Lab scanning solution (tip from Ken Rockwell)

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RicardoD

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Long intro so bear with me...

I get tired of scanning, probably because I feel like I am not good at it. I have an Epson 4180 for my medium format film and a Dimage Scan Dual IV. I haven't done much 35mm cause I soon as I saw my first medium format transparency I fell in love with it.

I seems like I took a break from RFF and film shooting for the past year, but recently got the photography bug again and checking out the website every day. I love the community here.

I finally processed a couple of rolls of 120 I took last May and got a few keepers. I process in Diafine to keep things simple. Lots of missed exposures, poor framing, makes me feel like a hack. But I love photography and I realized I am just not practising enough. This hobby will last a lifetime and I as long as I am making progress I am happy.

I must admit at times I feel dragged down by the processing and scanning. If I have the time its great, but if my life gets busy with work and family I am finding I avoid grabbing the film cameras. Even worse I avoid grabbing my large and bulky Digital SLR (Canon 300D) and always get lazy and use my wife's Fuji point-n-shoot which looks like every shot has vaseline over the lens compared to my Rolleiflex or my DSLR primes.

Recently, I have been intrigued by some blog posts from Ken Rockwell about a professional film lab in San Diego that is processing his E6 slides and does a roll scan at the same time. Around $6 for a 6MP image for 35mm and $12 roll for 16MP image. Same price for 120 film at even higher resolutions. This is the additional cost for scanning. You have to pay the E6 processing fee too ($6 for 120, $8.25 for 135-36). Its not a super cheap solution but I think its reasonable if the I get excellent quality in return.

Ken Rockwell's posts are here (check out his 28MP scan of 120):
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/2008-09-new-2h.htm
and here:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/2008-09-new-2h.htm


North Coast Photographic Services
http://www.northcoastphoto.com/

The website is a bit out of date and it doesn't tell you how to do mail order. I emailed them and got a very quick reply from the owner to answer a few questions I had.

I'm giving this a shot as it will hopefully free me up to shoot more film.

I sent a 35mm Astia roll (from my Canan GIII QL17) and a roll of 120 Provia (from my Rolleiflex TLR) to them on Monday (10/6/08). I will use this thread to update the results when the slides and scans return.
 
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I have no direct experience but Rockwell's posting claims that the North Coast scan is at a much higher resolution (16MB) than normal results. Dwayne's listed sizes are in the 4-7MB range. The scans from my local Costco and local camera shop are less than that. Of course your own experience may vary.
 
This is definitely not a unique service. Dwayne's will do this as mentioned. Costco, Target, Walgreens, Wolf/Ritz will do this for C41 process films.

I think what is unique about the NCPS service is the quality of the scans for the price and the proper setup of the machines. I have read many post about people being unhappy with the scan quality from Dwayne's and other labs.
 
Rockwell has a lot of miles as a photographer. He also has support from commercial enterprises. I realize all this and I still think he runs a pretty clean ship.

His point isn't just about the lab he mentions it's more about the value of getting a good quality scan and a large one. Many labs scan but the scans are small and they will scan with gunk on the negs or positives.

Key is to find a good lab. I've tried some of the best in this city of +3 million and it's pro labs are beginning to slip. You have to do homework. Post the results. Good luck.
 
What I like about Ken is that he posts almost everday on his blog, has something interesting to say, and still likes old film cameras. So as a photography nut I appreciate that, and yes, some things you have to take with a grain of salt but I appreciate the passion and take it in as additional information to be processed.

I look forward to posting the results so that we all get a chase to evaluate the quality of the scans.
 
Oh well, there's no such thing as a free lunch or a lab that will do "economy" scans the way you want. Here are my medium format results...

I have an Epson 4180, with a betterscanning.com try and the anti-newton glass. The photo lab has a Noritsu. The medium format economy scan was approx. 2,000 pixels by 2000 pixesl. Even at such a small size (for medium) format its clear their scanner can produce much sharper results than my Epson 4180.

Rolleiflex 3.5E Xenotar, Fuji Provia 100F (a bit overexposed)

Lab scan 1:1 crop:
lab-crop.jpg


My scan at 4800dpi resized to match the lab crop:
my-crop.jpg


This is not the best comparison but to me I can tell if I did a high res scan at the lab, some 6,000 pixels wide it would have much more detail that what I can manage with my Epson 4180. That is frustrating for me as I hate the idea I am not getting all I can out of the slide.

Ok, economy lab scans can be sharper with more detail but that's only part of it. Here is a comparison of the total image.

Lab scan resized to 700 pixels wide (not other changes)
lab-scan.jpg


My scan on Epson 4180 resized and sharpened to 700 pixels wide:
my-scan.jpg


The color of the lab scan does not match what I see on my light table, it is cropped, notice my son's shoe is cut off at the bottom. Also the contrast is to high.

My scan on the Epson 4180 using Vuescan better matches the colors I see on the light table and I restored the contrast to approximate the real slide. I am sure others could do a better job with my equipment.

I spent a lot of time on Saturday re-learning how to scan with Vuescan, it was super frustrating, but by Sunday morning I had it figured out. This will go a long way towards easing my future pain. I just don't want scanning to be an obstacle to my enjoyment of film.

Properly exposed medium format slides on my little light table are a revelation. It is clear only I can take the time to get the most out of them. I am still learning how to do this better.

