filmscanners: photoshop problem
Hi all, I'm having an issue with Photoshop, after a C drive failure, and a complete rebuild of programmes, it now seems to be behaving strangely: when, for example I do a levels adjustment, I adjust everything so it looks good in the screen preview, then press ok, and it works the levels move through the whole image (rather than just the screen preview), and just as it finishes (watching the progress bar at the bottom) it jumps back to something between what I wanted and what I had before. In other words, I do not get the full levels move I saw in the preview... any ideas? have I got something simple set wrong? many thanks for any suggestions
RE: filmscanners: Howtek D4000 or D4500?
fwiw, the guys at FLAAR (http://wide-format-printers.org/) dont have a single nice word to say about the Howtek. They recommend the ICG drum scanner which has a very clever vertical drum system and thus requires no mounting time/ mess/ tape etc. paul
RE: filmscanners: Nikon 8000ED nightmares!!!
David, > Then I've done everything I can. The 8000ED is just plain slow > with my Mac. It's ICE/GEM that is slow, not the Nikon. If you turn off GEM especially the scan times are remarkably good in normal mode... I doubt if you compare equals (no ICE in either scan) that you would find anything quicker in any of the scanners you mention. >At 4000 ppi w/ICE, 8 bit, 1 pass...a 6x6 neg takes about 10 minutes. That's on a 400 mhz G4 w/1.5 gigs of RAM. You also state: >>ICE was an important factor for me. The new Minolta Scan Multi Pro was not shipping at the time. Others have claimed to *not* experience the banding problem with the LS8000. and then say: >but so far the banding hasn't been visible in the normal mode. so, in fact the "others" are right, no? banding is getting blown out of proportion by those who dont own the machine and/or those with vested interests. If you do come across an unusual slide, then check the super fine box and- end of problem.. You will sort out your colour problems soon too, I'm sure. have patience, its a remarkable machine, Paul
filmscanners: W2K vuescan memory problems
Hi all, I'm having problems with Vuescan scanning very large scans, and getting memory warnings, like: Warning: Unable to allocate 638Mb memory Try increasing the amount of virtual memory I have tried everything in terms of increasing the Virtual Memory/Paging file size, and it seems to make no difference. I've got over 4000 Mb allocated on my second drive, (max and min set the same) no other programmes of any consequence running, and still get this call. I have 1.5Gb of RAM, W2K,SP1 (should I get SP2?) and dual 1Ghz processors. I have tried moving the file around from my second drive, to include the first, C, drive, the RAID system (neither of which microsoft recommends) etc. no difference. any suggestions out there? I have tried with Ed and he thinks its a peculiarity of my particular system, although no oter programme gives this problem. (eg Nikonscan or Photoshop, using equally or even larger files) Is there a freeware to check up on memory issues? or a specific way to allocate more RAM to vuescan? I asked before if anyone out there had a Nikon 8000 using Vuescan and got zero response, but I cant believeI'm the only one, really? Paul
RE: filmscanners: Re: Nikon LS4000ED inquiry
o You have to decide whether or not to use ICE and/or GEM BEFORE you scan. You can't do a bunch of scans, examine them, then run ICE and/or GEM on only the few scans you feel really need them. The result is that you either have to commit ALL your scans to ICE and/or GEM (at a huge increase of processing time!) or (potentially) scan each image twice: once to see if you need ICE/GEM, and again to use them. Also, each time you decide to set the ICE/GEM levels higher or lower and compare the results you have to do a completely new scan. Bill, apparently you can, at least partly. Investigate saving the files in Nikon's propietry NEF format, then I believe you can open them in Nikonscan and adjust GEM etc without re-scanning. >
RE: filmscanners: Nikon 4000 vs 8000
Interesting. nobody has thought of that test before I'd love to see those results too especially as a lot of 4000 owners report focus problems, and 8000 owners do not. paul > -Original Message- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of DaleH > Sent: 31 October 2001 11:57 > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: filmscanners: Nikon 4000 vs 8000 > > > Is there any difference between the Nikon 4000 and 8000 in scanning 35mm? > > DaleH >
RE: filmscanners: Nikon Coolscan iv ed trashes Windows 98SE
Sounds like you have been caught by excpetionally bad problems with NS 3.1 It is known to be more or less broken with W2K, (works but crashes erratically) and with dual processor machines (yours?) The archive lists many, many posts on the topic, I enclose one below. Supposedly 98 was much more stable though. If you are content with Vuescan then use it. It has better colour management, you will get better results, but get no pretty histogram to play with. Otherwise hold your breath for 3.1.1 like the rest of us, which is a major bug fixer, hopefully... Paul >>> ---Archive Message--- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Stuart Nixon Sent: 14 October 2001 18:39 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: filmscanners: NikonScan 3.1 does not work under W2K (report on tests) Hi. I am sure you are aware that people have reported NikonScan 3.1 is unable to scan - especially batching multiple scans - without crashing. SUMMARY: With rare exceptions, NikonScan 3.1 crashes for Windows 2000 users. My testing and feedback from other users has confirmed that NikonScan 3.1 does not operate correctly under Windows 2000. This software should never have been released in its current buggy state. Please feel free to distribute this report to Nikon Japan, Europe and USA technical support, and also to people who have performed reviews of Nikon scanners. Perhaps we can finally get Nikon to get serious about fixing their software. Background: Some weeks ago I asked for feedback on running NikonScan 3.1 under Windows 2000. Many people responded, and quite a few were kind enough to provide additional feedback when I requested, including Joe Blaze, Paul Graham, Bob Kehl, Tom Scales, Charles Volkland and many others. Thank you. A couple of people reported that NikonScan 3.1 never failed for them. There was no particular commonality on those systems that worked - one was a fast AMD single CPU, and two others were slower dual CPU Intel chips. About the only interesting thing was that two of the working systems did not use the Nikon supplied Firewire card. Everyone else (about 80% of responses) reported that NikonScan 3.1 failed constantly for them under Windows 2000, for single or dual CPU machines. Most people reported having swapped to other products such as VueScan (which incidentally is rock solid from what I have seen), or if they really *had* to use NikonScan, ran it from within PhotoShop, scanning a single photo at a time. Because Photoshop restarts the scanner software each time, this reduced the crashes to "only" 1 out 10 scans or so. Ways to reduce NikonScan 3.1 crashes: - Use something else. If you are serious about bulk scanning, then basically NikonScan 3.1 is a waste of time unless you are one of those very rare & lucky people to have it run without crashing. VueScan and Silverfast are two alternative scanning products. - If you can, run Windows 98 on the scanner PC instead of W2K. NikonScan seems more stable under W98. - Run a slower PC. It is more stable on PCs less than 350Mhz or so. - Set the Temp drive *and* the scanner output location to a network drive. This will reduce NikonScan crashes by about 50%. So if you are lucky, you might get 6 scans instead of 3 before it crashes. - On dual CPU machines, lock NikonScan to run in UniProcessor mode. This will reduce crashes somewhat. Testing performed: Given Nikon has been aware of these crash problems since NikonScan 3.0 and has not fixed them, I wanted to see if the problem could be pinned down and perhaps a work around could be found. My testing basically showed that for all configurations I could try, NikonScan 3.1 is unstable. I did manage to get it to batch scan 6 slides just once without crashing. Big deal :-( - Coolscan 4000ED, using the Nikon supplied Firewire controller. - Three different Windows 2000 machines. Each machine had 1GB RAM, IDE drives, and dual CPUs. However, each machine had a different motherboard, and different CPUs. I tried ASUS, Intel and Tyan motherboards, and Intel P3, P4 and AMD Athlon MP CPUs. Each ran different nVidia cards (2's and 3's). I also tested against a 4th machine that had been heavily used for processing jobs that ran into CPU-weeks, and was known to be very stable. Machines were 733Mhz, 933Mhz and 1.2Ghz. Significantly, each machine had very different motherboards and add-on cards from different manufacturers. - Each machine was clean loaded within Windows 2000 Server. The latest motherboard/IDE/etc drivers were updated, then SP2, then the latest security patches. - Only Photoshop 6, and NikonScan was installed on each machine. No printers were installed (earlier versions of NikonScan had problems with different printers i
RE: filmscanners: SS4000 - Insight too hot?
