RE: filmscanners: Too picky?
I have many lazy or perhaps overactive sensors on my Scanwit 2720S (the infamous yellow stain with negatives or reddish stain and tram lines with positive film) and I don't find it acceptable, but the warranty period is over and the people from Acer that did the repair suggested there was no problem, others from Acer acted as if there was no solution. So I live with the problem (don't have money for some quality scanner). I wouldn't buy the Scanwit again and I would buy something wit dust removal, since even though I use the same antistatic cloth used by film processors to remove dust from negatives I still get 3 to 30 dustspots on every scan. Perhaps our living-room is too dust for filmscanning and the scanwit has acquired a fair amount of dust internally. BTW. Its not 2 and 2 and 4 pixels, but a lot more with my scanner. Jerry -Original Message- From: Arthur Entlich [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2001 12:05 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: Too picky? This posting is being repeated in both this and the Scan@leben group. As those who have been following my threads know, I'm currently using a Minolta Dual Dimage II scanner, and I'm in discussions with Minolta after my first unit was defective. My second unit also suffers from duff or lazy pixel sensors on the CCD. From what I can see 2 in the green, 2 in the red, and 4 in the blue. These produce light lines across the scan on slides (or dark ones in negative scans. Some have implied I am being too picky. Before I had the Minolta, I had a HP S-20. Although the Minolta is definitely superior in sharpness, resolution and OD, the HP did not have any lazy sensors that I saw. And I'm of the opinion even one in any channel is too many, as they are visible in enlargement But, my question is this... For people who do NOT have Minolta Dual Dimage II scanners, do you have one or more lazy or bad sensors in your CCD array, and if so, do you consider that an acceptable defect and have you decided not to exchange it? Has anyone noted this problem of bad sensors in other than Minolta scanners? What about with 4000 dpi models? Art
RE: filmscanners: Re: Do I need Digital ICE? Scanner selection Advice
I myself own an Acer Scanwit 2720S and am not pleased with it. I believe my scanner is more faulty than normal, but when I sent it in for repairs they said there wasn't a problem and when I received it back the problem was still there. I've discussed my problem on this list before and as it turns out there are other scanwit 2720S owners who also have this problem, but to a lesser extent. We call it yellow stain or yellow banding. That is how it shows up when you scan negatives. I've just scanned a few shots and you can see for yourselves why I have problems with this scanner. These shots are not particularly beautiful in themselves, but they show that I cannot make color scans of light objects on high contrast negative film, because the result is far worse than the print from e.g. a one-hour shop. Here. Planes Clouds http://community.webshots.com/photo/19905771/19906323WBQXKxvJcy (for an example look at the yellow-brownish cast to the clouds at the left and right sides. The problems with slides are less severe, example album Burger's Zoo (Fuji Provia 100F pushed 2 stops), the only scan that is really really messed up in my very amateur opinion is 'Bamboo' (you can get to the album from the above page). It is a dark underexposed slide, but the slide itself still looks rather nice, but not the scan. ) So I suggest you refrain from buying a 2720S, if not for the chance of a buggy scanner, then for the spotting that you have to do with negatives: scans are sharp, especially the spots, so you will have work to do. Jerry BTW. The 2740S may have a completely different type of CCD with much better quality. My suggestion however is to test whatever scanner you buy with a high-contrast negative film with a shot of large highlights and with a high contrast slide with a big shadow-part and see if your particular specimen does not have any flaws you can't live with. -Original Message- From: dbdors [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 8:11 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: Re: Do I need Digital ICE? Scanner selection Advice
RE: filmscanners: Photoshop 5 LE files darker than they look
-Original Message- From: Peter Klein [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, August 21, 2001 5:40 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Photoshop 5 LE files darker than they look Or use a non-Adobe product. It's tempting. Anybody out there use other programs. Paint Shop Pro looks good, but doesn't handle 16-bit data. What about Ulead PhotoImpact, Corel Photo-Paint, Micrographix Picture Publisher, etc. ? [Oostrom, Jerry] I use Picture Window Pro which has windows color management support (so you need Windows 98SE or 'higher'), does all(!!!) edits in 16-bits etc. But its unsharp masking uses a minimum granularity of at least 1 pixel (i.e. 1, 2, 3, etc.), which I sometimes find too coarse (In PS I've seen the use of USM 0.3 pixel at 300% which for that image did wonders). It has some other functions that I use too, like e.g. warping to remove the effect of converging lines in architecture if you use a wide-angle lense, lense barrel/pincushion distortion, lense focus-length distortion correction, chromatic aberration correction (I have consumer grade lenses), an easy gamma correction (if compared to PS). It also has a lot of effects that I don't (know how to) use, but I really miss the magic wand selection tool and 'select similar' function. It actually misses all selection tools, or I don't know where to find them. It also misses or in my version missed a way of saving the color profile in .png files, so I save images with profile in either .tif or .jpg (100%quality at 4:4:4 sampling) format. As you can see this PWP program offers a lot but also restrains you in other areas. So what I do is color correct saturation and b/w points with curves in PWP in HSL or HSV mode (not in RGB mode) and further remove color casts with those pens that sample a number of pixels (don't know the name of the pens, eye-sampler?) and then do the cloning / spotting in either PWP or if I need the magic wand and fine unsharp mask I do it in a PSLE-like application at 8 bits/color, then save again with profile in PWP (8 bits/color). (I.e. scan-PWP-PSLE-PWP, actually a bit too laborious, because of little, but important things that I miss in PWP) You can find PWP plus downloadable 30-day demo at www.dl-c.com.
RE: filmscanners: Good neg stck on Scanwit
-Original Message- From: David Gordon [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, August 13, 2001 11:21 PM To: Filmscanners Subject: RE: filmscanners: Good neg stck on Scanwit Oostrom, Jerry [[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote on Mon, 13 Aug 2001 15:48:10 +0200 Kodak Supra negative stock seems to scan with less grainy appearance than the Fuji Superia 400 film. Maybe what Kodak claim is true then! The finest grained 400 neg film available... [Oostrom, Jerry] I don't know about that. Perhaps Kodak when they tried to make this film better for scans didn't only do something about its toughness to stand scratches, but also said: most filmscanners up-to-that-date are around 2800ppi, let's make something that suffers less from grain-aliasing in those kinds of scanners. That's what I like filmmakers to do if they say they make a film optimised for scanning. Jerry
RE: filmscanners: Good neg stck on Scanwit
What I have noticed with the scanwit 2720S and 400 ISO film may also be true for 800 ISO film: the Kodak Supra negative stock seems to scan with less grainy appearance than the Fuji Superia 400 film. This could however also be the result of the slight overexposure I used for the Kodak film. Perhaps you should just try it with the 800 film. Really, this is no joke: I once used Kodak Ultra Zoom film ISO 800 and it scanned terribly grainy in the scanwit. It may very well be too objectionably grainy to you. I think you will have to overexpose the film a little anyway, otherwise you get terrible grain with the 800 ISO film (i.e. when scanning, the print may be OK). Don't overexpose a lot as the scanwit does not handle dark film very well. With regard to tranny film: since the contrast is very large use a tranny film that has low contrast. One of the PP magazines had a test on a number tranny films lately and they mentioned which films were contrasty and which were less contrasty. This will ensure that the Scanwit will be able to scan the shadows. Also tranny film will scan very smoothly compared to the grainy appearance of negative film. Jerry -Original Message- From: GeoffreyJakarta [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, August 07, 2001 7:42 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: Good neg stck on Scanwit Hello folks I normally use trani stock but need to do some photography using neg film [35mm] and seek your opinion as to which neg films to use through an Acer Scanwit 2720s. I have a number of locations to film and will be shooting available light interiors under fluoro and fill flash, daylight and daylight overcast. For available light interiors is 800 iso [Kodak Fuji Konica Agfa] OK these days for grain size and colour reproduction or do I need a lower ISO stock? The stock needs good colour reproduction and [reasonabely] little grain evident when scanned on the Scanwit. I have both Vuescan 7.1.7 and Miraphoto v2 [Vuescan is a mile in front IMHO].
RE: filmscanners: PS 6.0 v. PS 5.0 LE v. Jasc Paintshop Pro 7.02
I resend it again, the first time failed through problems at the mail server. Sorry it arrives late. -Original Message- From: Rob Geraghty [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 4:25 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: PS 6.0 v. PS 5.0 LE v. Jasc Paintshop Pro 7.02 Picture Window Pro is another cheap photo editing program which you might consider in addition to PSP because it *does* support 16 bit editing. http://www.dl-c.com/ [Oostrom, Jerry] PWP uses the windows color management system, which is probably not as good as that of Adobe. It also misses the selection tools such as magic wand, freehand, rectangle etc. Actually, I think it misses all those selection tools and as a result I miss them. Perhaps the cheaper editing tools compared to the full version of Photoshop also miss magic wand select similar etc. , which I noticed can be handy to select white dust specks and subsequently blur these specks. However, you may never have a need for that. PWP has a lot of things going for it besides the price: (here a few that I use: ) All edits (= a lot) can be in 48 bit, you have a warping tool which e.g.enables you to correct distorted lines in architecture photography, you have a barrel distortion correction tool (I have cheap lenses), you have a chromatic aberration correction tool (I have cheap lenses) and with every valid remark that you have you get a new version of the executable sent to your mail-address (at least thats what the programmer tried to do), with a correction that works. But I read that Photoshop Elements is only $99 and has (Adobe?) CM, whereas PWP almost costs $80, ash Windows CM and has a more complicated user interface, for me especially true with masks.
