 Jeff S. Kennedy |
Film Scanner Quandary So here's a question from me for a change. I'm getting ready to buy a scanner but since I can't see into the future I'm not sure what to get. Someone offered to sell me their Minolta Dual Scan II for $325. But I am also considering a new Canon FS4000US 4000dpi scanner for $872. I'm sure the minolta would get me started buy I'm afraid that down the road I'm just going to end up buying the higher resolution scanner any way. Here's my requirements as I see them now. I am a portrait photographer and I would like to scan my images to show as digital proofs, add to my website, and do my own digital darkroom work (retouching, dodging, and burning, etc.) before sending them to my lab to get LED prints made. Based on the last requirement I listed I feel like the 4000dpi scanner is my best option. But I don't have any experience with scanners so I don't know if it's just overkill. Give me some input. Thanx, Jeff.
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doug Nelson |
If that Minolta works, I'd buy it to get me started in film scanning. If the max scan resolution is around 2700 ppi, you'll get 300ppi with an image size of about 8 x 12. It sounds as if you are a pro or very serious amateur. Look carefully at 4000 ppi scanners, especially at the customer service. Nikon, after a rough beginning, cleaned up their customer service act. Nikon's Digital ICE works really well. Canon's own system may also, but I'd read some reviews first.
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
Thanks Doug... I think. ;-))) I am a full time portrait photographer so I want the absolute best quality images I can get. That's why I'm leaning towards the 4000dpi scanner. I'm just curious if anyone out there is going to tell me it's overkill.
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BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Miotke  Contact Jim Miotke Jim Miotke's Gallery |
I definitely won't tell you it's overkill :) I would lean toward the better one now. You are absolutely correct in that you will just want it later. In fact, don't be fooled into weighing resolution exclusively. Go for overall color quality - range, dynamics, etc. (This is one area that I think you will find just as crucial as resolution.) Doug's mention about Nikon is dead on the money - seriously look into that Digital ICE thing. It is amazing and will play a big part in your image quality and scanning efficiency. Best wishes,
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
The Canon has it's own version of ICE but I don't know how good it is. The reviews I've read say the Canon is a good unit but most didn't like the software that came with it. It is by far the most reasonably priced 4000dpi scanner I've found.
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BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Miotke Contact Jim Miotke Jim Miotke's Gallery |
Do you already have Photoshop or some such thing?
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
Not yet.
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Ken Pang |
Hey Jeff. I have the Canon FSU4000. I can attest to a few things: 1) The dust remover is excellent, and loss in sharpness in areas that used to have dust is so low, that unless you have a lot of fine detail there anyway, you can't notice loss of sharpness. 2) The contrast range is brilliant. You do not lose any details from even the widest exposed slides. 3) The software is pretty average. Had a hard time getting it working on Win2k, to the point where I scan on a Win98 machine and transfer the files over to Win2k to work and print. On the other hand, Photoshop LE is a brilliant piece of software. I know some filters are missing as compared to the $1200 version, but none of the useful filters are gone. 4) Scanning speed is slow. If you want all six frames, go watch an episode of your favourite soapie. You're looking at about 30 minutes. Other than that, I have nothing but praise for the scanner. Photos are sharp, colourful and serves every purpose. If you want to receive a 65Mb file from me, I am happy to send you a full quality photo scanned from it. Cheers,
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
Thanks Ken. That really helps. I'll be ordering one today. It sounds like the machine to fit my needs. And you can't get any other 4000ppi scanner for the price. Thanks everyone.
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BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Miotke Contact Jim Miotke Jim Miotke's Gallery |
Hi Ken, You must be speaking Australian when you mention that Photoshop costs you $1200 (ouch!) Thanks for all the good info - now I even want one of these Canons :)
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
FWIW I got the Canon and it's pretty nice. I've never scanned before and consequently have never used scanning software before. I've read a lot of reviews that say the software that comes with it is not the best but being new I have had no problem with it. The FARE (dust and scratch removal) works great. And even though I know nothing about scanning my scans have come out looking very good. Now if I can only get my high res scans to print from Photoshop LE without giving me an error message. sigh
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Ken Pang |
Hi Jeff, Are you scanning in 42 bit colour? Photoshop LE can display, but not edit or print in 42 bit colour. Jim, Yes, sorry, that was in AUD. When Photoshop 6 came out, I thought I could get PS 5.5 or 5.0 pretty cheap. The shop did discount it... To $1150. Wow. Photoshop LE certainly does the job, and considering it doesn't cost, I'm more than happy with that. Ken
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BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Miotke Contact Jim Miotke Jim Miotke's Gallery |
Yikes - I certainly don't blame you on that one. Not much of a discount. I am sure Photoshop LE is more than fine, at that rate. Have fun,
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
Actually the image I'm having trouble with is b&w and was scanned as such. I was having a problem opening it until I set the virtual memory lower. So now I can open it but I still can't print it. Any ideas on that one?