> You can still (and should) tag the image with the monitor profile > after all > it is the profile being used when you edit the image. Once the image opens > in Photoshop you simply allow conversion to your preferred colour space. > This is the method suggested by Polaroid in their web based help files and > Knowledgebase. Ian - sorry, I'm being a bit dense here, are you suggesting that you tag the scans with the monitor profile, then convert it to say, Adobe RGB, when looking at in in Photoshop? does this apply to all scanner programmes ? paul
RE: filmscanners: Website ref. re - Pixels per inch vs DPI
well thats an astonishing amount of work on this site, and very interesting reading, but what dropped my jaw was that he did the tests on a Canon Elan with a Canon 28-105mm lens to judge the quality of 35mm vs 5x4" (among other things) with this is plainly ridiculous I'm not trying to be a snob here, but really, you gotta get hold of a good pro 35mm camera before doing such tests, paul http://www.users.qwest.net/~rnclark/scandetail.htm
filmscanners: monitor shadows lines
Hi all, when I look at my monitor (Sony F520 21") with say Photoshop opened at full screen, but no image, just a grey background, any vertical black line has ghostly repeats of that line echoing away to the right side, they get less, but perhaps have four or five diminishing echoes. I've tried all the controls, but not diminished it at all. It doesn't happen with horizontal lines, or off to the left side of verticals, just the right. any ideas? or is just a faulty monitor? paul
filmscanners: tango vs. nikon 8000
> Nevertheles it may be useful to know that on the Yahoo "Piezography3000" > list there were several people who pointed out that if the Tango > is operated > with professional skills, its scans should normally be clearly better than > the Nikon´s. I saw somewhere else scans of the Imacon Photo vs. > Nikon 8000, > and there it was visible that the Imacon is the better machine. Yes, but some while ago I realised that drum scanner operators often dont care about your particular job, have time pressures, (and in my case, very little experience of negatives) They get maybe 80-90% out of a superior machine I will get 95% out of a slightly inferior machine end results are nearly the same, except my original negatives are still clean and not messed up. If the tester has a Tango at work, ($80,000?) then I'd guess he is professional too? Re Imacons vs Nikon or Polaroid, Most testers dont switch the unsharp mask off properly - it has to be set to minus 120, rather than zero, to be truly off. very clever trick by imacon to make it look off when it isnt. so the raw scans seem sharper Ian did a test vs the polaroid at this setting, and saw negligble differences. paul
RE: filmscanners: Minolta Scan Multi Pro Manual URL
Bernhard, Wow, thanks for that URL. I know the Tango is the best drum/high end flatbed scanner out there for under than $100,000 so, those are simply amazing results from the 8000. we are really moving into a new era here I almost forgive nikon for the 6 crashes I've had today on 3.1 oh, and the banding simply is not an issue if you press 'super fine scan', because then it disappears, though the scans get slower. paul > I think Nikon has always built good scanners, specially the new ED glass > line seems to meet high standards, the only issue seems to be the banding > problem in the 8000, that seems to show up eventually, but which should be > fixed in the future (I hope). Despite that problem everyone who > has the 8000 > seems to like the results it gives. > > On the Yahoo Piezography list there have been some threads concerning the > 8000, one guy has posted scans of both the Nikon 8000 and the Heidelberg > Tango drum scanner - the Nikon compares quite good in this "test" > - the link > to the scans is: http://homepage.mac.com/anton/NikonTango/index.html ) > > Of course mine is just another "opinion" but I don´t think I will have the > chance to compare them side to side - unfortunately... > > greetings from Berlin, > > Bernhard > > > >
filmscanners: Monitor Purchase/ Sony F520
I have the F520 too. Running it for 6 months, no problems, and it seems pretty good, but then I have nothing to compare it to. Incidentally its far cheaper in the UK than the US. (by many hundreds of dollars) No idea why, a rare reversal of the usual order. does everyone expand their monitor to the screen edges once a basic resolution has been set? or leave it alone? paul >>> Sony is the best and in some aspects are better than Barco. Unfortunately the GDM-F500R is a disaster and Sony replaced it with the GDM-F520 quickly, nothing beats this one for now (Barco is better in several aspects). Sony will have 0.15mm dot pitch CRT display soon FYI. JM Shen > Monitor 1 was a Sony GDM-F500R for $1,800. This was supposedly one > of the best monitors on the market (once you rule out Barco). It > arrived out of convergence, fuzzy, and I couldn't remove the color > cast. ... > In summary, the Sony's doing fine but I'm angry that it cost more and > is fuzzy enough that I notice it. The Mitsubishi is sharp as a tack, > a joy to use, and I'd buy another in a minute if I needed one.