RE: filmscanners: Canoscan 2400 UF
-Original Message- From: Jack Phipps [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 12:07 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: filmscanners: Canoscan 2400 UF I think you'd be a lot happier with the Acer 2740 at a similar price. Jack Phipps Applied Science Fiction [Oostrom, Jerry] Why? ... Who, you or he? Jerry Oostrom Acer Scanwit user. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 12:58 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: Canoscan 2400 UF Has anyone tried or heard any reports about the Canoscan 2400 UF? They claim 2400 dpi, and it is going for about $450. Sounds like buying the Brooklyn Bridge or swampland in Florida, but thought I would ask. Jim Sillars (old, but not COMPLETELY senile)
RE: filmscanners: Stains and Grains (was Yellow Stain)
Thanks for your extensive research Frank! BTW. I received your mail twice. Could I ask you to try your photoshop correcting example with the BMW image if it is not too much trouble? Thanks Jerry -Original Message- From: Frank Nichols [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 12:40 AM To: Filmscanners@Halftone. Co. Uk Cc: Jerry Oostrom; Lynn Allen Subject: RE: filmscanners: Stains and Grains (was Yellow Stain) WARNING: The following is a rather long discussion of the yellow stain effect seen on ACER Scanwit 2720s reported here a week or so ago. I am posting this in hopes of getting more details on the actual working of the scanwit from someone in the know - such as optics, sensor design, etc. If you don't have a Scanwit or if you don't have this problem you may want skip these ramblings of a somewhat inept newbie... :-) ... [Oostrom, Jerry] [] I still have the examples of this effect posted at my website (http://www.theNichols.net/scanner ) This weekend I will be posting a couple of methods for hiding/correcting the yellow stain effect using Photoshop. The methods are not perfect, but they can salvage an unusable photo in most cases. /fn
RE: filmscanners: Stains and Grains (was Yellow Stain)
-Original Message- From: Alan Tyson [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 5:18 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Stains and Grains (was Yellow Stain) [Oostrom, Jerry] [] So if it's only occasionally a problem, don't worry. You can got a lot of conventional prints made from your negs for the difference in cost between the Scanwit and anything else that's worth having. Some negatives have always been difficult to print. The mistake occurred at the moment the button was pressed, not when the scanner was bought. [Oostrom, Jerry] If only it were an occasional problem for me :-(
RE: filmscanners: Stains and Grains (was Yellow Stain)
Sorry, I thought I had replied to him directly. 8-7 -Original Message- From: Oostrom, Jerry [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 8:30 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: filmscanners: Stains and Grains (was Yellow Stain) Thanks for your extensive research Frank! BTW. I received your mail twice. Could I ask you to try your photoshop correcting example with the BMW image if it is not too much trouble? Thanks Jerry
RE: filmscanners: LS-4000ED Dmax 4,2 or rather 2,3?
Sorry Nikon, it was the the LS with the IV that had normal contrast and the one with the 4000 that had high contrast. It was my memory that had no contrast. -Original Message- From: Oostrom, Jerry [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2001 1:53 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: filmscanners: LS-4000ED Dmax 4,2 or rather 2,3? I just read in Popular Photography about a test on 7 filmscanners. The Nikon LS-4000ED I believe was also mentioned there as having few shadow detail. The SS120 had great shadow detail in that test.
RE: filmscanners: ScanWit Yellow stain
I saw your offer. I'm not living 'close' to Nieuwegein, but perhaps I will try to post a sheet of negatives (have to get permission from my wife ;-) her relatives are on that sheet of film), of course with a CD and postage paid return envelope. Thank you for your offer, I'll contact you offlist, Jerry -Original Message- From: Henk de Jong [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, June 29, 2001 9:00 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: ScanWit Yellow stain Jerry, I'd suggest you find another photographer with another scanner (this List might help you--if there are any fellow-Dutchmen about, please pitch in). In the thread: filmscanners: OT: I'm a bit in a paradox here!!?: was RE: VueScan + flat colors (that disappear with Mika I wrote: If Jerry is living near Nieuwegein (Utrecht), maybe I can try to scan his film in my ScanWit 2720? __ With kind regards, Henk de Jong The Netherlands Homepage Nepal - Trekking Around Annapurna - Photo Gallery: http://annapurna.wolweb.nl
filmscanners: PPs
Well, I actually like PP (Practical Photography, UK magazine) much better than PP (Popular Potography, US magazine) but its the price/ads ratio difference (pound/euro*amount_of_ads rates vs. US-dollar/euro*amount_of_ads) that let me choose for a subscription on PP US. Occasionally I buy a PP UK if it contains articles I am especially interested in. Not that PP UK contains better tests, jut better photos printed on more expensive paper, more tips and articles that don't spread over 20 pages (continued here... continued there...). Jerry -Original Message- From: Robert Meier [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, June 29, 2001 9:41 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: LS-4000ED Dmax 4,2 or rather 2,3? --- Hersch Nitikman [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I just went back to the Popular Photography issue that reviewed the new scanners, and what I saw was very different from what was said here earlier today. They rated the LS-4000 Very highly. In fact, maybe too highly... Well, PP seems to write a lot of things to please its advertisers. There are a lot of articles that are flawed and don't really tell you the whole truth. It's not that everything they write is wrong but you have to take it with a grain of salt. I have to admit that I also did subscribe for PP but at $3/year there is enough information that is worth the $3. Rob __ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
RE: filmscanners: ScanWit Yellow stain
Here are some of the scans I promised. I made them by attaching the scanner to another current outlet group, but it did not change things. I also swapped the negative to show you the error IS in the scanner, not the negative (largest yellow band still appears at the right side). Here they are in the http://www.bigfoot.com/~jerfi/testscannerfix/ dirctory: The film scans were made using Vuescan 7.1.3, the newest version yesterday. I set: *the Vuescan settings to default, * used a scan resolution of 675dpi and resampled the image to a quarter its size (corresponding to 337 dpi) using Picture Window Pro 3.0. The crop file was saved from Picture Window Pro as a jpg at 100% quality The raw scan file was also downsampled using PWP and may as a result have obtained a color profile (perhaps sRGB, didn't take the time to check that). My mistake. However, you will still see the banding if you convert it to a positive scan. BTW. the raw scan file is still in 16bit mode. Now if you compare this to the flatbed scan from the print I received from the printing service you know that the print shows much more color information AND has no banding! Unfortunately, they just crop wrong!#$% Film: Kodak Supra 400, shot at ISO320, me leaning almost over the car with a wide-angle. The whole roll was shot at ISO320, but this particular negative seems more over-exposed. Except for the yellow bands and strange color I obtained a scan with a very nice soft! grain pattern. The crop file: http://home.wanadoo.nl/joostrom/testscannerfix/ToWebFilmScanquart.jpg 162k The raw tiff 48bit file: http://home.wanadoo.nl/joostrom/testscannerfix/scan0002quart.tif 858k!!! The nice flatbed scan with the wrong crop but NO banding: http://home.wanadoo.nl/joostrom/testscannerfix/toWebFlatbedquart.jpg 132k (also PWP'd and saved at 100% jpg quality) So is it user error, is it scanner error (bad lamp / bad CCD) or is it me pushing the envelopes of what a decent scanner can do? Thank you all for your interest, I've used you comments to make my point at Acer NL, Jerry BTW. All good intentions and manners aside: Mr. Honda Lo has become very silent for weeks now. The same goes for the dutch contact person, whom I've mailed several times (always received a return receipt, but unfortunately that does not prove much). I am getting frustrated enough to write to the bosses / managers / colleagues of this dutch contact person (whose email addresses I got from Mr. honda Lo), just not there yet and still hoping for some help from Acer NL. Are they just waiting for my 90 days warranty over the previous repair to pass? This mail is Bcc'd again to both Honda Lo and the dutch contact person. -Original Message- From: Oostrom, Jerry [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2001 12:52 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: filmscanners: ScanWit Yellow stain The scan that I made is indeed OFF the planet, even on my screen, but it has been done with the regular settings in which I scan normally exposed negatives (gamma 2.22). I overexposed the whole roll from ISO 400 to ISO 320, should not be too much I think, but this frame came out more overexposed than others. The print from the printing service is OK though, I could send a flatbed scan of it (the only problem is their cropping, they took off parts of the left door!@#$%). Anyway, before you all start thinking I am in error here, I think I'll send a raw scan downsampled to the list (I'll send only the link) so you can see for yourself if it's me or the Scanwit. The scanner does not work OK on normally-exposed materials in the sense that even though the errors are much less visible, they are still there, most noticeably on even coloured or light colored parts of a scan from negative and on dark colored parts of a positive. Its ruining the wedding shots we have taken from our family. Thank you for your interest, Jerry info comparisons
RE: filmscanners: LS-4000ED Dmax 4,2 or rather 2,3?
I just read in Popular Photography about a test on 7 filmscanners. The Nikon LS-4000ED I believe was also mentioned there as having few shadow detail. The SS120 had great shadow detail in that test. Since nobody else on this list mentioned this test (an american magazine, sent to Holland-- plenty of time for americans to read it) I assume its not such a popular magazine among filmscanner people? -Original Message- From: Tomasz Zakrzewski [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2001 12:38 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: LS-4000ED Dmax 4,2 or rather 2,3? [Oostrom, Jerry] [] But I've just read a review od the 4000ED in German magazine digit ftp://ftp.lasersoft.com.pl/SFPrasa2001/Digit_3-2001.pdf which says, that the true Dmax of this scanner is 2,3! It was even worse than with Coolscan LS-2000 which had 2,6. What't this??? It means no details in shadows. The reviewers say that this low Dmax is the consequence of the increase in resolution at the cost of the light-sensitive area of the sensor (whatever it means) which causes too low light-sensitivity. [Oostrom, Jerry] []
filmscanners: OT: I'm a bit in a paradox here!!?: was RE: VueScan + flat colors (that disappear with Mika
Good,
then its probably only me acting under-age here
(a sign pointing in this direction is the wise refraining from comments by
Maris and even more so Mikael).
Thank you Art for putting some balance to my comments and double apologies
to Mikael Risedal. 1) I didn't know your 'Puh' and exclamation marks were to
be interpreted differently from the way they sounded to me and the way I
visualized it for myself (it was funny though ;-) and as a result I've put
myself in a position I was putting you in (2) (pfff english is difficult).
Mikael, please don't stop writing the way you do because of me, my opinion
is not worth it, yours is, so please keep writing and doing your tests and
helping Ed enhance Vuescan, Nikon enhance Nikon stuff etc. Please don't let
me scare you off.
Art, I know the debate IS minor, but in the Netherlands we have a saying:
,Don't make an elephant out of a mosquito'. Apparently that's what I did
while I thought Mikael was doing it. I still do a little bit because he
seemed to assume things about Maris actions / intentions / efforts etc. and
judge on that, at least thats how it reads in my understanding of english.
