16 Bit Scanner & Scan Dual IV

[mike goldberg]

Hi...
I understand that a 16 Bit machine means 64,000 colors.

I'm about to buy a Konica-Minolta Scan Dual IV with Digital Ice, and would like to hear from users of this machine... as to quality, ease of use, interface with Software. My primary use is with 35mm B & W negs.

Thanks,
Mike

 

[kaiyen]

Well, that machine doesn't exist...none of the scan dual's had ICE :-(

It's a good scanner if you're sure you're only doing B&W.

allan

 

[pmu]

My Scan dual IV broke twice during the first 12 months. Build quality isn't that good and also minoltas own software sucks -- I had all kind of weird stripes on my images. With black and white film minolta software simply didn't give enought tones...with Vuescan the tones were way better than with minolta software.

If / when the scanner works 100% (let's say you have an easy to scan slide frame) it can produce excellent results.

I am also looking for a scanner and decided not to buy minolta anymore.

 

[BCF]

I've had a Scan Dual for some 13 months - currently on E-Bay UK.

It doesn't have 'Digital Ice' as Allan says, BUT I haven't had a single problem with it. It's worked flawlessly. Use of the actual machine is very easy, and whilst the included software isn't as good as some of the independent programs it does it's job perfectly well.

Barry

 

[varjag]

Hi...
I understand that a 16 Bit machine means 64,000 colors.

No, it doesn't mean that. With scanners bit depth relates to dynamic range, meaning the range of intensities from shadows to highlights it can capture simultaneously.

 

[ffttklackdedeng]

16 bits means no more than in the scanned image, each pixel will use 16 bit for the information of each of the 3 colors (i.e. 48 bits total per pixel, or 16 bits for 65000 shades of grey if scanned as monochrome).

Whether all of those 16 bits are real information from the film or some of them are just noise of the scanner.. Nevertheless every dedicated film scanner should have enough 'real' bit depth for your purpose.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

That's right, not all scanners that say you can scan in 16-bit per-channel mode use the whole "dynamic range". Many really cap at 12 or 14 bits, but you still get files that are 16-bit per-channel.

My Dual Scan IV has never given me a problem. Well, the first one did, but the replacement has been flawless. The only reason I don't use it anymore is because I got a Coolscan 5000, which has ICE, and also got a (virtually impossible to find) roll film adapter for it, making my film scanning 10-fold easier.

ICE is good, but if your color management is off, or rather, if you don't have your color properly calibrated on your monitor and system, you are bound to get somewhat grainy results; I don't know why, but that's reality. After a week of battling it, I figured out the right color management settings in Nikon Scan, and had to update my monitor's profile (I have EyeOne for my monitor)

The Dual Scan IV is fast; very few scanners can top its speed, and when you're not using the bundled software, you get really nice results.

 

[dmr]

I'm about to buy a Konica-Minolta Scan Dual IV with Digital Ice, and would like to hear from users of this machine... as to quality, ease of use, interface with Software. My primary use is with 35mm B & W negs.

I have the K-M Scan Dual IV and it most definitely does NOT have Digital Ice.

Digital Ice doesn't work on standard silver based B&W negs.

It does have what they call the Auto Dust Brush, which is a placebo at best. 🙁 I've also tried the Polaroid Photoshop plug-in, which sort of works, but has some quirks.

Overall, I've been very happy with the SD IV. I've had great results with color negatives, B&W negatives, and color slides. I've found that paying attention to detail is the most important thing to getting good scans. Things like a clean negative, focus carefully on a bowed slide, adjust exposure carefully, etc.

 

[dadsm3]

I love mine. You can't scan at 16bits as a B&W neg, only 8 bits. I found I get my best prints scanning my b&w negs as a colour neg at 16bits, then using greyscale in PS, then a little tweaking and unsharp mask.
For posting here, I scan my b&w negs as a colour neg at 8bits (with 'pixel polish'), greyscaling as above in PS, then resizing down as a jpeg to get below the 350kb max for gallery posts. If I scan at 16bits, PS won't let me jpeg them......
I'm computer challenged (read:dumb), and I'm happy with what I can achieve just stumbling along, so I'm sure someone who knows what they're doing can get excellent results from this machine.

 

[dmr]

I love mine. You can't scan at 16bits as a B&W neg, only 8 bits. I found I get my best prints scanning my b&w negs as a colour neg at 16bits, then using greyscale in PS, then a little tweaking and unsharp mask.

Hmmmm ... I swear I've scanned B&W negatives as B&W negative at 16 bits, 4x sampling.

However, following the results of some tests last February, I've been scanning any B&W negatives I do as color positives and going through the hoop-jumps to convert.

Here are the original threads on this, if anybody wants to see the examples.

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18536

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18644

 

[dadsm3]

Sorry dmr, you're right, you can scan at 16bits with a b&w neg....I must have stopped doing it because I couldn't jpeg after for posting here.

 

[ffttklackdedeng]

Hmmmm ... I swear I've scanned B&W negatives as B&W negative at 16 bits, 4x sampling.

With the Minolta scan software or with Vuescan / ... ?

I can't imagine that Vuescan wouldn't offer 16 bit B&W since afaik it scans then in color too, making an own color to B&W transition

 

[ffttklackdedeng]

If I scan at 16bits, PS won't let me jpeg them.....

Easy 😉 : Image -> Mode -> 8 Bits / Channel - then you'll have JPEG in the save dialog, too

 

[dmr]

With the Minolta scan software or with Vuescan / ... ?

With the original. (I'm on record here and elsewhere for claiming that Vuescan is unnecessary with this model.) 🙂

 

[dadsm3]

Thanks fftt....man do I feel dumb. All this time I was scanning in 8bit for here, and 16bit for printing in the KM software before uploading to PS...twice the time and work. I definitely have to take a PS course.....

 

[JohnL]

I'm pretty sure that DR and bit depth have nothing to do with each other. DR is the brightness ratio between the darkest black and the brightest white the scanner can handle. Bit depth is the number of steps avaiable between those extremes in the digitization. If you have 16 bits per channel, you have 2^16 different brightness levels in each color channel. JPGs are 8 bits per channel, which gives 2^8 = 256 levels.

 

[dadsm3]

Sorry to hijack your thread, Mike. But how do you invert a B&W neg scanned as a colour positive in PS?

 

[ffttklackdedeng]

Thanks fftt..

You're welcome 🙂

Just one more: For publishing on the net, 'Save' / 'Save As ..' are not the best choice. 'Save for Web..' is better since the files are even smaller (comparing at the same quality level) - I guess that 'Save for Web..' leaves out all kind of additional information (don't know what exactly but maybe thumbnail images etc.)