filmscanners: Nikon 8000
Hi all, anyone else out there using a Nikon SC8000 with Vuescan? I'm having problems and Ed thinks its my system, so extra input would be welcomed, you can contact me off-list Paul
RE: filmscanners: Nikon film flatness (was Glass slide mounts)
Bill, My only conclusion is that something must be up with the 4000 (which I don't have) compared to the 8000 (which I do). By rights, the medium format 8000 should by far have the bigger problem with film flatness, but I can assure you that it's fine - no more nor less than one would expect. I use glassless carriers for most work, and glass ones for any dimensionally challenged (!) film. But I have nothing like the problems you describe, and no idea why. A smaller format should be far easier to control than a larger one. so assuming we have similar expectations, your problems seem greater than mine, with no logical explanation. As for glass mounting, I was mainly talking about unmounted strips of film (easy to put in a glass carrrier) rather than individual slides, so I appreciate your reluctance. My only caveat is that there are very well known problems with bowing of cardboard slide mounts, which you do specifically mention yours being, so... how much flatness should you expect from an ageing (warping) piece of card and glue? and how much should you expect a scanner to deal with that issue? I would ship some of them over to plastic mounts and see what changes that makes. Of course if your film has been sitting for years in a bowed card mount, then it would have to be a glass slide to force it back into shape. Do you find exactly the same problem with plastic mounted kodachromes? The other thought: all the posts complaining about this issue have been from 4000 owners too. none from 8000 people. hmmm. hope you find a workable answer to your frustrations, bests, paul -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Bill Fernandez Sent: 20 October 2001 15:28 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: filmscanners: Nikon film flatness (was Glass slide mounts) Paul-- Your post was very sane and reasonable and after reading it I was feeling that maybe life isn't so bad after all... until I turned back to my shiny new, $1,600 Nikon LS-4000ED and returned to wrestling with focus problems. Your final word is a good one so you don't have to respond, but I'd at least like to share my thoughts with the list. Three years ago I bought a 2,400 dpi Minolta Scan Dual for $500 which was the best I could afford at the time. It scans one of my favorite Kodachrome 64 slides with even sharpness across the entire field, even into the corners, albeit only at 2,400 dpi. Now, three years later, I spend three times as much for a top of the line scanner with two or three generations of improvement. I find that on this favorite slide I can get it sharp in the center and fuzzy in the corners or vice versa. Or, if I set the focus point (numerically) halfway in between then I get maximum sharpness in a ring-shaped region, while the center and corners are BOTH out of focus. Now there's nothing wrong with this in principle, and I wouldn't mind if it was only a little bit out of focus, it's just that (with the focus at the halfway point) the center and corners are no sharper than my three year old scanner is across it's entire field. So it's very disappointing to wait three years and spend three times as much to get no better sharpness across the field than what I've already got (other things are LOTS better, but here I'm concentrating on the focus problem). Now even this wouldn't be so bad if all the other scanners had the same problem. But I've never heard about this as an issue with the Polariod SprintScan 4000, or the Canon FS4000, or higher end scanners such as the Imacon flextites (although there was a recent post by a person who's had this issue with his Artixscan 4000). So here I am with thousands of cardboard mounted Kodachromes, of which perhaps a hundred are worth some serious attention, and I have to think: If I focus near the center and let the edges and corners go so fuzzy that (depending on the slide) they're no better than a 1,000 to 2,400 dpi scanner, is that good enough for images I really care about? Will the fuzziness show on the largest prints I'm likely to make? Am I willing to put up with the incredible hassle of glass mounting a hundred (or hundreds?) of slides? And when I get to my negative strips, will I have to slice the good ones out of the middles and glass mount them too? Would I have avoided this problem entirely had I bought a Polaroid or Canon? I wouldn't mind if the sharpness only varied a little bit across the field. But losing half the resolution of the scanner is highly unsatisfactory, both intellectually and visually. --Bill
RE: filmscanners: Nikon film flatness (was Glass slide mounts)
Hi all, My opinion on film flatness has been explained before, so this will be my final word on the topic. I've worked in very high end darkrooms for 20 years, typically making 4 foot to 6 foot prints (110 to 180cm) every day, from 35mm and medium format negs. That is an enlargement factor of 5000%. I have the brightest enlarger heads for these formats - 1000W of halogen lamps, BUT.. I still have problems with film flatness. Brighter light sources make no difference - you simply have to use a glass film holder for this type of high quality work to get edge to edge film flatness.. there is no other way, and there has been no real alternative in 100 years of darkroom technique/ equipment. Now a regular home enthusiast with a small enlarger won't use a glass holder because they don't look so closely at detail corner sharpness plus typically they stop down too much (enlarger lenses are at their optimum 2 stops down, any more degrades the resolution) to get the depth of field/ corner sharpness, which masks any uneveness of film. Or perhaps their lenses are not as wide in aperture to begin with. My point is that the higher your demands get, the more you notice things like film flatness becoming critical. Cheap scanners, or low resolution scanners, like cheap enlargers, dont show the best from the film, but neither do they show the faults in the technique, such as absolutely flat film. it's a good compromise - a stopped down aperture masks a lot of alignment issues that look good up to a point but ask for resolution beyond that point, and the problems begin. I think this is what we are coming across with the new high end prosumer scanners. If you want the ultimate - a 4000 dpi scan, with edge to edge sharpness, then you may have to accept that you need to use glass holders or take other measures to ensure flat film. My point has always been that it is wrong to expect ultimate resolution corner to corner by just dropping a strip of film in a holder and pressing 'scan'. Nobody in the pro-scanning world of drum scanners does that or gets that. Nobody in professional darkroom work does that or gets that. So lets get realistic here... Maybe, just maybe, Nikons approach has been to use a light source that requires a wider lens aperture, gaining very high resolution (they come top in most critical resolution tests) and long term colour stability. Polaroid have taken a different path, used a different (brighter) light source, a smaller aperture and gained depth of field, trading off against ultimate resolution. Nikon make and sell glass holders for their scanners, so... You pay your money and you makes your choice... paul
RE: filmscanners: ss120 ARGON
sorry about that, it wasn't what they told me earlier this week, and remains the published price in their price list, regardless, its still about £1000 less than Jessops, which is a *lot* of moolah pg
RE: filmscanners: SS120
>well I have it form a very reputable source that Polaroid's price to >retailers in the UK is £1722. >This indicates that anybody selling it on at 1499 is either (a) insane, or >(b) getting their supplies somewhere else. Ummm, no its not a secondhand unit, or ex-demo, nor are they insane. just a very very cheap supplier without the usual mark-up its also the cheapest place I have found for my fuji photo paper, and I have had an account with them for 3 years. No funny business, not one problem in all those times. they have plenty of brand new UK supplied units, go ahead and get one if you want to. (They also sell the Nikon and Minolta scanners.) so I guess your reputable source is wrong, bests, Paul
RE: filmscanners: Glass slide mounts
the circles/ weird shapes are 'newtons rings' which are interference patterns from glass/film surfaces meeting very well known (google it to find out more) use anti newton mounts when you get these paul
filmscanners: SS120
David, UK prices for the SS120 seem completely out of wack, Jessops (our B&H) have it at GBP 2703 plus tax (about $4000 !) and sell the Nikon for less... they are normally a cheap store to buy stuff other retailers, such as Argon have it for GBP 1499 plus tax (about $2170!). this seems so crazy, and you must be losing sales with such huge differentials at the main retailers. (most people just look at Jessops price list) what's going on? Paul
was: filmscanners: High End Scanner Prices now: scan resolutions
This topic seems to have moved into MF scan resolution vs output size. which I wanted to put in 2c worth I use a 4000dpi MF scanner, and my slightly cropped 6x7's are around 250Mb by the time I have dropped them into 8 bit. So far everyone has been dividing these pixels by 240 or 300 dpi for maximum inkjet output, but... with large format inkjets (Epson 1, HP, Roland Hi-Fi, etc) all the manufacturers ever say you need is 120dpi, which is then RIP-ed (which must mean interpolated) up to output dpi. So you can get *very* large prints out of this file size at high quality. 50inch or so, no problem. Then, as for lightjet/lamda printing, Labs here only want a 75 or 100Mb file, for say a 50inch print, and frown if you try and give them more Mb (and I suspect downsample then rip back up) than that. Drives me nuts, but they all work that way, and seem to get pretty good output. If you need more from your MF scanner, then there's always Genuine Fractals... Paul
filmscanners: switching of nikonscan colour management
Ralf, thanks for the advice - when I switched off Nikons colour management system I got a fantastic colour preview - (with some sort of grid over it) it looked like just what I had been striving for in colour but... when I had got the scan a few minutes later, it opened way off in colour (far far too dark, nothing at all like the preview no matter what I do in Photoshop - assign profile, dont assign profile, assign and convert ... it stays that way - completely out of wack. what am I doing wrong? also I don't understand, if cms is off, then what is in sRGB - your photo editor? (there is no 'preview mode' in ns 3.1 for windows, so it can't be set to "lo-cont neutral") paul > > and what do you have your balck/ white points set to in > Preferences? at the > > default 0.5? > > No, I set both of them to 0.0. And, maybe more important, CMS off - I > found Nikon CMS to act very unpredictably with negatives, so my choice > is plain sRGB. Before I forget, even more important is to set "preview > mode" in the "scanner extras" menu from "auto" to "lo-cont neutral" > which will prevent some weird Nikon automatics from producing blown out > highlights. Without changing that menu item, you'll probably get blown > whites inrespective of any other settings you choose! >
filmscanners: Nikonscan and dual processors
Just got this back from Nikon: >"It is known by Nikon that there are problems with Dual Processor PC's, both Windows and Mac. Although the Product Brochures do not specifically say the 2CPU machines will not work, neither do they say it does. Dual Processors are good but only for applications that are designed for them like Photoshop. Ours is not and probably will not be for the foreseeable future. Best performance with our products is achieved (currently) on single processor P4 machines running lots of RDRAM"< so the forums guesses were right, dual processors and nikonscan dont work very well. (I get one scan in four or so) funny thing is I'm not asking for NS to *utilise* dual processors, just not to crash with them. an awful lot of people, Mac or PC, working with such large files and semi-pro machines will have dual machines for Photoshop... it sure speeds my work up. Vuescan sure looks good now? Paul
RE: filmscanners: A picture can say more...(was: nikonscan white clipping)
Ralf thanks so much wonderful and clear Nikonscan explanation you should get a job at Nikon (or get together with Ed!) paul >>> Instead of making lots of words again, I have put up a picture which shows the respective histogram views of the Nikon Scan GUI, with a few annotations of mine on how I get the job done. you can find it at http://schmode.net/nikonscantweak.jpg >>>
filmscanners: Re: Constant crashes with Nikonscan 3.1/Coolscan 4000ED/W2K/Dual CPUs
Yeah, me too Cary. I'm a dualie also, but I hadn't attributed it to that, as enough people have mentioned NS crashes for me not to pin the blame on dual processors. but maybe you have something. It does crash at the most annoying times (after 15mins previewing and a lot of curve work on that difficult negative... finally you press scan and CRASH) but othertimes its fine. I've just learnt to save everything and not to touch a damn thing till its saved on the disk. paul
filmscanners: PS6 and W2K: virtual memory on/off?