Perhaps its my age (31) and I haven't built up enough years of social skills
and experiences to see into these cultural and linguistic differences. My
assumption was: Mikael is from the north (Sweden) and proud of it ('Lund,
Sweden' -- assumptions, assumptions, assumptions...), so when he sounded
angry he was a lot more angry than if he were from the Mediterranean, where
generally people behave more sanguinary.
BTW. My gut feeling still is that your comment could as well or even better
be directed to Mikael. Does that mean there is no hope for me anymore?? :-(
Greetings,
Bully
For the tired among you: I'll skip mailing on this subject for now, promise.
However, I cannot yet promise that I won't react when I get
(rightfully/wrongfully/based on mere assumptions) the impression that people
judge based on mere assumptions because its easy.
-Original Message-
From: Arthur Entlich [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2001 10:06 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: filmscanners: VueScan + flat colors (that disappear with
Mika
Jerry,
I think that the majority of any perceived acrimony that occurred in
these recent exchanges of ideas, is due to linguistic differences, as it
can be more difficult to both write in, and fully comprehend in a second
language.
I think there is a very minor debate here, and not much else. You might
be over-reacting to the interchange taking place.
Art
RE: filmscanners: ScanWit Yellow stain
The scan that I made is indeed OFF the planet, even on my screen, but it has been done with the regular settings in which I scan normally exposed negatives (gamma 2.22). I overexposed the whole roll from ISO 400 to ISO 320, should not be too much I think, but this frame came out more overexposed than others. The print from the printing service is OK though, I could send a flatbed scan of it (the only problem is their cropping, they took off parts of the left door!@#$%). Anyway, before you all start thinking I am in error here, I think I'll send a raw scan downsampled to the list (I'll send only the link) so you can see for yourself if it's me or the Scanwit. The scanner does not work OK on normally-exposed materials in the sense that even though the errors are much less visible, they are still there, most noticeably on even coloured or light colored parts of a scan from negative and on dark colored parts of a positive. Its ruining the wedding shots we have taken from our family. Thank you for your interest, Jerry -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2001 8:47 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: filmscanners: ScanWit Yellow stain Here, this looks completely out to lunch, especially gamma, which is way too high. I can't really tell much about the image itself because such gross gamma correction is required before I can see anything much, and then a pile of colour correction too. If this looks anything like OK gamma on your screen, your monitor is off a different planet. Whilst I can see what you mean about the sort of yellow vignette, the background - behind the car - has gone an elegant rose pink. I rather suspect there is nothing wrong with the scanner hardware, but there's a combination of pushing the exposure envelope, software and (perhaps) user error here. It's actually quite an interesting effect ;-) almost like cross-processing. A small (eg downsampled) Vuescan SCAN000n.tif would be useful at this stage, if you have s/w which can cope with 16bit/ch files. Does the scanner work OK on normally-exposed materials? Regards Tony Sleep http://www.halftone.co.uk - Online portfolio exhibit; + film scanner info comparisons
RE: filmscanners: ScanWit Yellow stain
I'll try your solution with the blank frame. I once tried to insert a piece of blank frame into the calibration hole and it made the whole scan stripy! Thanks, Jerry. BTW. I Bcc'd Mr. Honda Lo, so that's why I included all of your mail. -Original Message- From: Mark T. [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 2:44 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: ScanWit Yellow stain Further to Art's comprehensive troubleshooting tips.. I hope I am wrong, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's the lamp - therefore will be expensive to fix.. Best of luck - I presume you have spoken/pleaded with Honda Lo? (Tell him that the good karma you would give out, from receiving a replacement unit outside warranty, might bring MANY sales) :) Anyway, if you are unable to get it sorted..., may I also offer a quick, totally un-thought-out solution? Note that this is coming from a non-professional source, so is probably way off target.. If the stain is consistent, could you not scan a blank frame to get a 'profile' of it, then reverse that, maybe blur it a bit, and apply it to your image in Photoshop/whatever? Not a nice addition to your workflow (and ask someone *else* how to do it quickly!), but once you got the hang of it.. Mark T. ..who reckons all problems are easy to solve (provided they're not mine..) :) At 04:39 PM 25/06/01 -0700, Art wrote: Dear Jerry, I just took a look at your attachment in Photoshop. Of course, it is heavily artifacted due to the downsampling and Jpegging. The first thing.. (snipped) Oostrom, Jerry wrote: Hi Alan, I recently received my scanner back from Acer, but it still showed the same problems. Here I have an example of an overexposed negative.. (snipped again)
RE: filmscanners: VueScan + flat colors (that disappear with Mikael Risedal)
Mikael, even if I 'rely' on your writing, it still wasn't that obvious what the real issue was before your last mail. Your behaviour in it is 'uncontrolled' as if you lost your self-control. As a result it contains personal accusations and assumptions of which I cannot believe you have any good proof and even if you did, why write it to the list? It reads like a cartoon now and you become i.m.o. a caricature in it (like many supposedly adults I know btw. of which some are on this list too.). So loosen up! ... Although perhaps, you know each other very well and you were just joking around, teasing your friend Maris! If that's true, then you've got me and possibly others fooled. ...In that case, keep on! Anyway, I always like to read your posts, regardless of how polarised and colourful they are. Most parts of it have real benefit for me. And yes, you can see this as a personal attack, but I can assure you: * I have many problems in which I myself do not keep the amount of self-control or compassion that I like to have kept, even if it was only to keep up an appearance of matureness. * Others fight little flame wars in this list too, they were however not interesting to me, so you were just unlucky. * there's no benefit in looking upon my mail as an attack and I do mean to help (I also like to sting, but I do like to help ;-) * I send this to the list, since I think it may prevent some other list-participants (some LEDs blinking? ;-) to make bad caricatures of themselves. Of course some of you list members may find it more difficult if you cannot be as direct as you like... Just remember then that if you don't want your mail and your image to loose value because of your own words you should not write personal accusations on somebody's acts or more importantly intentions etc. in public, even if they are true. (this is how I try to make my mail less of a personal accusation is it working? 8-) Saint Jerry -Original Message- From: Mikael Risedal [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 5:34 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: VueScan + flat colors Maris!!! You dont know or try to learn what the real issue is. I have discover that something is wrong in VueScan and color space Adobe RGB. Read this !! From ED Yes, Adobe RGB makes flat colors. There's probably something I'm doing wrong inside VueScan (I may have inverted a matrix wrong). Regards, Ed Hamrick This is not a question about what suits the web or not. Every one knows what you are writing about S-RGB and the web. I do... There are a problem inside VueScan to convert and handel color space Adobe RGB. The software are optimized in S-RGB . I think I rather I let ED Hamrick explain it for you. And yes Im working in color space Adobe RGB not S-RGB. And if you will learn something from others read what they rely are writing. Puh Mikael Risedal Photographer Lund Sweden -- From: Maris V. Lidaka, Sr. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: VueScan + flat colors Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2001 10:02:41 -0500 That may be fine for images you intend to post on the web, but by leaving it in the sRGB color space you are limiting the colors available for archiving and for printing. This is also BTW the reason the colors don't look flat - because the colors have been compressed. I prefer to scan and leave the image in Bruce or Adobe RGB, and change to sRGB only the copies I intend to post to the web. The archived scan will remain in a wider color space despite the 'flat' appearance. Maris
RE: filmscanners: Fast, decent (if you are lucky), low res scans
Reply is below. BTW. I blind-carbon-copied this mail to several of the involved people at Acer, so that they are again reminded to the advertising power of users (actually also not to talk too much behind their backs). I suggest some of them follow this filmscanner mailing list to hear the public's opinion on their service and their poducts. Please see http://www.halftone.co.uk for subscriptions to the mailing list, the digest and/or http://phi.res.cse.dmu.ac.uk/Filmscan/ for a searchable archive. -Original Message- From: Arthur Entlich [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2001 3:44 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Fast, decent, low res scans Oostrom, Jerry wrote: BTW. Lately I had sent in my scanner for service, and when I received it back (problem not solved, at best only marginal improvements!) I received an extra filmholder and slideholder! Maybe using double holders will fix the service problem? Or some poor guy now has a scanner with holders at all? [Oostrom, Jerry] Well, in their defence I can say they thought the problem could be some kind of reflection from my slide- and filmholder so they promised me that they would send these items (new). I said Well thanks, but I know that is not the problem and I would prefer you to solve the real problem (symptoms: brown-yellowish bands with negatives along the scan direction at the boundaries of the frame for light parts of the photo, similar problem with positive-film in dark shadowish parts, I've mailed examples to this forum in the past) . The real one they didn't solve (perhaps since as somewhere midway during the repair session they stated they were unable to reproduce the problem). They also said that they would replace a module and perhaps they did, since the scanner scans a frame at full resolution backwards (w.r.t. direction, image unchanged). However, that could also be a new behaviour of Vuescan. (I only did test with full-res scans though and did not look at the scan direction with Miraphoto). This seems to be becoming a standard operating procedure in the industry, returning the unit unrepaired. Since shipping isn't cheap (you usually have to pay at least one way) and you are without your unit (no smug comments!) for weeks at a time, you eventually just give up and live with the defect. [Oostrom, Jerry] Unfortunately, my warranty is over now. Maybe its cheaper than actually hiring staff to fix these things? [Oostrom, Jerry] I also phoned Acer and came in direct contact with the engineer. She seemed to be a Japanese, not yet speaking any dutch. Thus she was probably sent here to strengthen the technical staff of the service unit. So although my problem is not (yet) solved, I still think Acer is at least trying to set up a good service unit in the Netherlands. Greetings, Jerry
RE: filmscanners: Fast, decent, low res scans
-Original Message- From: Phil [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 7:00 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Fast, decent, low res scans Thank you for the replies on the how do I make fast, decent low res scans question I posted yesterday! [Oostrom, Jerry] [] Jerry, is the 675 ppi scan on the Acer Scanwit 2740S REALLY done in under 10 seconds? [Oostrom, Jerry] I don't know, I don't have one (I have a 2720S). If you have the dust-removal enabled it will perhaps take somewhat more(!) than double the time of a normal scan at 675dpi (5 seconds was mentioned?). Anyway, the suggestion I made and later Alan made on having two slideholders and filmholders available is especially useful with vuescan, since you can change its settings to automatically start scanning upon insertion of a slideholder and after scanning it will spit it out for you, so there is not even need to touch the mouse or keyboard or even a scanner button for the speed-freaks on a tight budget. Good luck on your quest, Jerry Oostrom BTW. Lately I had sent in my scanner for service, and when I received it back (problem not solved, at best only marginal improvements!) I received an extra filmholder and slideholder!
