Making prints with v700 - how big?

[sojournerphoto]

What is your work flow for scanning and have you experimented with changing the height settings of the holder?

Isuspect the poster issue is not holder height as he says it's sharp already. More likely the workflow is clipping balcks and whites and iving poor tonality. The nly way I've found to deal with htis is to be meticulous about setting exposure and black/white ppints. The the v750 can be made to give really good scans, particularly at the price. It's much better than I expected!

with respect to the earlier comment, the high resolving lens is used if you use a film holder and not the mask direct to the base glass I think. Hence you don't need to scan at 6400 and downsixe, 3200 will do.

Mike

 

[d_ross]

Like larger commercial scanners these flatbed scanners scan at a native resolution at all times don't they? I was of the opinion that the V700's native dpi was 3200, and everything else is interpolated by it's software. Which is why scanning to a target size at 300dpi is best.

However it must be remembered that just like a wet print, you can only get a good scan from a good negative to start with, and a good negative is only good if it suits how you want the print to look. However unlike wet printing your negatives, where you can get away with a little, a scanner of the quality of the V700 will highlight any poor technique in ones photography and film processing.

 

[d_ross]

another thing to keep in mind when scanning is to do as much as possible in pre scan as you can, by making all your curve settings etc before you scan means less data loss in post scanning software like Photoshop which will result in a, albeit slightly, better final image.

 

[d_ross]

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I did too and this is the same conclusion I came to. I noticed the only difference was the 300dpi had slightly more shadow detail.



Good to hear. On another note, I had 20x30 prints done by a pro lab years ago and mailed in a CD. The files were too big to upload to their server. The printer called me and told me scanning at 600dpi wasn't necessary because the printer maxed out at 300dpi.

I have always been impressed with the prints from the V700.

before I purchased my own large format printer and scanner I had all my scanning and printing done by commercially, and as a result i became good friends with the guy, he told me his Drum scanner scanned at something like 4800dpi, I later realized that his scans gave too much detail to even the slightest grain in B&W negs, and even though the V700 could never deliver the detail of the drum scanner, used the way he advised me to choosing a target size at 300dpi it did produce prints that were more 'photographic looking than the drum scans! he also told me they produced scans at 300dpi because that was the point the human eye could no longer distinguish any difference, therefore anything higher was a waste of time.

 

[filmfan]

What is your work flow for scanning and have you experimented with changing the height settings of the holder?

It's been a while now since I have used the V series (V500, V700) scanners since I have purchased the Nikon Coolscan 8000ED (although it is now broken 😡).
Having said that, I had a friend come over to help me with my Epson who owned the V700 to help me get better scans. I am not sure what he did to the scanner, but he adjusted a few things on it (maybe the height of the holder?), and gave me new software. This resulted in better scans on my monitor but it still did not translate well to prints... I guess maybe I was spoiled by darkroom-quality prints.

 

[d_ross]

It's been a while now since I have used the V series (V500, V700) scanners since I have purchased the Nikon Coolscan 8000ED (although it is now broken 😡).
Having said that, I had a friend come over to help me with my Epson who owned the V700 to help me get better scans. I am not sure what he did to the scanner, but he adjusted a few things on it (maybe the height of the holder?), and gave me new software. This resulted in better scans on my monitor but it still did not translate well to prints... I guess maybe I was spoiled by darkroom-quality prints.

My thought is that if you keep your negs a tad (NZ for a little) thinner you will get better prints from your scans, however that is of course totally dependent on the quality of your printer as well.
I still make darkroom prints as well as digital prints via an Epson7800 printer. Each has it's own certain qualities, but for sure the enlarger is far more forgiving, as a result over time I have improved my developing to the point that as a direct result of the scanning learning curve my wet prints are now better as well. I will add it has been, and still is, a large learning curve having been totally analogue up until just a few years ago. But also keep in mind that it's worth the effort to learn to scan and digital print better as the rewards can be equally as great as those from a fine darkroom print.

 

[brbo]

Like larger commercial scanners these flatbed scanners scan at a native resolution at all times don't they? I was of the opinion that the V700's native dpi was 3200, and everything else is interpolated by it's software. Which is why scanning to a target size at 300dpi is best.

Optical and sensor resolution of a scanner is fixed, motor resolution of a scanner is not (scanner software tells the scanner how big/small a step its motor needs to make to get to the user defined resolution). That's why scanning at lower res is faster that at higher res (motor moves in bigger steps - less steps needed to complete the scan).

If you get better print results at scanning to a target size at 300dpi than scanning at max resolution, it means that the used resampling algorithm of the software you print your pictures with is inferior to that of the scanners.

All IMHO, of course. I would be very glad if we could just set some big print size at 300dpi and get a better scan than scanning at scanner max res...