When I'm handling large files in PS6 with W2K, I'm watching the scratch disk size, which shows the current usage against the amount of RAM I have allocated to PS something like 650/1270, then with a move that takes me up to the 1270 allocation for the programme the computer baulks for a moment, starts writing to scratch disk as I've exceeded my RAM I presume, and then once that is done, it comes back saying: 1290/1030. In other words the memory allocation to PS has dropped from 1270 to 1030 (to 75% approx from the 90% I'd given it) Is this the W2K virtual memory grabbing back RAM? or something else? if so, would it help things to turn it off (and how do I do that?) or is it best left to do its thing? I have 1.5GB RAM, though I'm going up to 2 Gb soon. paul
filmscanners: NikonScan 3.1: how to get good color and shadow detail
Bill thanks for your NS 3.1 advices, they are useful, so what do you suggest as a good everyday practise: wide gamut (compensated) or turning color management off? I use fuji negative film nearly all the time. please see my next post on highlight detail and GEM though - my 2 cents... paul clip> DISCUSSION: (1) By default NikonScan is set up with color management ON and outputs files directly to a profiled colorspace such as Adobe RGB. However all of the available color spaces reduce the shadow detail. (2) The "Scanner RGB" color space, which is supposed to mirror the raw output of the scanner, produces scans that are dark and have wierd color (what you'd expect from "raw" scanner data), but my scanner profiler couldn't create a good profile with it, and I wasn't able to pull useable shadow detail out of it using Levels. (3) The "Wide Gamut (compensated)" color space has more shadow detail than Adobe RGB, but not as much as with color management off. (4) With color management off you still have to make the right choice from the film-type menu: Negative, Positive or Kodachrome. The scans come out with roughly the right colors and it makes a difference whether you choose Positive or Kodachrome so obviously NikonScan is doing some color correction of the raw data and making different corrections for different film types. (5) The resulting scans are low contrast but can easily be adjusted with the Photoshop Levels dialog. Of course you want to scan in 14 bit (rather than 8 bit) mode so that you can make these tonal changes without posterizing the image. After making tonal adjustments you can downsample to 8 bits per pixel if you wish. (6) Comparing two similar scans, one with color management on and output to "Scanner RGB" space, the other with it off; if you adjust the Levels to grossly lighten the shadows (to see just how much detail you've got down there) you'll find that Scanner RGB seems to have more tonal gradations in the deep shadows than the no color management scan, but with a huge amount of very coarse and color-shifted noise. Therefore the extra tonality of the Scanner RGB scans is not useable for making pretty pictures, although it might be useful for scientific or forensic use.
filmscanners: GEM + highlight detail + Nikonscan
Hi, following all the posts about obtaining good highlight detail from Nikonscan, just wanted to add an observation: having just spent 2 days trying to sort out a particularly difficult negative, I couldnt work out why vuescan was giving me detail in the whites, where nikonscan wasn't. I could get the numbers right (say 250:250:250) for near whites, but no detail, which vuescan was giving at similar numbers. Then I did two more test areas in NS with and without GEM. bingo GEM smooths out the grain, which is what was giving (apparent) detail in the whites. switch off GEM and the whites get some texture from the grain. switch it on and you get these featureless whites, which *look* burnt out. this is just grain (I think) but wouldn't fine highlight detail would look like grain to GEM and get smoothed out, anyway? whatever, the point remains true, GEM does work very well in skies etc, but, smoothing out the tone in the highlights (say above 240) does make the tonal distinctions at this top end very hard to see, and apparently burnt out. I knew that film grain adds to the apprarent sharpness of a scan, but I never knew it affected tonal perception so much also. paul
RE: filmscanners: Re: nikonscan white clipping
Hi Ralf, Just to clarify your technique: what do you mean by: "use the auto adjust" (which button is that? is it the contrast black/white one?) and what do you have your balck/ white points set to in Preferences? at the default 0.5? otherwise thanks for your technique - its useful also: what are the "black point automatics" you mention? the same as the above, or do you mean the eyedroppers, which I find useless on a preview image that is so small. paul Ralf wrote: Here is how I proceed: With every single negative, use analog gain until you get a histogram that, for each of the R/G/B channels, has its "slope" end just before it "touches" the right side of the scale. Use the auto adjust for the white and black point *for each channel separately* - this is important because the RGB histogram just displays sort of an "average" view of the three color channels. Then - this is important again - push the "white point" slider of *each color channel* just a tiny little bit to the right to be absolutely certain no highlights will burn out (the preview usually "misses" some of the brighter points, i. e. the histogram of the complete scan will most likely extend a bit more into the highlights and shadows area than the preview did. By moving the slider you get some extra "space" for those missed highlights). Mike, pushing the curve downward like you do, simply speaking, just transforms an array of 255/255/255 pixels into one of 230/230/230 pixels. The way I proceed will prevent the 255/255/255 pixels from occurring at all (YMMV). BTW, you will in many cases be unable to do the same at the "shadow" side of the histogram because Nikon Scan has a weird aspect of the histogram - it often looks asymmetric, somewhat like a logarithmic display. Don't worry, just let the black point automatics do that for you - as opposed to the white point automatics, the black point is selected in a "conservative" way, almost never producing clipped shadow areas. See ya - Ralf
RE: filmscanners: Bruce Fraser Reviews Nikon 4000ED
I've read both his comments and Wire Moores, and the truth is somewhere in between. his are written for a major magazine readership, yours, if you will excuse me, seem quite hostile to the 4000. > Bruce says "If ICE is cool, GEM is nothing short of amazing." Blah, blah. What he doesn't say is that these features are partly designed to overcome a liability for this product because of how the Nikon optical subsystem (unlike many others) emphasizes film contamination and grain. > I dont find that rings true. The optical system in my 8000 is excellent, and definitely superior to the (only) competitors product. ICE is amazing, and GEM is indeed time consuming, but what's an extra 30 mins of processing time for a grain free image? remember these are UNAVAILABLE in the competitors product. The point Bruce is making here is aimed at the sceptical professional to say that this software (Digital ICE) really does *work*. Those are presumably the same sceptical professional who told Polaroid research forums that they didn't want it or need it. err: wrong. Polaroid is now having to back track and bring out updated machines with it on. (4000plus, due soon) That's why, in short, he is stressing it with adjectives like 'amazing'. Give me a tack sharp scanner like the Nikon, with digital ICE, rather than a slightly less sharp one without. I'll take the sharper (sorry: more pronounced) grain any day, and sit through a 30 min GEM grain reduction if, (and only if - we're talking about using grainy films here) it is needed. Compare that to the hours of frustration and technique involved with converting to LAB, gaussian blurring of blue channels, smart sharpening actions, etc, etc, that used to be necessary to get rid of grain in skies, flesh tones, smooth textures, etc. As for the color profile being out of wack, now *that* is a major issue in my opinion. I have just discovered how much better profiled Vuescan's results are than Nikonscans for Nikon scanners. (though there is an annoying VS bug with the 8000 that I've reported to Ed) Nikon seems to have pumped up the contrast and clipped the ends to give the casual user funkier results, rather than accurate ones. Vuescan doesnt do that. the problem is I have 100GB of scans sitting on my raid that I may now have to re-do having found this out. If only Bruce Fraser would make his profiles available to download for the rest of us, or better still, Nikon fixed theirs in 3.2... (but don't hold your breath). paul