RE: filmscanners: Noise correction algorithms
I already asked this question to Ed and later to this list, all some time ago. Ed replied that his algorithms were of course already doing such a thing. Then I asked, where can you set the threshold on black (slides) or white (negs) for what is considered to be dust and waited... (no answer to that question). This reminded me that I should put only one question in a mail (ironically that was even Ed's suggestion to me, even longer ago), since then it clearly shows both parties that the other person is not answering / missing that question. But that is getting OT. I noticed that the HP S20 software was able to paint e.g. in red all pixels that were being clipped by current histogram mapping settings. To me this seemed a handy feature, but no other software took over that idea. It seems that if you can show the user which data is being clipped or is being considered pixels-to-be-cleaned cq, IR-opaque-pixels, the user would be able to precisely control if the correct pixels are cleaned. This would be a good feature for any owner of a filmscanner without IR. Small problem is that you have to do a full-resolution pre-view, and the big problem is... well, unknown to me, but known to Ed and other software manufacturers. Perhaps it has to do with patents, but what I hear is 'click-toot-toot...' and since I hear that often I wonder: does anybody understand what I am trying to get at? Bar Bar applying to the civilized greeks ;-) -Original Message- From: Lynn Allen [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2001 5:00 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: Noise correction algorithms This question is for Ed, and any other program-savy people who want to answer. Since dust is always white on negs and always black on slides, while noise is usually lighter and grain is usually darker than the surrounding field of pixels, is this or can it be considered in the cleaning algorithms? This suddenly seems so obvious as I experience the problems more, and I wonder what I'm missing that it isn't more easy to deal with. (?) Example: red pixels in sky colors, when it isn't sunset, green pixels in skin-tones and shadow tones at mid-day. It's very perplexing, because I'm pretty sure my scanner or its software is actually seeing or at least interpreting those pixels. I could, of course, be wrong, but that's how it looks to me. Best regards--LRA --- FREE! The World's Best Email Address @email.com Reserve your name now at http://www.email.com
RE: filmscanners: Cleaning slides
-Original Message- From: Lynn Allen [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, April 28, 2001 2:41 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Cleaning slides Art wrote: These same companies that immediately offer free repairs or replacement when a product doesn't meet functionality after minimal usage? To their everlasting credit, Acer *does* in fact replace, rather than repair, defective Scanwits with new ones. At least in the US, as I know firsthand. [Oostrom, Jerry] I have my Acer scanner sent in for service, but here in Holland they had not heard about a replacement programme. In fact they are trying to repair my defective one. And they are until now unable/unwilling to see the problem of the scanner: background noise, devastating for negatives in general or the dark part of slides. Luckily they are still testing for the problem, but I was disappointed when I saw their sample scan, which of course looked good: the scan was cropped to 29x14mm (ratio 2:1), whereas I scan full-frame 36x24mm (ratio 3:2). I said they probably didn't do a full frame scan and thereby unintentionally left out the parts of the CCD line/array that are failing, they responded that they performed a full frame scan. Then I responded: how strange, look at the ratios, the dpi etc... Now I am waiting for their answer... It is terrible: they are friendly, very willing to help and I want to keep it that way, but it sure is hard to explain such an apparently elusive problem to them while minimizing the risk of offending them on how they test my scanner. [Oostrom, Jerry] :-(
RE: filmscanners: Noise correction algorithms
Beautiful reply with masterful selection of original text serves to prove your and my point! ;-) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2001 10:34 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Noise correction algorithms In a message dated 5/1/2001 2:20:15 AM EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: This reminded me that I should put only one question in a mail (ironically that was even Ed's suggestion to me, even longer ago), Yes, this maximizes the chances that someone will answer the question. I learned long ago that when I wanted a specific answer to a specific question, I should limit the e-mail request to that specific question. 10-paragraph e-mails with questions buried within the fourth paragraph generally won't get responses to the buried questions. Regards, Ed Hamrick
filmscanners: Scan pass alignment, how does it smoke? (important to scanwit users) RE: filmscanners: Canoscan 4000
I just wonder how this scan alignment works: does the software give a command: advance to frame X or advance to position offset + (distance between frames) * X, because if it is the latter, it would perhaps be possible to test the alignment of frames by looking at the boundary between frame hole and the surrounding film / slide holder, there should be a transition between black and not so black. Problems would perhaps be with very dark slides, but with infrared those slides may not be that black. And if that transition spot is not so clear, then one could just test on the first clear transition of the film frame border or filmholder frame border to the film frame. Of course a drawback is that the 'raw' scan would be done on more than the complete frame and the cropping is done only at the end. Since I sometimes do batchscanning of raw scans, such a test would be handy, even if it would just give an indication to the raw scan (e.g. in the name) that it may be misaligned. If it could be used to correct the alignment: even better. Ah well, if you think about at without knowing the ins and outs it all seems simple. I hope I got the attention of Mr. Lo and Mr. Hamrick. Nice to have them here. Jerry. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 7:49 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Canoscan 4000 The one thing to be cautious of is that it looks like it makes two passes over the film (like the ScanWit 2740S), once for scanning RGB and once for scanning infrared (i'm guessing this from reading the specs - I've never seen one). It can take almost twice as long to do two scan passes and there are potential problems with the two passes being perfectly aligned (especially at 4000 dpi).
RE: filmscanners: Acer Scanwit 2720s vs 2740s vs HP s20
Thanks Arthur, I'll try the magic wand and a blur / remove dust scratches. There are almost a 1000 spots on one slide. But the real soluion is perhaps another film processor. I'll even try using some water to wash the slide. -Original Message- From: Arthur Entlich [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, April 24, 2001 4:38 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Acer Scanwit 2720s vs 2740s vs HP s20 Hi Jerry, If these spots are in an area that can be isolated, and they are different enough from the rest of the area, you can do a few different things in Photoshop (I believe in LE also) to fix it.
RE: filmscanners: Acer Scanwit 2720s vs 2740s vs HP s20
Hi, I am also a scanwit user (but not a regular mailer to this list) I've got mine (a 2720s) almost a year ago and foolishly as I was never turned it in for service until last weekend, foolish because it had a flaw in the CCD from the beginning (I mailed some of these problems to this list before, see archives and you can see a few scans on my homepage, but they are not as clear as the examples I have sent to this list). I would have bought the 2740s if it were out then, because I spent a lot of time removing dust with cloning. I also clean the negatives, but I always seem able to damage the negs (very slight scratches), regardless of how careful I am. Jerry BTW Recently I have come up with a problem in several dias that if it would be cured by ICE would certainly put the 2740s high on my list: black spots all over the dia like filth-cristals. It was a Fuji Provia 100F film pushed to 400, perhaps it has something to do with it, although most dias were OK?!??? Anyway with perhaps thousand spots that you cannot remove with a dry cloth on a single dia I don't even consider cloning. Example (unfortunately not a crop from a high res pic, but a downsampled version, still you can see spots close to the lioiness face and between her paws): http://www.bigfoot.com/~jerfi/photo/BB/Burgers%20Bush%20-%2030%20april%20200 1/slide_11.jpg If ICE would remove these spots, which are likely in the film itself, well then that is all the more reason to buy the 2740s. It would be nice though if you would have an ICE' algorithm (FROSTY?) in which you could specify which pixel colors should be regarded as dust. Although it would probably work well on not too dense negatives only and not on dias. -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, April 20, 2001 4:44 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: Acer Scanwit 2720s vs 2740s vs HP s20 Hi all, am new to the filmscanner world, so please bear with the newbie questions. I'm considering either the Acer Scanwit 2720s or the 2740s. My perception after reading the specs, is that the 2740s is 2720s+ICE. Did I miss anything? Would like opinions/experiences of whether the ICE was worth the price. Otherwise, for the 2720s, how much effort did you take to touch up any negative defects (assuming minor blemishes). If you have a 2720s, would you (on hindsight) have bought the 2740s? The other unit I'm considering is HP's s20, but on features, stacks up with the 2720, and is much more expensive here. Thanks Lawrence -- Sent through GMX FreeMail - http://www.gmx.net
RE: filmscanners: Acer Scanwit 2720s vs 2740s vs HP s20
-Original Message- From: Rob Geraghty [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, April 23, 2001 12:35 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Acer Scanwit 2720s vs 2740s vs HP s20 Oostrom, Jerry [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: If ICE would remove these spots, which are likely in the film itself, well then that is all the more reason to buy the 2740s. It would be nice though if you would have an ICE' algorithm (FROSTY?) in which you could specify which pixel colors should be regarded as dust. Although it would probably work well on not too dense negatives only and not on dias. You could try the salt and pepper filter in Paintshop Pro 7. Interesting, unfortunately, I don't have Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop without LE extension. How do you fare with that filter on dust with negative scans where you leave ICE off? Jerry
RE: filmscanners: film scanner software
Did you know that there are examples of lightbulbs with a special kind of light: darkness! I know I have one! Let me just post you 2 of the 27 URLs, this will leave only 69 posts to follow! http://www.lightresource.com/dksk-02.html actually, the second one seems to disagree with this (ahhh ... science!): http://paul.merton.ox.ac.uk/science/darksucker.html -Original Message- From: Mystic [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Sunday, April 08, 2001 10:21 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: film scanner software Re: Flame War How many list members does it take to change a light bulb??? Answer: 578. 1 to change the light bulb and post to the list that the light bulb has been changed. [Oostrom, Jerry] [] 27 to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs. 44 to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly, and to post corrected URLs.
