Epson V500 question

[68degrees]

When scanning negatives sometimes I just want to scan the strip without having thumbnails. Problem is, when I do this the quality is much much inferior to thumbnails. How can I get the same quality as thumbnails without enabling thumbnails? What am I doing wrong?

 

[Photo_Smith]

I'm a little confused by your post. What you are saying is when you do a prescan and let Epson scan manage your colours you get what you see, when you don't do a prescan and let the scanner use the settings 'wild' or from the last scan they are sub optimal?

I would guess you're trying to save time? If so I think when you set the Epson to scan thumbs it does an auto calibrate to the film base, this could skew results as I'm not sure it does this if you don't prescan.
I think the thumbs are advisable, if not essential to the calibration and auto systems used by the Epson software.
I could be wrong...
But that the best explanation I can think of because I always prescan so I can set the black and white points for best tone.

 

[68degrees]

I'm a little confused by your post. What you are saying is when you do a prescan and let Epson scan manage your colours you get what you see, when you don't do a prescan and let the scanner use the settings 'wild' or from the last scan they are sub optimal?

I would guess you're trying to save time? If so I think when you set the Epson to scan thumbs it does an auto calibrate to the film base, this could skew results as I'm not sure it does this if you don't prescan.
I think the thumbs are advisable, if not essential to the calibration and auto systems used by the Epson software.
I could be wrong...
But that the best explanation I can think of because I always prescan so I can set the black and white points for best tone.

Thank you for your reply. Im not referring to prescanning but actual scanning.

What I want to do is scan a strip of negatives as a single item to scan not as individual scans of each frame. So I turn off thumbnails. I click preview and it previews the strip. The quality is very low. Then I click scan and indeed the scan is just as low quality.

WHen I enable thumbs and the scanner scans each frame individually the quality is excellent. I want the quality of thumbs when scanning with thumbs disabled. I dont know why the quality is different, everything else is the same.

 

[traveler_101]

Basically what you are looking to make is an electronic contact sheet of sufficient quality to be able to identify which individual negatives are worth scanning at some later point?

 

[kuzano]

Im a bit confused as well

Im a bit confused as well

I had a V500, and after a lot of swearing, which it turns out I would have done with a 750 or any other flatbed scanner, I swore off any scanning whatsoever, as a total waste of my time. I abhor the process and pay now to have it done by people who are good at the concept, or have a far higher frustration level than I do.

So, I think I know what you're talking about. I think that if you uncheck thumbnails, you still have to click and drag a frame around the image or set of images you want to scan, and then do another preview and then a final scan. I think checking thumbnails just means the scanner sets a frame per image for the size of images you chose to scan.

Please let us know if you are still scanning, or attempting to, after 6 months to a year.

I personally believe flatbed scanners to be one of largest scams the electronics industry has pulled on consumers in years. Most electronics provide some result for the money you spend. Flat bed scanners have no discernible, positive, end result.

Find a lab that has a good rep for scans and pay the money. Save your sanity.

 

[Filzkoeter]

Are you using Epson Scan? Sorry for the German version, the english one should look the same 🙂

I don't even know how the thumbnail function works... as this is how I always scan.

 

[venchka]

^^^^^^ That is what I was going to suggest. Window the frames you want, click the Auto Exposure icon (gray circle with two red arrows) and scan away.

Wayne

 

[Photo_Smith]

Thank you for your reply. Im not referring to prescanning but actual scanning.

What I want to do is scan a strip of negatives as a single item to scan not as individual scans of each frame. So I turn off thumbnails. I click preview and it previews the strip. The quality is very low. Then I click scan and indeed the scan is just as low quality.

WHen I enable thumbs and the scanner scans each frame individually the quality is excellent. I want the quality of thumbs when scanning with thumbs disabled. I dont know why the quality is different, everything else is the same.

I scan like this quite a bit, the preview 'thumbs' are low quality you need to check you have your marquee round the image(s) you need to scan and your resolution must be reasonably high i.e 2400 rather than 72dpi
Here is a screen shot of settings i use that give me good scans:

I find scanning pretty simple to get OK results good enough for small (8x10) prints or web based images.
I have a little tutorial here:
http://photo-utopia.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/scanning-with-epson-v500.html

Not that hard to get good-ish results....

Keep at it, it's not hard–honestly

 

[68degrees]

Oh this looks promising! Thank you all for your replies. Ill try it now!

 

[68degrees]

By Golly I think it worked!! Conducting further tests please stand by.

 

[68degrees]

Its a total success!! Thanks a lot everyone!

 

[Blaufeld]

I had a V500, and after a lot of swearing, which it turns out I would have done with a 750 or any other flatbed scanner, I swore off any scanning whatsoever, as a total waste of my time.(...)
Find a lab that has a good rep for scans and pay the money. Save your sanity.

So, your comment boils down to "I don't like scanning. Don't do it."

Thanks for the helpful comment. 😉