 

[d_ross]

Optical and sensor resolution of a scanner is fixed, motor resolution of a scanner is not (scanner software tells the scanner how big/small a step its motor needs to make to get to the user defined resolution). That's why scanning at lower res is faster that at higher res (motor moves in bigger steps - less steps needed to complete the scan).

If you get better print results at scanning to a target size at 300dpi than scanning at max resolution, it means that the used resampling algorithm of the software you print your pictures with is inferior to that of the scanners.

All IMHO, of course. I would be very glad if we could just set some big print size at 300dpi and get a better scan than scanning at scanner max res...

Interesting points, all I can say is that I have produced from the same negative, two files each about 100 megabytes, the first by scanning to original film size at full resolution then resizing in photoshop back to 300dpi. The second to a custom print size at 300dpi.

Looking at the resulting scans the second is noticeably better!

So given that both scans produse a 100meg file the speed of the motor would be pretty much the same, meaning the way the file is written by the scanner software must make this difference. At the the end of the day though it is the visual truth that matters not technical data. I would challenge anyone regardless of their opinion to do this test on a good sharp neg and tell me that the first option is better 🙂

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Interesting points, all I can say is that I have produced from the same negative, two files each about 100 megabytes, the first by scanning to original film size at full resolution then resizing in photoshop back to 300dpi. The second to a custom print size at 300dpi.

Looking at the resulting scans the second is noticeably better!

So given that both scans produse a 100meg file the speed of the motor would be pretty much the same...

d_ross,

Your different choices did different processing, with different quality results. That's quite believable.

As to pixels, if the file sizes are about the same, then you produced about the same number of pixels. I'll bet max res for the negative is about the same as 300dpi times the print size.

 

[d_ross]

d_ross,

Your different choices did different processing, with different quality results. That's quite believable.

As to pixels, if the file sizes are about the same, then you produced about the same number of pixels. I'll bet max res for the negative is about the same as 300dpi times the print size.

I'm not quiet sure what your saying 🙂 yes the pixel dimensions were virtually the same. When both files are viewed at 100% there is a noticeable difference, those scanned to print size at 300dpi show better detail.

 

[d_ross]

I use the Epson software btw, I have tried others but find Epson's the best.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

Can someone explain for me what these numbers, from the Epson website, mean?

V700
OPTICAL RESOLUTION Dual Lens System
6400 x 9600dpi (Super Resolution Lens) with Micro Step Drive
4800 x 9600dpi (High Resolution Lens) with Micro Step Drive

I can only understand those numbers as some kind of theoretical resolution.

I used my V500 to scan a test target and found that the actual realized resolution is much lower.

For my tests of V500, look in the middle of this thread.

For discussion and lots of sample images, mine and others', see this thread.

There seems to be general agreement that the V700 will actually realize something like 2300ppi, while a Nikon Coolscan will actually realize close to 4000ppi.

And, there seems to be general agreement that there can be real information at those spatial frequencies and even high in a good negative.

 

[d_ross]

I had the same result in the shadows.

Exactly.

As far as learning to scan goes, there is absolutely no better alternative to doing tests yourself, the results, unlike say crituiqing one's images, are there to clearly see! I would advise anyone who gets a scan they don't like to first off try again, make sure the film is flat in the holder and re-scan, maybe using slightly different curve or something. The number of times I've done this and immediately got a better scan is surprising!

 

[d_ross]

d_ross,

Your different choices did different processing, with different quality results. That's quite believable.

As to pixels, if the file sizes are about the same, then you produced about the same number of pixels. I'll bet max res for the negative is about the same as 300dpi times the print size.

I get what your saying re pixels, sorry had a dull moment before! yes your are right of course the max res is the same as print size x 300dpi pretty much. The difference is how they look not the size.

Perhaps part of this difference is that when opened in photoshop the max res to original film size scan has to be re-sized to get a printing file that is larger than the negative's physical size, as when viewed at print size this file, if from a 6x6 neg will be 6x6, whereas the scan made to a custom print size at 300dpi is already at the size you want to print, therefore no resizing is required?

 

[Haigh]

I have a V700 and despite my own scanning limitations it does a great job.

 

[RAZOR]

FWIW, I am relatively new to scanning and have acheived better (read sharper, better colors) with silverfast vs. epson software. I purchased the V700 with the intention of "batch" scanning 35mm and producing prints no larger than 8x10 or so. The scanner has been excellent for this purpose. Using the silverfast software I keep it at 300 DPI and "scale" the negative by a percentage.

i.e.
0.9 in. x 1.4in. (original) x900% will give you an output of 8.1 in. x 12.6 in. respectively; With 300 DPI for printed photos I get a 25mb file (color).

I think this is close to the limit for 35mm so I scan all my files in a similar manner. I hope my workflow is not flawed! but this is working for me...