RE: filmscanners: LONG; Is: AcerScanwit but also generic calibration was: AcerScanwit
Well, since we have Acer listening now, I cannot but make a request: Mr. Honda Lo and all the rest of interested filmscanner list members, I have a 2720 that does not function properly. The problem is probably background noise in the CCD. During calibration only the responsiveness to the white light is calibrated for each CCD pixel. I think you can compare it to determining the whitepoint for each pixel. I would like to have added the blackpoint too. (I.e. read the response from the CCD with no light reaching the CCD). Of course this would imply changes to the firmware if at all possible. I mailed Ed Hamrick on this issue and he agreed after several mails that the error I was seeing is indeed a CCD response issue, but he could not help me with added functionality to calibration (blackpoint calibration) as the hardware of the scanwit does not offer a means yet to do so. I think that is sensible to have first of all my Scanwit repaired, I have the scanner for app. 10 months now so perhaps it's all under warranty, but secondly it would be a nice feature if scanner calibration (regardless of which brand) would also be done for both black and white point for each CCD pixel. This may be especially useful after aging of the scanner. Thank you in advance for your thoughts and time, Jerry Oostrom For the interested ones a part of the mail discussion with Ed and an example (if the list lets me send it) of a negative scan out of many scans in which the error is shown: yellow bands across the long edges in scans from negatives (especially bad in the wedding dresses on my homepage's members only section) and with regard to diafilm: light bands across the long edges of dark dias (examples see windmills and airplanes page of my homepage: http://www.bigfoot.com/~jerfi) crop01.jpg mail 1: Dear Mr. Ed Hamrick, once again I have a question for you. My scanwit 2720 has a peculiarity. I believe it is the lamp that does not function at 100%. As a result my scans look bad across the long side at the borders of the frame: negative scans become yellowish there, which is especially bad for buildings, white dresses and as in the example I sent you: snow. The prominence of this problem is much more apparent when I use your software if compared to Miraphoto (Scanwit's own software) which is probably due to your software being of better quality. Can you confirm that it is the lamp that is giving me problems? Or is it some sort of reflection against the negatives. I have attached the vuescan log, the vuescan settings, a 4x downsized crop file and an 8x downsized scan file. Scan was done using version 7.0.3 Is it possible for you to do a calibration that would countereffect this behaviour? I.e. a calibration that takes into account the pixel readouts for each pixel along the short edge of a scan. Should I place a piece of clear film in the small rectangular cutout used for the calibration? Is it possible to do a calibration against a whole frame (filled with a clear negative)? Or is there something I can do with raw scans in a photoeditor which will subtract e.g. a raw scan of a clean frame from a raw scan with photocontent and then reread the result in Vuescan to get the right colors? mail 3: In a message dated 3/30/2001 1:51:54 AM EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Is Vuescan automatic calibration performed only with the scanner lights on or is it done with both scanner lights on and off? It's done exactly the same way as the Acer software - with the light on. The calibration data is read when the film holder is all the way into the scanner. It reads the CCD at the small, rectangular slot in the film holder. If you have anything blocking this slot (i.e. film), the calibration will be messed up. Regards, Ed Hamrick mail 5: In a message dated 3/30/2001 3:20:04 AM EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: no, I haven't got anything blocking this slot. Please believe me in this: I have not yet placed anything in the calibration slot and the slot is still as it came from the factory: i.e. OK. I believe you, but it was worth checking. Is it possible and sensible for you to do a calibration as it is done now to get the CCD response for lights on and add a second part to the calibration in which you read the CCD for background noise (i.e. with the light obscured) and integrate both readings in the scanner response? No, this isn't possible. The way the hardware works is that I need to do it the current way - there's no provision for what you're asking for in the hardware. You might consider having your scanner serviced, since the problem occurs both with VueScan and with the Acer
RE: filmscanners: Need feedback on VueScan Improvements
Changes sound good to me too. Please do make these changes. Thanks in advance. First I thought I should not reply because you (Ed) asked for opinions of people who objected to the suggested changes or who would like things to be done differently. Finally I came up with a suggestion, but the real suggestion is in the first line. Just a little thought on behaviour which is arguably a bug: I use preview memory setting and it does not seem to remember from which frame (in Scanwit case 1-4, 1-6) the last preview came. So if e.g. I batch scanned a set '1, 2F, 3R-6R' and enter a new set for the new frames '1, 2F-4F, 5, 6L' the preview will immediately turn the last frame preview of the previous set (6R) to the orientation of the first frame of the next set (1, i.e. to the left) and the crop box does not change orientation. Please let the crop box always follow the orientation of the preview (perhaps you already did, but the bug is in remembering the frame in the preview to which the orientation applies). Also if possible and not objectionable do not calculate the preview from memory of the frame of the last preview if it does not equal the frame (number) of the next (to be done) preview. I hope I made myself clear, it is hard to tell what I mean without showing it. Of course: I do not have the newest Vuescan version, but I know it is in the 6.7.x range. Jerry. -Original Message- From: Ezio [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2001 1:36 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Need feedback on VueScan Improvements YES ! Thanks Ed ! [] - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 11:56 AM Subject: filmscanners: Need feedback on VueScan Improvements I'm thinking about some improvements to the VueScan user interface, and I'd like to solicit feedback and suggestions. These are the main things I'm thinking of - let me know if you don't like these changes or if you'd like to see things done differently:
RE: filmscanners: VueScan 6.7.5 Available
(Story now hopelessly continued:) Actually what I told below is not completely true / correct. If 'bit' is meant instead of 'byte', the shortcut 'bit' is used and not 'b'. During an assignment that I did at ATT (Lucent) I made the mistake to calculate 522 Mbit as 522*1024*1024=522*1048,576=547,356,672 bits is 25,356,672 too many. Luckily I was pointed to my error very soon. -Original Message- From: Oostrom, Jerry Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 8:57 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: filmscanners: VueScan 6.7.5 Available To hopelessly continue that story: 1kb = 1024 b if both b stand for byte. 1kb = 1000 b if both b stand for bit (i.e. at least in some parts of the telecom world). However, then it is mostly written in conjunction with '/s', i.e. 1kb/s 522Mb/s or 2Gb/s: remember those are not (integer)multiples of powers of 1024. Jerry. -Original Message- From: Frank Paris [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, March 03, 2001 3:49 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:RE: filmscanners: VueScan 6.7.5 Available 1kb = 1024. 857,211 / 1kb = 837.12 kb. End of story. Frank Paris [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumList?u=62684 -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of IronWorks Sent: Friday, March 02, 2001 5:24 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: VueScan 6.7.5 Available My 6.7.5 shows to figures - 837kb (rounded I guess) and also 857.211 bytes, for whatever it's worth.
RE: filmscanners: SS4000VuescanGrafics Program
-Original Message-
From: John D. Horton [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 7:56 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: filmscanners: SS4000VuescanGrafics Program
- Original Message -
From: "Oostrom, Jerry" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 6:09 AM
Subject: RE: filmscanners: SS4000VuescanGrafics Program
-Original Message-
From: shAf [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 7:42 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: filmscanners: SS4000VuescanGrafics Program
Robert writes ...
Why do you worry? The raw file has no been color adjusted.
The difference beween sRGB and Adobe RGB (or any other
work space) is not an image mode change, it is a profile,
a definition. Data is not lost.
It would depend on how "Picture window" handles the image data and
defines sRGB. If it held to the principles of CM and the use of
profiles, then it would "change the data" to put the image in sRGB.
But that principle assumes it was in one color space to begin with
(scanner color space), and was converted (changed) to sRGB. On the
other hand, Picture Window may have simply assumed sRGB ... assigned
the profile without changing the data. Do you know how PW works??
[Oostrom, Jerry] With the Pro version that facilitates CM:
* You can specify a scanner profile for TWAIN input,
* you can specify an assumed profile for input of a file without
profile,
* you can specify your working space,
* printer profile and
* monitor profile.
* You can specify the conversions and the display to "preserve the
depth" (I don't remember the term PW uses).
* you can download a 30-day trial version to look for yourself if it
adheres to all principles of CM. It seems to me it does, but I am
everything
but an expert on this subject.
The conversions do take a few seconds, therefore I assume that they
alter the 'triads', or color values and are in the view of some 'image
mode'
changes.
Note that it is useful to regularly visit the site as the software
has been patched a few times in the latest weeks, some of the patches
had
to
do with color space conversions (i.e. conversion to sRGB for creation of
slideshows).
B.T.W. Are there any real disadvantages for the web if you convert
your input tiff with embedded color space to an sRGB .jpg slide and
leave
out the sRGB definition for size reduction purposes? I ask because that
is
the solution currently (to be) implemented with the newest patch of
PWPro3.0
(patch d). To me it looks OK, but how will it look to others on the web?
My original post stated that Picture Window Color Management was disabled.
I
ask what PS shop does on like circumstances.
shAf's reply answered the question.
John Horton
[Oostrom, Jerry] I am sorry that my reply was not to your questions
but to his questions in his reply to Robert and then only partly, i.e. if
color management was enabled. Please forgive me: I don't know the answers to
your questions :-( Fortunately there is shAf ;-)
Jerry Oostrom
filmscanners: RE: dpi question (was: Beginner's question on which scanner to chose)
-Original Message- From: patton paul [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 4:41 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Beginner's question on which scanner to chose On Mon, 12 Feb 2001, Armando A. Cottim wrote: Hi guys. Sorry for this question. I notice that your posts are all so high leveled that I almost feel ashamed for such a beginner's question but ... here it goes. I 'm considering the acquisition of a scanner to scan slides for my magazine. I've been given several options. (Please consider that Portugal is not the best place to get the ultimate machine just by going to the shop) :-( First of all I was shown the Epson 1640 Photo (which is a flatbed and is said to scan 1600x3200dpi) What does 1600x3200dpi mean? Does it scan at 1600 dpi along one dimension and 3200 dpi along the perpendicular dimension? I've also been puzzled by a similar claim on Epson's website. It gives a maximum print resolution for the Epson 1270 photo quality printer of 1440x720 dpi -Paul Patton [Oostrom, Jerry] With all such measures I always assume that the smaller number is the real resolution in one direction which I think is more important: 1600dpi for the optical unit in this example and 720dpi for the individual ink jets. The larger number just states how precise the stepper motor can position the CCD array or the ink jet array. Normally the stepper motor positions it only perpendicular to the axis in which the array is placed. But who knows, maybe that somebody implemented the use of two stepper motors active on different axes, one perhaps being a piezo element that just shifts the (optical/inkjet) array, thereby creating greater resolution. No idea what dpi 'formulation' you would get then and if you can derive the resolution of the (optical/ink jet) array only from those .