filmscanners: vuescan on Nikon 8000
Is anyone out there using vuescan on a Nikon 8000? If so please help me by telling me your settings for the crop tabs, etc, as I simply can't get my whole 6x7 image into the preview box. the defaults/auto dont do it, I get lots of extra whilte space, and the manual variables are so, so, many that I have been trying for a day and still not got the whole neg in there. I need crop tab settings + prefs: window offsets etc (? do I?) for a 6x7 neg +what does a flashing crop box outline mean? off list is fine if you prefer, thanks paul
RE: filmscanners: Nikon 8000/ digital ICE
thanks for your prompt feedback Jack, regarding ROC, I was using it on an underexposed negative, as I think you recommended a while back. ROC worked, shockingly so, but way too much. a far weaker setting (like two or three notches down, not just one) for such thin negs would be great, and then maybe something to reduce the grain increase that comes with it... I know that's what GEM is supposed to do, but my scans quickly looked softer, unacceptable to me. Paul
filmscanners: SS120 UK prices - was/UK price reduction for the Sprintscan 4000
There is also a cheap source for UK SS120's if anyone is interested, please contact me off-list. About UK£1850, pre-tax, - a full £900 less than Jessops price...or almost anyone else for that matter, Paul
filmscanners: Nikon 8000/ digital ICE, was: Scanner Buying Dilemma
>Buy the SS120. I have one and I like it. The Nikon is probably a fine scanner if you could find one, but is reported to have problems keeping medium format film in focus at the edges due to the type of light source it uses, which also evidently accentuates dust which means you need to use ICE with it. Well, I have the Nikon 8000, and I can quite frankly tell you that the focus issue is a complete non starter. I have no idea where it came from - Mikael in Sweden maybe, but no, it is not an issue. I am hypercritical, and it simply isn't true on any normally flat negative. Digital Ice I dismissed till I tried it, but was shocked how effective it was. I am a pro and have pretty clean m/f negs, but this saves an age of spotting, wasting my time combing over each 550Mb 6x7 file. Really, don't knock it till you try it! I can tell no difference in sharpness on the normal setting at all, and I use Zeiss m/f lenses. Gem is another matter. did nothing for me, shame. Roc is way too strong even at its lowest settting (Jack!!) but effective. The 8000 is an excellent scanner. Nikonscan sets the standard for UI of all scanner programmes and is easy to learn, yet powerful in its hidden depths. Lawrences tests showed the Nikon to be the sharper of the 2 scanners (only just though, the polaroid is very sharp too), and that was it for me, nothing else mattered really. The new Minolta Mulit Pro is one of those machines with different resolutions for different format. for m/f I belive it is 3200 or 3400 dpi, if that is plenty for you, then its a fine trade off for higher res on 35mm. The $12,000 Imacons that advertise themselves at 5800 dpi do that same trick, and are in fact 3200 dpi for M/F. Paul
filmscanners: scanned files open larger than indicated
Can someone tell me why my TIF files open larger in Photoshop than their indicated size on the disk? A 25Mb file opens as 76Mb in Photoshops scratch size indicator A 130Mb file at around 205Mb A 330Mb somewhere about 410Mb what is going on? these are regular tiffs, I dont use LZW anymore. or any compression as far as I know. and the memory bloat is really annoying I have PS6 on W2K. thanks, Paul
filmscanners: Nikon 8000
>Is anyone using the Nikon 8000? >How does it handle those big floppy 6x6 and 6x9 films? >Any other comment or link appreciated. Hi. I got one the other week good machine in general. following on from other postings I was wary of Nikonscan software, but it turns out to be extremely powerful and intuitive. very good with negs, which is all I use. It does crash from time to time, but otherwise a good interface and simple controls. I was expecting to use Vuescan, but haven't felt the need to change yet. The neg holders are good enough in my opinion. the 120 holder does have a facility for tensioning the film after you have locked it in place, works quite well and removes most of the flop/ focus shift. I have had no focus problems to speak of and I am pretty critical about it, but then my negs are pretty flat. There is always a glass holder for those awkward negatives anyway, which I will be getting soon. Only annoying thing is that the normal holder is designed for singles and strips of two, but not threes, (for 6x7) which is standard for me - all my negs are cut that way (neg file holders hold 3's etc) but they dont fit and get damaged by a badly placed prominent screw if you try to squeeze the strip in. (it actually does fit) so I have the choice of cutting them or... ? The banding reported by Lawrence and others is indeed there in normal mode with specific dark blue colours, no question. It's very fine, and only if you have a very dark blue sky (heavily polarised or storm clouds) and look in the blue channel you'll find it. to stress this, you dont find it in most pictures, just certain extreme blue colours. Switching over to 'super fine mode', which uses one set of sensors, rather than 3, solves this, but your scans take 3 times as long. a full 6x7 scan this way is about 10 mins, for 500Mb, rather than 3mins. Nikon UK (where I am) know about the banding, and say it is a product of the scanner being so incredibly fine it is showing the limits of this CCD technology. I don't believe them, but thats what they say. They are also very convinced of their superiority over the Polaroid 120 by the way, true or not. Polaroid 120's are cheaper here - around GBP 1800 rather than GBP 2200 for the Nikon (ex sales tax) Scan sizes are an issue - even with a high level workstation (I have dual 1Ghz processors with Raid system etc) things slow down dramatically with 530 Mb files (48bit 6x7's) - working in Photoshop takes careful use of resources. I have 1.75Gb RAM, but go over it in 2 quick moves and a couple of history states, so writing to disk is inevitable and of course that slows everything down. just bearable though. Trouble starts when you exceed 2Gb during a large save. things seem to freeze, as I think you are exceeding the OS limit per app. (I am W2K, but Mac is the same or less I believe). maybe curable though with tweaking. Any tips/ tweaks for handling these mega-files would be gratefully received. I have the scratch disks on the RAID of course, OS and PS6 are on a regular drive, but sizes? settings? I also have pointed NS to store on the RAID, but is this a mistake? If you use normal mode (not super fine) and it is lightning quick, but thats not my M.O. - fewer, better, is what I want. UK bundles do not come with Genuine Fractals which is a shame and they dont tell you that on the box. As usual you pay more for less in the UK. Otherwise I think I'm keeping mine. will compare with some drum scans soon, but for now, its a quality product. a bit pricey, but very sharp. I have never used ICE, not needed so far, my negs are clean enough. tried GEM for grain in skies, but very little effect for a much much slower scan. so that will stay off too. oh, one last complaint is that it is noisy! I can't help but believe that the scans would be even sharper if they could cut the stepping motors noise and vibration a bit. It clicks whirrs and thumps while in motion quite alarmingly paul
