do you know sharpening was off? See Moreno's post...point is, it's not so easy to know what the hardware is actually doing! Regards, Austin Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
Vuescans advantages over most software (haven't used Flextight's, but hear it's superb) has to do with the fact you can bring a scan into photoshop somewhere between raw and final, enabling difficult shadow transition edits that are far superior to most other software I've tried. It combines the qualities of editing raw files with the convenience of CM and good film terms I hear the Mac Imacon software is pretty good, but the PC version I tried last year was pretty bad. Easily the buggiest and most unstable scanner software I've ever come across. They didn't put a whole lot of effort into it. Hopefully they've improved on that. Otherwise, anyone serious about the Imacon scanner should also be considering a Mac to run the software on. Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
Dave I accept that the software can assist in pulling more information out of a negative but if the scanner does not have the capability in the hardware to read it then it isn't going to materialise in the output scan file. I doubt that Vuescan will ever get my lowly LS30 to perform better than it does now, and it will never meet the level of the Flextight, SS120, MDSMP or Nikon 8000. I have seen the review of the MDSMP where a scan showed a lot of noise in a particularly dark part of the scan. 16x multisampling erradicated most of it although there was visible banding. Simon Dave King wrote: I didn't say edge to edge sharpness is a software issue, but shadow detail and noise in color negs scans certainly is. That is the part of the neg that is the easiest for the hardware to deal with. Dave - Original Message - From: Simon Lamb [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 09, 2002 6:08 AM Subject: [filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK That is not so Dave. Edge to edge sharpness is not a software issue, it is a film flatness issue in the scaner, and an area where the curving of the film in the Flextight helps greatly. Shadow detail, and particularly noise in teh shadow detail, is not a software issue, it is an issue of how the scanning light source and hardware create the noise and accentuate grain. The depth of detail extracted from the shadow areas is not a software issue (altough software can help) but also to do with the Dmax of the scanner. Colour and clarity can also be assisted using Vuwscan, but the scanner has to be able to record them reasonably accurately in the first place. I am confident that Vuescan will not help to resolve some of these issue, particularly edge to edge sharpness. I use Vuescan all the time and will try and re-do my comparison using it with the SS120 and MSMP. Simon Dave King wrpte: When you're scanning color negs software is the determining factor in all the parameters you mention except detail resolution. I don't know how much the price of the Flextight has fallen, but those using the other scanners you mention can take heart in the fact that Vuescan exists. David Lewiston wrote: Simon To answer my own question about 'how much scanner?'... Just did another websearch on Imacon. At the Luminous Landscape site I found the following entry for Oct 24, 2001: At the beginning of this month Imacon announced that they had reduced the price of the Imacon Flextight Photo to US$6,495 from its original price of $9,995. I have just been informed that Imacon is currently offering a limited-time US$1,500 mail-in rebate which effectively reduces the net cost to the end-user to $4,995. It seems to be the Flextight 1, which does 35mm only at a resolution of 3,200 dpi, about half the resolution of its big brother. David It is indeed the Flextight Photo. I used this in the dealer to scan a 35mm and 6x6 neg on a Sprintscan 120, Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro and the Flextight Photo. At 3200 dpi and with a Dmax of 4.1 the Flextight blew the others away with far superior scans in detail (shadow and highlight), clarity, colour, edge to edge sharpness etc. etc. I will be getting my one on Monday :-) Simon Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
Austin Franklin wrote: Austin All sharpening was off, we double checked it to ensure an even test. We also turned it on to see the difference and, to be honest, the Flextight was as sharp with sharpening turned off as the other two were with it turned on. Turning sharpening on in the Flextight did produce absolutely stunning scans, the best I have seen I think. I have sent an email to Imacon to check that there is no hardware sharpening being done without the being aware of it. Hi Simon, How do you know sharpening was off? See Moreno's post...point is, it's not so easy to know what the hardware is actually doing! Regards, Austin Good point and I saw that post and am waiting for a reply from Imacon. However, even if sharpening is applied (and if it is it is done very well indeed) the quality of the output was what I was concerned with and that was superb. I have read many reviews now on the SS120, Minolta Dimage Multi Pro, Nikon 8000 etc. and the only reviews I have read that do not state any real negatives are the one regarding the Flextight (and the real negative for many is the price). The scanning software is reputedly the best available (barring the obvious benefits that Vuescan brings to other scanners), there is no talk of banding (as can be seen on Nikon and Dimage scans with the three CCD lines (Vuescan resolving this by using only one line as per the Nikon recommended fix for the problem), edge to edge sharpness is as good as it gets without a real drum scanner and the Flextight is generally regarded as a reference scanner. Now, given the recent price reductions, for another £1,000 more than the competition, I can't see any reason to consider any other scanner over the Flextight. I am always open to contrary views though, and if anyone can provide good reasons not to go the Flextight route (barring saving the money) then I would take all advice on board. As you know Austin, I have been wanting to upgrade my scanner for a while and have seriouslky considered the Leaf 45 in the past. However, getting hold of a good one in the UK is nigh on impossible and I can't seem to get satisfactory enough answers from eBay sellers to make me comfortable paying to import one from abroad. I do a lot of black and white and the Leaf, as you have stated, excels at real bw as opposed to averaged out RGB scans. The film profiles in the Flextight software gave me the opportunity to see a Delta 100 scan like I have never seen before emerge from the scanner. As with my other photographic purchases, I want the best quality in all parts of the process, from taking the image through to piezo printing the output. Right now, I believe the Felxtight provides another strong link in that quality chain, without the negatives I consistently read about with others scanners, and at a reasonably comparitive price. Simon Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Flattening negatives