RE: filmscanners: Vuescan long pass mode
break -Original Message- From: bjs [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2001 9:16 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Vuescan long pass mode - Original Message - From: "Herm" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, February 10, 2001 2:20 AM Subject: Re: filmscanners: Vuescan long pass mode charge bleeding is a characteristic of CCD sensors, once the electron wells get filled up you get these vertical smears as the charge "bleeds" into adjacent pixels..its a hardware problem, can only be solved by limiting the exposure. I agree it is a hardware problem but smart programmers have been working around hardware problems for decades. I have a Pascal program that takes N files at arbitrary exposure levels and combines them into one "longpass" result. It accounts for charge bleeding and a number of other issues. The result has none of the gross errors that Vuescan currently shows and works far better. [Oostrom, Jerry] phasers locked, fire Byron, "smart programmers" used in comparison to Ed, "gross errors", "far better", by the nuances in these words you sound as if you feel attacked, just like Ed and others in reply to you b.t.w. ;-) Perhaps, that is the common way we try to make others do what we want, by shooting them and let them dance to our bullets. In defence they shoot back with the same attitude. This list has a handful of people who sound like this in many of their mails and I am astounded that these people are generally past 40 years of age, i.e. supposedly grown ups. However, they are also generally the ones quickest to respond to requests for help, so that's a good reason for me to stay voluntarily on this list. phasers down shields down Anyway, I'll give it a try, fortunately you all can lough at my silly attempt to help you and Ed only later, when I have shields up. I have no understanding of the idea behind the "long exposure" algorithm, though I did use it with my Scanwit, resulting in magenta tints in faces, especially lips, noses and cheeks. It sounds to me as if Ed's algorithm works like this: you do one or several normal exposure (multi-)scans and one long exposure scan and combine the results with some weighing factor (probably fixed or reciprocal to the luminance value of one or all color channels and also reciprocal to the exposure) for pixels in the long exposure scan that have not been exposed to the limit (e.g. 255 in 8 bit scan, only looking at one color channel). Perhaps the most simple approach would be to make this weighing factor in channel X or all channels 0 (zero) for any long pass exposure pixel adjacent to or in close neighbourhood of a long pass exposure pixel that was overexposed in channel X. The unfortunate result would be that you loose the shadow info in areas of high contrast, but the problem of bleeding should be smaller. In this case you don't make use of knowledge about which pixel is well exposed and which pixel contains change bleeding, so you don't need to know. Another, complex approach would be to apply scouring algorithm in the long exposure scan to the sections with pixels exposed to the limit (one/all channels). That is, if scouring algorithm can be applied that way. The pixels that were exposed to the limit would still have weighing factor 0, but the adjacent pixels could have their normal weighing factor, whatever that is. /shields down Time's up. /break I am sure some of you, programmer or not, or Ed, who is a smart programmer i.m.o., will come up with far more ingeneous approaches and accompany them even with pseudo code to combat the pixel bleeding problem. Some of you seem really knowledgeable about the physics of light and the engineerings behind CCDs and stuff, thus this poses little challenge to at least some of you. Perhaps inspiration or time available is the limiting factor for most. Jerry
RE: filmscanners: SS4000VuescanGrafics Program
-Original Message-
From: shAf [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, February 12, 2001 7:42 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: filmscanners: SS4000VuescanGrafics Program
Robert writes ...
Why do you worry? The raw file has no been color adjusted.
The difference beween sRGB and Adobe RGB (or any other
work space) is not an image mode change, it is a profile,
a definition. Data is not lost.
It would depend on how "Picture window" handles the image data and
defines sRGB. If it held to the principles of CM and the use of
profiles, then it would "change the data" to put the image in sRGB.
But that principle assumes it was in one color space to begin with
(scanner color space), and was converted (changed) to sRGB. On the
other hand, Picture Window may have simply assumed sRGB ... assigned
the profile without changing the data. Do you know how PW works??
[Oostrom, Jerry] With the Pro version that facilitates CM:
* You can specify a scanner profile for TWAIN input,
* you can specify an assumed profile for input of a file without
profile,
* you can specify your working space,
* printer profile and
* monitor profile.
* You can specify the conversions and the display to "preserve the
depth" (I don't remember the term PW uses).
* you can download a 30-day trial version to look for yourself if it
adheres to all principles of CM. It seems to me it does, but I am everything
but an expert on this subject.
The conversions do take a few seconds, therefore I assume that they
alter the 'triads', or color values and are in the view of some 'image mode'
changes.
Note that it is useful to regularly visit the site as the software
has been patched a few times in the latest weeks, some of the patches had to
do with color space conversions (i.e. conversion to sRGB for creation of
slideshows).
B.T.W. Are there any real disadvantages for the web if you convert
your input tiff with embedded color space to an sRGB .jpg slide and leave
out the sRGB definition for size reduction purposes? I ask because that is
the solution currently (to be) implemented with the newest patch of PWPro3.0
(patch d). To me it looks OK, but how will it look to others on the web?
RE: filmscanners: How Not Embedding Color Space in Web Graphics
WOW! I reported my problem to www.dl-c.com and they've already sent me a patch. It's almost like Ed's Vuescan! This is the third time they were able to send me a patch within two days of reporting a bug in a few weeks stretch. BTW. All bug reports of mine had to do with slideshow stuff. shAf, if you would like to see how they handle profiles: they have a 30day trial version of PWP3.0. I have no idea whether that version contains the newest bugsolves, but color profile handling is included. I don't know what you mean with the differences in color profile handling between PS 4.0 and PS5.0 and up and how that would relate to PWP3.0, so perhaps you can try the trial version and find out if PWP3.0 color management is morelike PS4.0 or PS5.0 and up (to 5.5). Anyway, the bug report on removing an embedded profile was unclear to the people at dl-c, so I have to try and reproduce the problem and send them examples. I did have PS5.5 (for two months) but illegally, because I wanted to try wysiwyg printer profiling. Howewer, I never really liked having this stuff illegally, so I used my legal copy of PSlight, but that didn't do color management, so I bought PWP3.0. This package was affordable unlike PS5 and had the features that I needed. Pictures always looked the same in both PS5.5 and PWP3.0, regardless of embedded image profile. Of course I used the same monitor profile for display in both programs. PWP3.0 lets me do my usual edits: crop, warp (against cheap wide angle lens distortion), color balance, unsharp masking, cloning, etc. all in 48 bit mode and it is fast. It is also supposed to have chromatic aberration removal, vignetting removal and such stuff. So I am glad to have something legally which does a lot of the important edits in 48 bit mode that PS5.5 does in 48 or just 24 bit mode and PS5.0light does in only 24bit mode. Here are some parts of the mail replies from dl-c which made me rave about them much the same way this list does about Ed's listening ear and quick updates. ## mail 1: From: "Jonathan Sachs" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Save Address - Block Sender Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Jerry Fiona Oostrom" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Save Address Subject: RE: A new problem with Picture Window 3.0 Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2001 06:31:30 -0500 Reply Reply All Forward Delete Previous Next Close 1. I have trouble converting a file from being coded in color space ProPhotoRGB to color space none. (I also have trouble batch converting files with certain profiles embedded to my specified profile) What kind of trouble are you having? Can you email me a copy of the ProPhotoRGB profile? 2. It seems that the slide show images have no color space embedded. This is OK as long as the original images used as source for the slideshow would first be converted to have 'no' color space or color space sRGB. As it is now, I have to do it manually (i.e. convert to sRGB) if I don't want to end up with color biased desaturated pictures in the slide show. This part relates to what is in my opinion a bug: the slide show creation 'module' does not take into account the original color space in which the file is coded and you end up with 'different' images. What I would actually like is to have an option in which the slides would have a color space that I can specify when creating the slide show. I should also be able to specify color space 'none', which should return the color info to a file with color space none or if that is logically not possible (I am no ICM wizard) to color space sRGB but without the color space specification embedded. The thumbnails should also take into account the color space of the originals, but should themselves have no color space info embedded. Your points about the slide show are well taken -- I will try to clean this up. Jonathan Sachs Digital Light Color # mail 2 from dl-c : I am attaching a preliminary version of PW 3.0d which add the following feature: In PW Pro, when opening images for use in a slide show, if they have an embedded profile, they are converted to the current working color space for inclusion in the slide show. This change should be reflected in both the thumbnails and the final images. To install the new version, just extract the file pw30.exe from the attached pw30.zip and copy it over the file of the same name in the folder in which you installed PW Pro 3.0. Please let me know if this works for you or if you encounter any problems with the new version. Jonathan Sachs Digital Light Color -Original Message- From: shAf Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2001 4:59 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: filmscanners: How Not Embedding Color Space in Web Graphics Jerry writes
filmscanners: How Not Embedding Color Space in Web Graphics
Just a question: how do you remove an embedded color space from your large tiff file? I have a color profiling capable software package, but it didn't allow me to profile convert to color profile 'none'. It seemed it just didn't do any conversion if you selected none. Without the conversion I get greenish, color desaturated, contrastless images. So now I convert to sRGB. The conversion to webgraphics then just removes the profile, but the (sRGB coded) color info already is much more like (no profile) normal color info, compared to the situation where I just remove the profile info from ProPhotoRGB coded files. -Original Message- From: Larry Berman [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 7:53 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: Embedding Color Space in Web Graphics One problem embedding color space in web graphics. It will add approximately 10% to the file size and for me that's out of the question because it'll slow down page load time. Larry Does everyone here embed sRGB colour spaces into web graphics? I wasn't sure if this was the best thing to do, I assume it would help standardise how the images are displayed on different machines. It would also increase file size/image download time. ::: Larry Berman Web Sites for Artists: http://BermanGraphics.com Compare Image Compression from the top Graphics Programs: http://ImageCompress.com Explore the Art Show Jury process from a web site: http://ArtShowJury.com :::
RE: filmscanners: [OFF] problem with image brightness
Hi, your pictures are BEAUTIFUL! I don't think there is a need for sRGB, but I don't think it adds much to the file size too. So if you want to be absolutely sure that for people who are fussy about color and such you have a maximized chance they see what you want them to see, then embed sRGB. Perhaps you should also add a calibration page or section to your website where you let people adjust their monitor contrast and brightness to see the fullest amount of shadow detail Now I have the strongest urge to go on travel vacations again, (unfortunately for you I do not want to buy images, I want to shoot them myself, but you have inspired me (and my wife if I show her you pictures). Your 'less is really more') Jerry Oostrom -Original Message- From: Cooke, Julie [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, January 29, 2001 6:54 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: filmscanners: [OFF] problem with image brightness Does everyone here embed sRGB colour spaces into web graphics? I wasn't sure if this was the best thing to do, I assume it would help standardise how the images are displayed on different machines. It would also increase file size/image download time. I haven't on my site (www.lightdrawing.com), suggestions and comments welcome BTW before it goes live! Julie
RE: filmscanners: Fw: Color Profiles for Scanners
Duh! -Original Message- From: shAf [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2001 6:48 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Fw: Color Profiles for Scanners [Oostrom, Jerry] [znibh..] Not much of a point really. I'm sure many readers are saying ... "duh". My original point was for someone somewhat befuddled with [Oostrom, Jerry] befuddled? I look zizzup 'n ze Vebsterz: befuddled- thorolly confused (wiff liquor) What makez u fink I'm drunk!?@#$% Hikh! [Oostrom, Jerry] [schnappss!] I just threw it in for conversation, not argument. shAf :o) Liquor_pfuh_Beer.jpg But anyway, thank you chef ! ;o) Liquor_pfuh_Beer.jpg
filmscanners: Color Profile conversions and high-bit/low bit conversions. In which order?