filmscanners: tiff compression
Hi all, what do people think about saving my raw scans as LZW tiff's? I am making 48 bit 6x7 scans on Nikon 8000, and they are over 500Mb each, so lossless compression would save a hell of a lot of space, but what are the drawbacks? can most programmes decode them if I send them to people on a CD? Also, for catalogue/ magazine use what sort of RGB file size should I supply, something like a 12" print at 300dpi is still 75Gb uncompresses, which seems big for most magazines thanks, Paul
filmscanners: Lamda, resolution + poor service
Update on trying to get a good Lamda print done: Went to a repro lab recommended by Fuji, and after carefully explaining what I wanted from them - highest quality, finest detail and optimum resolution from my 5x7 inch negative, to output a 45" print, I came back the next day to be shown a 37Mb file... (from their $25,000 Scitex) I asked the operator to show me a histogram of the image and he didn't know what that was! He then assured me that it would scale (interpolate) up to a 45" print at 400 dpi with "barely any loss of quality" when I expressed dismay and asked why I had to accept interpolated pixels on their $300,000 Lamda machine output, rather than using the ample real pixels,, I have on my neg, (or at least every other pixel being real) I was told, sheepishly, that big files clog up the machines memory, and the other operators get upset at their jobs being queued. Can anyone suggest a way out of this? Obviously I can't buy a Lamda, so what can you do to get quality in this situation? pg
filmscanners: ICG not CGI
Bob, I think you mean an ICG drum scanner, (at least it is them who have the internal oil drum with no taping), and its actually $35,000. (UK £26,000 new) good machine, as is the Heidelberg Primescan/Tango. Paul >Whenever I've mentioned 50Mb drum scans at $10 on the Stockphoto list I've >had lots of people ask "where?". If you know cheaper please tell. I did >mention that they are done on a CGI scanner which is considerably more than >$2,500. More like a $150,000 investment by the bureau. >(For those who don't know the CGI has a unique evaporating oil and the film >goes on the inside of the drum. Throughput is much faster than conventional >drum scanners because there is no taping or oil cleaning.) >What seems to be the killer is the dust problem. The bureaux scans are clean >which is wonderful. Looking at a full screen image on a monitor is like >Looking out of an open window at the scene. >Yours >Bob Croxford
filmscanners: drum scanning services
Hi there, can I get some second opinions on this issue: I've got to make a 46x33 inch highest exhibition quality Lambda or Lightjet print from a big 5x7 inch negative. I talked to the printing Lab's and they tell me that they output at 400 dpi for the highest quality. Thus, if I want 400 dpi x 46" that is 18,400 pixels, from an active area of 6.25" that gives me 2944 dpi needed. So I presumed: scan at 3000 dpi and no problems. This gives me a 240Mb 8-bit file, or a 480Mb 16-bit file. I can work on that (I have a good workstation) and then hand it over. The enlargement factor is only something like 650%, very low. But.. Every drum scanning bureaux here (central London) seems to think asking for a file this big is ridiculous. One suggests 80Mb as a maximum another 120Mb. Why? Nobody can explain to me why I would want a small file and have the Lambda RIP invent pixels (sorry, interpolate) to make up the 400 dpi output needed, when I have real pixels readily available on my large format negative. I went to the bother of shooting 5x7" precisely because I wanted the sharpest and purest tones possible to record. Now I'm being shunted downstream by drum operators.. Have I got something wrong here? Is there nothing wrong with a 120Mb stepped up to 480 Mb? Or are drum operators simply too used to working to low repro standards? Why won't anyone do a large scan for me? pg
filmscanners: It's OptiCal I meant
Hi all, Realised my past posting was confusing: Does anyone have OptiCal (the ColorVision programme) for the monitor spyder for PC that they can send me? I have found that my programme is corrupted, and simply can't find my disk. I just have the spyder! thanks, and please send any mail off-list, paul
filmscanners: which space?
Hi, on a steep learning curve here with scanning and PS6 still a bit befuddled by all the colour management issues.. when I get raw scans from a scanner.. eg Nikon 4000, they don't come in any 'space', right? so should I assign (convert) them to a particular one? isn't that wacking the data right off the bat? if so, which one are most folks using - Adobe RGB or Ektaspace? or another? (I will be doing high bit m/f scans and outputting to inkjets. RGB only, no CMYK repro interest) seems best to start things off how I mean to carry on, so any advice is welcomed. pg
filmscanners: optical
Hi all, Does anyone have Optical for the monitor spyder for PC that they can send me? I have found that my programme is corrupted, and can't find my disk. I just have the spyder! thanks, and please send any mail off-list, paul
filmscanners: film sharpness
(snip) I too have noticed funny things with the focusing with my SS4000 (running Vuescan, don't know about PCI - haven't used it in a while). I've scanned a slide, found too much dust, re-scanned it and found that the focusing had changed slightly - the dust was in sharp focus, but the image was slightly less sharp. Don't know if this is a software issure or something to do with the slide holder. I've noticed that when you insert a slide into the holder, it is usually not flat - that is the holder doesn't do a good job of keeping the slide all in one plane (snip) what you all could be describing is the classic situation of a negative 'popping' due to the heat of the lights. well known to all darkroom enlarger users More interestingly... is this one reson why Nikon are using LED lightsources (much cooler) pg
filmscanners: Nikon 8000 scanner
I am reliably informed that the Nikon 8000 scanner goes on sale next week in the UK. Price around £2600 including sales tax (17.5%) Anyone got one in the US yet? Is Vuescan supporting yet Ed? pg
filmscanners: Coolscan 4000
>Date: Sun, 08 Apr 2001 09:16:54 +0930 >From: "Mark T." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Re: filmscanners: Review of the Nikon CoolScan 4000 > >At 04:11 PM 7/04/01 +, you wrote: >>Jeremy >>Please take a real sharp slide ( glassles) and select the auto focus in >>the middle of the picture and scan the slide ( standard mode) >>Move the auto focus setting out from the middle against the side of the >>picture and scan. >>Compare the information in the middle and corner of the 2 slides. >>Don't tell me that you not can se a big difference in the sharpness >>I have done this test on 2 different ED 4000 and same results. >>Best Regards >>Mikael Risedal > >Can I just add to this - *please* make sure that the test slide is a >'curved' one. Old Kodachromes in cardboard mounts are often like this - >you may have to look harder to find a plastic-mounted one with a good >bend.. Sorry if I am stating the obvious. :) > >Regards, Mark T. Oh and while you're at it, take the film pressure plate out of the back of your expensive pro-35mm camera before you take the picture. and then blame the camera manufacturer if your images are soft. jeez, you guys... what planet are you living on? pg
filmscanners: nikon carrier flatness (again)