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Ken Pang |
That sounds weird... It certainly sounds as if it's a system resources problem. Can I ask how much real RAM you have, and how large the photos are, when saved as uncompressed TIFFs? Thanks, Ken.
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
I doubt it's a resources problem. It's a brand new machine with 512 megs of RAM. It says the size is 337.5M.
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Ken Pang |
Ouch! Not sure what you're doing there to get the photo size so large, but it shouldn't be that large... I don't think that scanner allows hardware interpolation??!! ANyway, can you check the colour depth? If it's B&W, make sure it's NOT 14 bit and if it's colour, make sure it's NOT 42 bit. Those colour depths are unsuppoted by photoshop LE for editting and printing - you can only view at that colour range. Let me know how it goes.
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BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Miotke Contact Jim Miotke Jim Miotke's Gallery |
Yes - Ken is right on target here. The image size should be something more like 18MB. 36MB would be HUGE, let alone 338MB. Some scanning software interface's make it real easy to get scanning that big, though, because they allow you to choose from a bunch of overkill options. And I am not sure if your software works like the full-blown version of Photoshop but the latter requires three times the file size in order to run efficiently. So if your file is 338MB, you would want twice as much RAM (or storage) as you have - something like a gigabyte.
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Vincent Lowe |
I have the Canon FS4000 and agree it's well worth the money. The dust remover works well but note that it will NOT work with ordinary (silver based) monochrome films such as FP4, TriX etc. and also Kodachrome. Kodachrome is unique among colour films in that it retains some silver in the emulsion. The dust removal system uses an infra-red beam to plot the location of the dust particles which block the infra-red, whereas it passes straight through the colour dyes. The software then interpolates from the pixels around the dust spot and fills it in. The silver particles in monochrome and Kodachrome also block the infra-red, that's why it won't work on these films. Also - consider using a scanning utility called Vuescan, which amongst other things allows multi-pass scanning. See https://www.hamrick.com For everything you need to know about scanning I can recommend http://www.scantips.com/
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
I'm going to rescan the image and see if I did something wrong. It was brought to my attention that I may have scanned it for an output higher than what is compatible with my printer. We'll see and I'll let you know if it works... if you're interested.
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BetterPhotoJim.com - Jim Miotke Contact Jim Miotke Jim Miotke's Gallery |
Your last comment Jeff, may hint at something so I wanted to bring it out. Many people mistakenly consider their printer's resolution when figuring out how high of a resolution to scan their image. You don't want to do this. The word "resolution" when referring to printers is a very different kind of resolution than that of a scanned image. Even if your printer prints at a resolution of say 1440 or 2880, you would never want to scan that high. Your image's resolution rarely (if ever) needs to be higher than 300. In fact 150 works just fine most of the time, even if your printer prints at 2880. So aim for a final image resolution of something like 1200 x 1500 at 150 ppi for an 8 x 10 print.
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
That's exactly what I found out. Now see, if you'd told me that before you could have saved me $50 on this silly seminar I went to. ;-)))
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Ken Pang |
Don't know if this is true, but I picked this one up off another site... it said to calculate the best your printer can do, divide the "claimed" DPI by the number of Ink Tanks, and that's the best that your printer will do. For example, I have a 1200dpi printer with 4 inktanks, (CYMK?) and so the best resolution that would be perceivable would be 300dpi. This is generally what I aim to get the output at. If someone would like to comment on the truth of that statement, that would be good. Ken.
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Jeff S. Kennedy |
That did the trick btw. I had the output dpi set way too high. As soon as I lowered it to 300 - bingo!
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