I have a question as result of the 'Color Profiles for Scanners' thread. From that thread I got the feeling that it isn't the best approach to have a low (8-bit) image file with a large gamut space. You use a small part of the possible 256^3 values in which a pixel can be RGB-coded, which is either visible as a narrow histogram or considerable combing . Articles from Bruce Fraser also seemed to suggest that. What I have done however, until recently, is make a lot of high-bit scans of color negative film, let vuescan code them in ProPhotoRGB, do my color adjustments and convert to 8-bit files for archiving. My priorities were: 1 archiving, 2 monitor viewing, 3 web use, 4 printing. I think now the approach taken was wrong for my priorities. * I should either have converted to a smaller gamut space just before converting to 8-bit, or * should never have edited in ProPhotoRGB but in a smaller gamut color space or * should have archived the 16-bit files instead (I am reluctant to do this, I have a little crowded home) Does anyone care to say something about the pros and cons of the three approaches? Thank you in advance, even for reading this far, Jerry Oostrom
RE: filmscanners: VueScan 6.3.19 Available
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2000 8:19 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: filmscanners: VueScan 6.3.19 Available
In a message dated 12/11/2000 8:19:34 PM EST, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
writes:
Now I'm confused (not hard to do). Please explain to me "where" ICE
is.is it software or hardware? Or a combination of both to get
that
capability?
ICE is the marketing name for a dust removal technique invented
by Albert D. Edgar while he was working at IBM (he's at Applied
Science Fiction now).
The patent can be read at:
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn10=US05266805
It's U.S. Patent 5,266,805
This patent only describes the way the infrared channel
is used to correct the image, but it has several problems.
The first problem is that it assumes the infrared channel
doesn't show any image data, but in reality the infrared
channel isn't flat (especially for Kodachrome). The
second problem is that the infrared and color channels
aren't perfectly aligned, which causes the edges of dust
spots to not disappear when the algorithm in this patent
is used.
VueScan uses an entirely different (and I think better)
approach to using the infrared channel to remove the
dust spots. It doesn't result in any color shift, it works
with Kodachrome, and it doesn't apply a softening filter
in areas where there's no dust spot.
Regards,
Ed Hamrick
[Oostrom, Jerry] A ha, so Vuescan cleaning still uses the infrared
channel. Perhaps you remember from the thousands of mails received this year
that some person (I) once sent you a request for a cleaning algorithm that
probably does not exist yet. I thought this up myself, but perhaps a lot of
others did too and were just knowledegable enough to know it was asking for
the impossible or could never work.
Now I think I should propose it to this group and receive answers
from them why it is not feasible.
(Keep in mind that I am not good at math and such).
What I noticed with dust on slides in a neutral scan is that most of
the dust is real pitch black. With negatives it is black in the raw scan,
but has a color shift related to the white point chosen in the positive crop
file. Many times however, it will be at the boundary of the histogram.
Can an algorithm be constructed that applies selective
softening/cleaning at parts that are at the lower boundary of the histogram
for a slide and at the upper boundary of the histogram of a negative?
Has it already been made (does the clean filter in the newest
Vuescan already work as such)?
Did I ruin any surprise for a new cleaning algorithm in vuescan that
can be used for the wicked scanwit and any other scanner without ICE?
Please tell me if this idea is any good to investigate and build
upon,
thanks,
Jerry.
filmscanners: Downsampling vs averaging RE: Film Scanners and what they see.
Wait a minute, I always thought that down sampling consisted of some kind of averaging (of samples). I thought bicubic and bilinear and such terms could as well be related to down sampling as they could to upsampling. Now I wonder: how does downsampling work? Does it exist of sampling only one of the pixels in the previous larger image for each pixel in the new image? It more or less explains why I have some grainy images that retain a lot of their graininess when downsampled. But why is downsampling often called better than downsizing? Thank you all in advance, Jerry -Original Message- From: Shough, Dean [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, December 06, 2000 4:38 PM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: filmscanners: RE: Film Scanners and what they see. [cut] I expect you are right except perhaps for the Epson 1200 and 1600 series scanners. I am not sure if they use a custom CCD with smaller pixels or if they are micro-stepping with an ordinary 600 and 800 dpi array. But, now that I think about it, if you use a scanner at 1/2 or 1/4 of its full resolution, then the pixel size remains the same but the Nyquist limit is much lower. Sounds like a recipe for alaising and another good reason to always scan at higher resolution and average down (not down sample). [cut]
RE: filmscanners: RE: cd storage
I promised I would send some more info on the consumer test that I had read. Please read the previous mails in this thread to place the information in context to avoid repeating info and unneccessary mail. In fact, don't even read it ;-), it is just here so that I keep my word. 3 types of burners using 3 different brands: Philips CDRW 800 (8x) HP CD-writer Plus 9310i (10x) Plextor Plexwriter (12x) longevity indication test: put recorded CD under UV lamp with label side up for 100 hours Accompanying explanation said that light from the up-side of the CD will also reach the other end. Especially the outer boundary of the CD will be prone to have less longevity. Tests of recorded CDs were e.g. done on a 10 year old Yoko CD player. That player was unable to play a lot of the tested CDs correctly. On color:Not all green CDs were good (the worst 2 were green! and a few of the best were green) and not all blue CDs were bad (one TDK was reasonably good). The test speaks about 30 CDs, not some high number of CDs of 30 different 'brand and types'. Since there were 30 different brand and types tested I can't tell if they tested with only one per brand and type or with many. This makes the test much less useful. They suggested to look at http://www.digido.com. They noticed that three brands (Philips, Sony and Basf) and type of CDs that had a verdict 'GOOD' all came from the same factory, Taiyo Yuden Company. Here 10 of the best (best 2 because of price/performance on top): typecolor writing side == == Sony cd-r 74/650green Memorex 829306-25 green Hewlett Packard C 4437 Agreen TDK cardflexgreen Traxdata TXS 874green Philips gold prof. all speedgreen Philips silver premium green Basf/Emtec Ceram Guard green Kodak Ultimagreen Arita Gold green This was just what this particular test indicated. I think that the other mails in this thread can therefore give you a better indication of which CDs to buy, perhaps the last one of Tim Atherton below of which I snipped the tail part -Original Message- From: Tim Atherton [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, November 30, 2000 12:29 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: RE: cd storage Here is some info I posted on another list, based on a recent workshop I went on. This was on the preservation of modern information carriers (optical and magnetic media) run by two conservation scientists from the Canadian Conservation Institute: But basically, while testing is still being done, the following generally hold true; [Oostrom, Jerry] [snip: look into archives to find this long mail]
RE: filmscanners: Profiling, Ilford XP2 and Vuescan.