Dear Mikael: Before you cite the Flextight, as an example of glassless perfect scans, I suggest you check out Seybold Reports "Pixel Perfect 2" where they test every high end scanner on the market, and the Imacon Flextight comes *bottom* with the least sharp scans of the entire group... (Seybold are the premier Publishing/Scanning/Printing assessors in the world) Oh, and the scans were made by Imacon themselves in their offices.. They were simply not sharp! (For what its worth, Scitex Eversmart Supreme was top, with Heidelberg Tango drum scanners...) that is: glass mounted flatbed/ glass mounted drum... both made beautiful scans with razor sharp detail. I print images daily and use glass carriers. what is the problem? If you send your slides to a scanning bureaux they will glass mount them on their drum, and do hundreds every day... again - what is the problem? Like I said before: >I'm not critical of your findings - they are probably true, I just don't >feel it is a total failure on the scanners part, when they give you a >choice >of carriers: I simply don't feel you should expect to drop any old 35mm slide or a strip of film into a glassless carrier and expect 100% sharp corner to corner 4000dpi scans... Anyway this is getting tiresome to others I'm sure, (and the rumour is halfway around the world by now that these scanners don't work!) Get the polaroid or a flat bed scanner if you don't like the idea of Nikon's choice of carriers. It's your choice and your money. Good luck. bests, Paul (snip) "... Please take a look at: http://www.imacon.dkand the scanner Flextight Photo or Polaroid. This film scanners have not the Nikons problem with film holders and curved film and un sharp pictures. " Mikael Risedal"
filmscanners: film flatness in Nikon 4000
Art, well... I've got a liquid gate for my DeVere's, and I've got carriers with no glass, regular glass, anti newton glass, and vacuum coated anti newton glass (best) I use $2500 Apo-El-Nikkor lenses imported from Japan, (unavailable here) (none of the others are really Apo's) and I would *never* make a serious print without glass of some sort holding the film flat. (35mm or 10x8") sorry but all my tests show the opposite of yours, and any tiniest intereference from the glass is vastly more than compensated for by the *dramatic* improvement in sharpness over the whole film plane, but especially the corners/edges. keeping the glass clean is not such a problem, and I replace it once every few months anyway. But then I work very large (40x50" colour prints are average), so things do get hyper-critical. Then again, that's why I'm interested in a 4000 dpi m/f scanner! Before this gets too OT, see my next posting: (follows) Date: Sat, 31 Mar 2001 21:54:29 -0800 From: Arthur Entlich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: filmscanners: film flatness in Nikon 4000 (snip...) Yes, enlargers can be bought with glass neg carriers, but guess what, they actually degrade the image result. I've tested this with my own enlarging system. (Besseler, Nikkor lenses) You are adding 4 new surfaces, none of which are perfect in surface or color, even if they are optical glass, and all of which are very close to the focal point at the film plane. Add to that internal reflections within each sheet of glass, potential dust scratches and dirt, if they are not perfectly clean, and potential damage to the film. Glass sandwiching is done sometimes with a viscose wet gate, to help reduce the internal reflections of two of the surfaces, and having the outer surfaces far enough away from the film plane to me out of the focal range. But using a glass carrier with a 35mm film scanner doesn't make it, as far as I'm concerned. Further, it requires removing the film from slide mounts (more potential damage). (snip)...
filmscanners: film flatness in new Nikon's
well said... last paragraph one report and we're dismissing the entire range of new Nikon scanners. let's get more info, please pg Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 17:11:11 -0400 From: "Dave King" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: filmscanners:Focusing & film flatness Most darkroom workers interested in quality wouldn't use a mounted slide for projection in an enlarger. If you've ever had a large custom print made by a good lab you'll see it's been taken out of the mount and replaced. Not too hard, cut the cardboard half way through with a single edge razor along the center of any of the 4 wide sides of the mount, bend one of the near corners down a bit and it'll come apart. (Don't remove the layer completely and you can re-use the mount. Replace the film and tape along the cut. Practice on outtake slides.) Then place the film in a glassless carrier, possibly using tape along the sprocketed sides to fix in place and flatten a bit if needed. I've scanned a few mounted slides in my LS-30 and don't recall any particular problem with focus at the edges. Some mounted slides are more curved than others however, it depends on type of film, processing conditions, how old the film was before processing, how it's mounted, and how it's stored. I did see a problem using the auto film strip feeder and neg strips, but the fix was easy, use the film strip holder. We've only seen one complaint about this so far? Perhaps we should wait a bit before coming to any hard and fast conclusions. And even if the DOF is on the shallow side with Nikon's new scanners, there will surely be easy fixes for careful workers. These new scanners are pretty compelling, and I doubt this will turn out to be a major problem, if any problem at all. Dave
filmscanners: nikon glass carrier ref #
Rob: For the 8000 its FH-869G for the 4000 its ? sorry I don't have that sheet. look it up on the site - it will end in xxxG though another interesting item is the FH869GR holder (for the 8000, 120 film) which is an oversize m/f glass holder, and goes beyond the edges of the frame, like a filed out neg carrier. Hope David will do both of these for the Polaroid Sprintscan 120? David? -pg Date: Sun, 1 Apr 2001 11:07:50 +1000 From: "Rob Geraghty" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: Re: filmscanners: film flatness in Nikon 4000 "PAUL GRAHAM" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Nikon makes and sells a glass holder for the scanner (and the 8000 too) so > what's the problem? Anyone know the part number for this? I'm wondering if it may help with edge-to-edge sharpness on an LS30 as well. Admittedly I'm quite happy with the focus on the LS30 but it would be interesting to try. :) Rob
filmscanners: film flatness in Nikon's
Mikael: don't see what any of that text you quote from Nikon: "Coolscan® Film Scanners: The Coolscan IV ED, Super Coolscan 4000 ED and Super Coolscan 8000 ED, take film scanning to a new level by..." (etc) has to do with the choice of carriers... I'm not critical of your findings - they are probably true, I just don't feel it is a total failure on the scanners part, when they give you a choice of carriers: If you are just making quick scans for proofs - use the glassless carrier, but if you are making critical scans for the ultimate 4000dpi results, then use the glass carrier - that was my point. It is precisely what all pro darkroom people have done for years, and its what I do, even with 1000 watts of halogen bulbs shining through a negative... maybe other scanners use a brighter lightsource and so gain depth of focus etc, but this one doesn't. I expect there is some trade made by Nikon against using tubes for LED spectrum, long life, heat, consistency or ?... I notice that the recent ZBE Chromira printer, which (like a Lightjet/Lambda) writes digital files direct to photo paper, is an LED machine too.. Film flatness is a problem with all scanners/enlargers. Flatbeds don't suffer so much from it because the film is pressed against the glass - in other words - it's glass mounted! Even with high end drum scanners and laser light sources you have to ensure negative flatness with oil mounting and pressure rollers etc, so, why should it be any different here as we approach drum scanner resolutions in desktop boxes? Nobody in decades of making enlarger negative holders has come up with a glassless way of holding a negative perfectly flat, the only solution has been glass carriers, or stopping down the depth of focus to the detriment of image resolution (and I don't want to get into circles of confusion here!) paul
filmscanners: film flatness in Nikon 4000