For me these lab scans are quick proofs, a way to figure out what shots I should scan myself.

I also did a roll of 35mm slides at the same lab and had them economy scanned. I will compare those to my Minolta Dimage IV in about a week after a business trip.
 
I didn't do the high res scans, maybe I should have in retrospect, I just wanted an initial evaluation of the budget scans.

I may still give NCPS one more shot at high res because it still is very unique at their price point.

Ricardo
 
The resolution difference is so obvious even in the economy scan.

You can (almost) always change the color and adjust the contrast, but you CANNOT add detail.
 
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Your home scans will almost always be better than anything a lab can do, unless you are willing to pay a fortune for a custom scan. The key to successful home scanning? Stop fiddling with the settings and just let the scanner do its thing.

/T
 
So I've since gone back and read more online tips on scanning, updated my version of Vuescan and now have a very streamlined workflow that isn't such a pain. My only issue now is increasing the sharpness of my scan so I am starting to look at getting a new Epson V700.

But at the moment I'm excited about shooting more medium format again.
 
Ricardo, I agree with Tuolumne's comments. I regularly scan using a relatively crummy flatbed for MF (Epson 4490) which is about 3 generations behind a V700. I do not use any third party scanning software and I do not engage any of the features in the Epson software such as grain reduction, dust removal nor digital ice. I do use PSE-2 which came with the scanner as a comp copy for scratch and dust removal as well as the usual minor tweaks such as correcting white balance.

I'd suggest you scan your images at about 750 dpi with 24 bit colour and set for TIF images. You should get a great deal of resolution. My own experience exceeds the lab's 1.5mb scans.

I would expect yours should unless the specs on the Epson 4180 do not permit the detail you expect. This is a possibility. I have not looked online for the specs of your scanner so I'm hesitant to say you should out perform the lab with this specific scanner. A new V500 is a very good scanner and I've seen these periodially on sale for less than $150

To conclude I'd check your scanner specs against the V700. As Ira noted earlier use your scanner 'straight out of the box' ie just let it scan.

Final note: I would also suggest using the OEM holders and not the Betterscanning holder with the Anti Newton glass.... just to see...
 
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>>Even at such a small size (for medium) format its clear their scanner can produce much sharper results than my Epson 4180.<<

The Noritsu has an excellent lens system (and it should for the price) compared to a 4180 but my understanding is that by default it does a lot of sharpening as part of its standard behind the scenes workflow. The Imacon scanners do the same thing. This is not necessarily a bad thing because in the end what matters is the final image (not so much how you got there) but it does make an apples to apples comparison kind of hard.

Doug
 
jan normandale said:
I'd suggest you scan your images at about 750 dpi with 24 bit colour and set for TIF images. You should get a great deal of resolution. My own experience exceeds the lab's 1.5mb scans.
Click to expand...

Medium format scan that comes in a 1.5mb file is a very low resolution scan. Why go MF then if you're throwing away so much detail ?

Scanning at 750dpi is way too low for film scanning. Set aside the detail - you're not capturing a lot of tonality too.

Much better approach is to scan at higher resolution - I'd suggest the highest real resolution (not the one that's written in your flatbed specification - typically consumer flatbeds max out at about 2200dpi give or take).
Then scale down in software. This gives you all the detail and tonality the scanner can capture to start with and it's up to you to make a decision what to keep and how to keep it.
 
I am using the Epson 4180, it can scan at 4800dpi, I usually scan at 2400dpi. I think the final step in my workflow that needs optimization is the sharpening part. I use the "sharpening" filter in Viewscan and typically scan at 2400dpi to a JPEG. It's easy for me to apply USM for web size images, but when I am working on images for printing I am not sure how far to go. Sometimes when I apply USM I end up amping up the noise in the image.

I use the betterscanning.com holder for the 4180 and anti-newton glass which definitely makes a difference. Although I wish the glass was wider than the negative for easy taping along the edges. I usually just tape at the ends of the roll with the curl facing away from the glass so that when I put it in the holder it flattens out perfectly.

I did make an 8"x8" print of the picture in this thread, very nice, but a bit soft, so I think I need to figure out appropriate USM levels for the various size prints I am after. I plan to print up to 20" potentially.

Anyway, I am making good progress and enjoying myself. The detail on the medium form slides is astounding.

So anybody have USM tips?
 
IK13 said:
Medium format scan that comes in a 1.5mb file is a very low resolution scan. Why go MF then if you're throwing away so much detail ?

Scanning at 750dpi is way too low for film scanning. Set aside the detail - you're not capturing a lot of tonality too.

Much better approach is to scan at higher resolution - I'd suggest the highest real resolution (not the one that's written in your flatbed specification - typically consumer flatbeds max out at about 2200dpi give or take).
Then scale down in software. This gives you all the detail and tonality the scanner can capture to start with and it's up to you to make a decision what to keep and how to keep it.
Click to expand...

I should have noted that I'm suggesting this setting for the posting of images on the internet. It provides more information than most peoples monitors can show. I agree if I am going to a print. I always scan out to the maximum for those purposes however for the web I go to the lower settings noted.

This is a recent upload to flickr using the settings I noted earlier, it shows lots of tonal range and detail in the text on the doors. If I was going to a gallery with 12x12 prints I would do as you have suggested but for the internet this is more than most people's computer screens are capable of displaying.

2990540230_38bacc041f.jpg
 
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