to continue the farce... :-) I had just written a laborious reply, but then the Outlook server crashed and thus my client! Here you have a shortened and an even more delayed reply. I found out that I had been lying to you all: there is not more graininess in black and white scans (Ilford XP2 setting in vuescan) than in color scans 'generic setting in vuescan). There seems to be somewhat more contrast in b/w scans. -- I like to ask you color wizards to tell me if the generic setting scans of the ilford xp2 film show a distinctive color cast on your calibrated monitor or seem black and white enough. I also like to know whether it should be black and white if scanned with 'generic color' setting in vuescan, since the film has this purple color (i.s.o. an orange mask) attributed to what is called an anti-halation dye by others in this thread. Here are the scans, all less than 400k in size : (Copyright JF Oostrom, images of some kids at a wedding, please download and view only) Common settings of images: white balance(!), auto white + black point, both at 0.05, profile: proPhotoRGB Generic film type setting overview scan (film type generic color negative, size reduction x2, clean filter, latter two settings are used most by me, afterwards unsharp masked and auto-levels) http://home.wish.net/~jerfi/generic02.jpg The histogram shows differences especially in the green band if compared to red and blue Ilford XP2 setting overview scan (film type Ilford XP2 400 negative, size reduction x2, clean filter, latter two settings are used most by me, afterwards unsharp masked and auto-levels) http://home.wish.net/~jerfi/ilfordxp2.jpg Generic film type setting crop scan (film type generic color negative, no size reduction x1, no filter, no unsharp mask, only auto-levels) http://home.wish.net/~jerfi/generic05.jpg This is a fairly grainy scan, but to my surprise not much less than the following scan: Ilford XP2 400 setting crop scan (film type ilford xp2 400 negative, no size reduction x1, no filter, no unsharp mask, only auto-levels) http://home.wish.net/~jerfi/ilfordxp2crop.jpg Interestingly, the .jpg versions show even less of a color cast than their .tif originals. Perhaps that info is compressed too. Anyway if it shows too much of a color cast on your screens then perhaps I have to recalibrate my monitor cq. build a new profile for it. The reason I thought that the generic setting showed less graininess is because I had made scans some time ago, also using Ilford XP2 setting for Ilford XP2 film that seemed very grainy to me, much more than the prints showed. If that was due to 'aliasing' then I expect all Ilford scans to show it, but it does not. Here I have a small example of such a scan. It shows a bit of the graininess which was very prominent in the full resolution scan. This image has been reduced more than 4 times in size, but still it seems more grainy to me than the overview scans listed above (especially the pants, compare them to dark parts in the other scans). http://home.wish.net/~jerfi/prisonandme.jpg Thanks in advance for your time and insight. Jerry Oostrom http://home.wanadoo.nl/joostrom -Original Message- From: Oostrom, Jerry [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, November 17, 2000 7:54 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: filmscanners: Profiling, Ilford XP2 and Vuescan. Sorry, the scans will have to come later (begin of next week), something came in between... -Original Message- From: Oostrom, Jerry [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2000 8:19 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject:RE: filmscanners: Profiling, Ilford XP2 and Vuescan. Anyway, I'll put an example scan somewhere (tomorrow) and then you color wizards can tell me what color cast it has. I'll also do the b/w version and see if it is still as grainy as before, because the grainy examples were from long ago and I must find out first if I haven't been lying to you all. Thank you, Jerry
filmscanners: RE: [] Nuts!
You are right. It is nuts. Whenever I used 'filmscanners' in a thread subject, it has been because in this list one can not be sure these days that a mail really is about film scanners. But I will leave it out now, to save precious bandwidth and to comfort you. But I'll still consume some extra bandwidth by sending this reply to the filmscanner list i.s.o. you. I do this because I also like to signal, just like many others have done, that I don't like to have so many off-topic threads. Have a nice weekend, Jerry BTW. All my filmscanner mail is redirected to one folder. I think one filter rule should be enough for one mailing list. I am not willing to put more time in managing inbox rules and kill files and such. Perhaps, to comfort you I will add an inbox rule that scans for 'OT', 'off-topic' or 'off-thread' and let matching mails go to e.g. the 'deleted items' folder. No need to add filmscanner then, if other people use 'OT' whenever appropriate. -Original Message- From: Roger Beamon [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] [bandwidth cut (BC)] Subject: filmscanners: Nuts! Now I see a "filmscanners" in the subject line taking up precious space. I suspect that it is intended to aid folk in separating this list from other traffic in one's incoming mail. Can anyone be using a mail client today that doesn't offer filtering on various headers to dump into discrete folders? [BC]
RE: filmscanners: Profiling, Ilford XP2 and Vuescan.
-Original Message- From: Laurie Solomon [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 6:19 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: filmscanners: Profiling, Ilford XP2 and Vuescan. Thanks for the clarification. I am trying to say, because colour neg films all have different types of orange base fog, the various software have to make colour adjustments to correct for this, B/W NEG has no such colour in its base, and if you tell the software, that B/W neg is a colour film, it will correct for the orange base (that isn't there), and put a colour cast into the resulting scan. I agree with what you are saying above. If the purple anti-alising tint is still part of the film after processing, It will typically muddy up the highlight and mid-tone areas of the scan by adding noise when using the b/w NEG settings of the scanner application, while possible registering as an overall purple cast when scanned with a color setting. [Oostrom, Jerry] This is why I wondered whether the outcome of the b/w scan with color setting should be color casted or not. I.e. why did I get darkbrown and white scans, that after monitor profiling turned into black and white (without any other action by me, b.t.w. I did the profiling without any of these scans on my screen!). My expected result was that the scans were still darkbrown white, also for many of the reasons laid out here 8-x, but the b/w setting scans were grainy, not muddied up and the color setting scans turned out to be b/w. Anyway, I'll put an example scan somewhere (tomorrow) and then you color wizards can tell me what color cast it has. I'll also do the b/w version and see if it is still as grainy as before, because the grainy examples were from long ago and I must find out first if I haven't been lying to you all. Thank you, Jerry
RE: filmscanners: Profiling, Ilford XP2 and Vuescan.
Sorry, the scans will have to come later (begin of next week), something came in between... -Original Message- From: Oostrom, Jerry [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, November 16, 2000 8:19 AM To: '[EMAIL PROTECTED]' Subject: RE: filmscanners: Profiling, Ilford XP2 and Vuescan. Anyway, I'll put an example scan somewhere (tomorrow) and then you color wizards can tell me what color cast it has. I'll also do the b/w version and see if it is still as grainy as before, because the grainy examples were from long ago and I must find out first if I haven't been lying to you all. Thank you, Jerry
RE: filmscanners: Prints using Acer ScanWit
-Original Message- From: photoscientia [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2000 10:31 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: filmscanners: Prints using Acer ScanWit Hi Geoff Geoff Stafford wrote: I have an Acer ScanWit 2720S. Recently I took some 2700 dpi scans (2550x3720) on a CD into Boots the Chemists and had prints made. Their system feeds the image files straight into the mini-lab. The results from negs or slides are superb, That's great to hear. Someone with some positive feedback for a change! [Oostrom, Jerry] I am happy too though, I am just focusing on the few problems I still have at this time. Anyway, I am veeer happy for the money I spent on this scanner. I also have enlarged prints (4xA4) and they are quite acceptable to me and until now any visitor of our house. However, I have not done any resampling of the images prior to sending it to the printer driver. A 7" x 10.5" print shouldn't be any problem at all, and A4 is easily acceptable with a little (shush!) interpolation. (we don't want to wake up the sleeping threads, do we?) I'll tiptoe away now, before any damage is done. crack... KLURRATSBENGBOOOM! ;-)
filmscanners: Profiling, Ilford XP2 and Vuescan.
Hello people, I have this question: Should a white balanced vuescan scan with film setting generic of Ilford XP2 (a monochromatic film) look black and white? I ask this because the first time I used this film I got sepia toned prints back from the lab. The other times they were greenish or (dark)brown/white prints. At the time I liked this very much. However: when I used vuescan to scan this using settings black/white, film: Ilford XP2 I got black and white pictures that showed a lot of grain. As soon as I used generic setting they became dark brown and white. I thought this was because of the color of the film (a bit like purple!?). However, when I recalibrated my screen using the 6 squares of the (I believe www.photoscientia.co.uk) photoscientia website instead of the 3 squares of the adobe gamma or basic wiziwyg profiling tool, I got better colors in general, even though the squares of the latter tool seem off! And to top that, the scan of the ilfor xp2 film is now black and white in the generic film type setting (and less grainy)! So, I wonder whether I got my monitor profiled better now, or that I should let somebody else do it. In a diagram: film XP2 == profiling-- # Wiziwyg / Adobe Gamma# photoscientia +(wiziywg /adobe gamma) using-- # 3 squares# 6 squares -#-=# === vuescan # # film setting # # | # # | # # V # # # B/W # black and white # black and white Ilford XP2 # grainy # grainy # # Generic color# dark brown and white # black and white! negative # (almost sepia) # # softer grain # softer grain If the scans should look black and white the generic color negative setting is i.m.o. preferable to the black and white Ilford XP2 setting of vuescan. Now I just need to test Miraphoto for my scanwit with these settings. Thanks in advance. Jerry Oostrom homepage: http://home.wanadoo.nl/joostrom with some Scanwit scans http://community.webshots.com/user/jerfi for some vacation scans (mostly flatbed)
Inaccurate colors (was RE: Vuescanwit tip)
Hi all, I have scanned one roll of Fuji Velvia I shot this summer. This was my first take at Fuji Velvia. Most of the dias are underexposed, which in turn meant that when I processed them in Vuescan all errors by me and my Acer Scanwit turn up quite visibly. E.g. sunsets where the dark parts at the long side of the dia turn out lighter than on the dia itself. You can also see red lines in the longitudinal direction of the scan! Now I am actually inviting you unashamedly to visit my just created first homepage (please Tony, don't kill me off the list for this). But some of the photos in it show quite definitely where the Acer Scanwit and/or me and/or Fuji Velvia fail. E.g. I have red cornfields taken in twilight, I have aeroplanes where dark ground is light etc. etc. The first two aeroplane photos even show failure in filmholder positioning or optic failure. I believe it is the latter however, since black birds turn out part green (I used a Tamron 70-300mm and a Soligor 2x converter on a Nikon F601 (N6001)). Still I think some of the photos show far too much red grain which leads me to believe I have a more faulty unit than the average Scanwit. Note: All pictures are in BruceRGB even though the profile is not embedded. Have a nice weekend, Jerry http://home.wanadoo.nl/joostrom -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, October 09, 2000 1:01 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Vuescanwit tip Mine is quite good at registration, but I did see a registration problem once on frame 6, I think the holder is hanging out so far that it flexes in between passes...if you really want to see horrible registration try an HP Photosmart scanner. BTW, a new version of the official software is available. "Alan Tyson" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Jerry, I wasn't aware that the Scanwit was particularly bad at registration, as I found multiscanning worked well on the few occasions I tried it. I think I remember someone here 6-9 months ago saying it was quite good. Herm Astropics http://home.att.net/~hermperez The filmscanners mailing list is hosted by http://www.halftone.co.uk To resign, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with UNSUBSCRIBE FILMSCANNERS in the title, or UNSUBSCRIBE FILMSCANNERS_DIGEST if you are reading the Digest. The filmscanners mailing list is hosted by http://www.halftone.co.uk To resign, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] with UNSUBSCRIBE FILMSCANNERS in the title, or UNSUBSCRIBE FILMSCANNERS_DIGEST if you are reading the Digest.