Don't see why anyone is surprised to learn that there is film curvature with 35mm negs in the Nikon scanner. Every pro lab knows that you have to use glass holders for film when working to critical sharpness, 35mm or 5x4". and 4000 dpi needs critical sharpness... Nikon makes and sells a glass holder for the scanner (and the 8000 too) so what's the problem? critical work - with traditional enlargers or with high end scanners, demands some care and attention, and it's actually slightly reassuring that the focus is so precise IMO. It seem this is not really a fair criticism of the scanner. It is intended for semi-professional work after all. Use the glass holder, (with anti newton glass if you have that problem) and you will see astounding differences in your image sharpness. pg
filmscanners: scanning/photoshop workstation (long)
Hi all, I've been researching for months about getting a medium format workstation for my scanning work, and thought I'd just run it by the forum for opinions, oversights, have my assumptions corrected, and perhaps even be some help to others too. Basically the new 4000 dpi m/f scanners will output such large files that handling them demands a new ball game in desktop systems: files of 500 to 700 Mb will be common at 4000 dpi, (in 16bit), and no doubt 6000 dpi will come along soon for 35mm. If you do 5x4" - god help you. Processing power is not the problem, a high end Mac, P4 or AMD Athlon, will all do the job well. All of these have enough power/ MHz. The issue seems to be the memory handling of these large files: Now, the rule of thumb is that you need 3 to 5 times the RAM as your file size for efficient PS handling, so... this means maximum RAM on the machine: Max RAM for any programme in a Mac OS is 1Gb (out of 1.5 Gb on the board) Max RAM in W 2K is 2Gb per programme (out of up to 4Gb) so this means... a Windows machine, until Mac get their motherboards upgraded. ok: from what I understand the max RAM controllable on a windows board is set by the chipset, and of course, the physical number of memory slots present. Older chipsets/boards are pretty much the same as Mac's (3 memory slots (dimms), 1.5Gb controllable) But there are now motherboards out there now that have new chipsets (3 or 4 Gb controllable) and 4 memory slots, so 2 Gb is can easily be dedicated to Photoshop alone. Newer DDR memory boards (latest Athlon systems) are also out there with 3 or 4 slots, as are P4 boards, with Rambus memory RIMMS, but... this memory is very expensive, with a 512Mb stick being about $800 in DDR compared to only $170 currently in the older SDRAM. so.. if you are buying four of these (to make 2Gb) then you can save literally thousands of $ by not buying the latest memory types, losing maybe a few % performance. Or put another way, you can have 2Gb of SDRAM for the price of 500 Mb or DDR RAM. It seems a new style Athlon SDRAM board with 4 slots is the way to go for best bang per buck at present. (Incidentally, 1 Gb sticks are much more reasonable than they were - but this means they are now $1400 rather than $6000 so forget about them. They are also only available in the older SDRAM format anyway) Whatever happens obviously you are going to run out of RAM eventually, and be writing to the hard drive... so fast hard drives are essential, and RAID seems to be coming in as the new standard for all workstations. That is, in its simplest performance mode, writing/reading your data across two or more drives (stripping, or RAID 0), which gives dramatic speed improvements and memory handling, apparently. This used to be SCSI territory, but now ATA RAID (for regular drives) is common, and RAID controllers are included on many windows motherboards, so it is just the cost of the extra drive. (cheap). so, you could get two good IBM 75 Gb drives, which makes 150 Gb of stripped UDMA memory for about $600 ($300 x2). SCSI RAID would be faster still, but this, for 150 Gb, would be $1800 ($900 x2) plus a controller $250, (though sometimes even SCSI RAID is included on high end boards) - pricey, but possible for a very quick system, or as a substitute for lower RAM. (Incidentally, you can get an ATA RAID card for Mac's too, but they don't push it as Mac would rather sell you SCSI for high $. This could make the MAC system workable with only 1 Gb photoshop memory, for not too many $ extra) So that is where I am at, and about to spend my hard earned dosh. Sorry if this is geek-speek to some, but others will (hopefully) point out some mistakes or oversights in my thinking, and advise another way... please. I know this sounds crazy high-end stuff, but I really think its coming in thick and fast... there will be plenty more pro-photographers out there doing this same m/f scanning, and all coming up against these issues. regards to all, paul
filmscanners: HP pigmented inks
Hi all, I was talking to a high end ink jet salesman who sold both HP and Epson (and other) wide format machines. He said that the HP machine has the better Gamut in their UV resistant inks, than the Epson in their pigmented archival inks. The interesting thing was that he kept calling them "UV resistant inks", as do HP, and when I asked if he meant pigmented inks, he hinted that it was a blend of dyes and pigments - for greater gamut - and not 100% pigmented. Now this may not be a problem (some dyes do last an awful long time) and could even be a very clever compromise situation, but it is not a widely publicised situation. What we now need is for Wilhelm Imaging to come out with their data on HP vs. Epson archive life, and then (dye or pigment or mix) we can get an accurate picture. hope this si not too o/t? PG
filmscanners: Grain in Color negative Film
I do use pro labs to develop my colour negs, but am I the only who notices a double standard in even their handling: transparency film gets the gloved treatment, negatives get fingers (as in fingerprints...) oh, and I have changed labs 3 times... same result. but then, as we all know real pro's only use slide film, right? paul
filmscanners:
Does anyone know anything about Dicomed Imaginator? (sp?) Heard it was good high end (windows) image editing software Or what about Qimage pro? any opinions on these PS alternatives? thanks, PG
No Subject
Hi all, I'm planning to get one of the new 4000 dpi medium format scanners for my 6x7 negs, and checked out the specs on their site. Got a bit freaked out when I saw that a scan of this size in 16 bit is 624 Mb. (8 bit: 312 Mb) If Vuescan works with these scanners (likely I'm sure, with Ed so on the button) then you could be saving RGB+ I which means raw scans are 33% larger still... This is all getting me very anxious - they say you need minimum of 3 x file size in RAM so we're already way over the 1.5Gb on most boards.. Any advice/ experiences? Am I worrying about nothing? If you run out of RAM and write to good modern hard drives do things really stop dead? Mac OS only allows a max of 1Gb Ram to any one programme (eg Photoshop), does Windows 2000 have similar memory limits? (noticed some of the newest Windows motherboards can take 3Gb+ in RAM) Before anyone comments on RAM costs, I just saw 512Mb units (PC133 SDRAM) for $207... so it's feasible to buy 2Gb plus for 'only' around $800 Any advice/tips welcome, Paul
filmscanners: scanner lenses
Been reading dissection of the new Nikon's 4000/8000 press claims with interest... but can I ask about its optics? I noticed that its lens is 14 elements in the 8000, which seems an awful lot of glass... now maybe this is great and wonderful, or maybe this is because it does every format from APS to MF? does it have to zoom or anything like that? If this is the case then surely a dedicated MF scanner would be better than one that tries to do it all? I know if someone tried to sell me a photographic enlarging lens that zoomed from sub 35mm to 6x9cm I wouldn't consider it for a minute, as zooms are always way inferior to primes. + anyone know what the new Polaroid SS 120 lens is like? PG
filmscanners: negative masks
snip> So would one be wrong to interpret what you are saying here in a fashion as to infer that it might be generally said that these films with their orange masks, whatever the differences, are optimized for traditional photographic printing on photographic papers...
filmscanners: how do I decode your images?
when you guys send images to each other all I get is a long list of characters. sorry for my ignorance, but can you tell me what's up? do I need to switch something on/download something? (PC, Win 95, Outlook 98) thanks, PG