If the negs are really bowed, speak to your lab. They are using incorrect drying technique. Chances are they are using too hot a temperature, or the drying is being done unevenly. All force-dried negs tend to have a bit of a curve, but if it is severe, they need to change who they are doing it. I hope you don't have a Nikon scanner ;-) Art Edward P. Richards wrote: Any good tips for flattening negatives before you scan them? When I get negatives back from the lab, they have a pronounced side to side curl that makes loading theming to the scanner a problem, much less getting good edge to edge resolution. Pre-flattening seems a much better option than glass carriers or new scanners. Thanks! Ed Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
Although I agree that hardware sharpening, or even non-disclosed software sharpening, is problematic in testing for non-sharpened images in analyzing sharpness, I question the value of looking at a non-sharpened image in terms of determining which scanner has higher resolution, unless there is an absolute way to determine that all sharpening has been removed and you are seeing the raw CCD result after just A/D conversion has occurred. Since each scanner may use different hardware filtering, which is built into the processing, and may not be fully removable, perhaps a better test of a scanner is to simply attempt to produce the BEST scan possible even if that requires using after scan secondary unsharp masking. I mean, at the end of the day (and I do realize the need for an unsharpened image for submission before final correction or use of the image is determined) the idea should be to have a result that provides the sharpest image without adding distracting artifacts from the sharpening process. For instance, if a scanner used hardware or firmware sharpening, would it be possible to accurately remove that via software during or after the scanning process? Can using negative sharpness, accurately remove the sharpness created via electronics, to bring the image back to its raw (unsharpened) state or is it more like switching a TIF to JPEG and back to TIFF and expecting to end up with the same image one started with? So perhaps the best comparison of scans is to have all the images sharpened to the maximum amount they can handle without objectionable artifacting, using whatever methods and parameters of sharpening is required to do that, and compare those results. Art Moreno Polloni wrote: I think you have done a good conclusion here. If you go back in the mailing list you found what I have been written about film flatness problems . I did last summer a test with my own 3 scanners LS2000. LS4000 and Polaroid 35+ against Imacon Photo. None of them could match the Imacon scanner in sharpness and Dmax. How do you know that any of the scanners weren't doing some sharpening on their own? I'm asking if you confirmed that they weren't... I would specifically suspect the Imacon did some sharpening...I don't know about the others. I tested a Flextight II last year, and later found out that even with software sharpening set at 0, there's still a significant amount of sharpening applied. To turn off software sharpening, a fairly large negative value has to be entered, something like -100 or -200. Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] RE: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
Although I agree that hardware sharpening, or even non-disclosed software sharpening, is problematic in testing for non-sharpened images in analyzing sharpness, I question the value of looking at a non-sharpened image in terms of determining which scanner has higher resolution, Hi Art, We weren't talking about resolution, but sharpness...as the statement was: None of them could match the Imacon scanner in sharpness... Though I don't believe what you said above was relevant to the issue being discussed, your point is correct. Sharpening won't increase resolution, just sharpness ;-) Regards, Austin Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] RE: New price on Flextight Photo in UK
Simon, I accept that the software can assist in pulling more information out of a negative Boy, do I disagree with that... How on earth can software pull more information out of a negative, aside from the control of the light source and the analog gain stage prior to the A/D? Those aren't software issues, but operator or firmware/calibration issues. Austin Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
[filmscanners] Re: Flattening negatives
Date sent: Sat, 09 Mar 2002 15:58:14 -0800 Send reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: Arthur Entlich [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[filmscanners] Re: Flattening negatives If the negs are really bowed, speak to your lab. They are using incorrect drying technique. Chances are they are using too hot a temperature, or the drying is being done unevenly. All force-dried negs tend to have a bit of a curve, but if it is severe, they need to change who they are doing it. Generally, roller transport processors are the worst for everything. They're kept at the maximum in control development temps for minimum time span runs (if indeed they are kept in control at all). They are often one shot chemistry feed, rather than replinishment method, and the final drying section is simply too hot. And of course they are dirty, prone to junk embedded in emulsion and scratching. If you can find a place that does dip and dunk processing you'll be much happier. With E-6, they are also the best for tight processing controls, assuming the place keeps a close finger on the pulse (which most do, as the machines are generally $50K and up). Mac McDougald -- DOOGLE DIGITAL 500 Prestwick Ridge Way # 39 - Knoxville, TN 37919 [EMAIL PROTECTED] 865-540-1308 http://www.doogle.com Unsubscribe by mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED], with 'unsubscribe filmscanners' or 'unsubscribe filmscanners_digest' (as appropriate) in the message title or body
