Film scanning postprocessing time -- Slooooow

[vicmortelmans]

Hi,

I've just started using the Microtek Filmscan 3600 (also branded as Primefilm and other brands), which is a 35mm filmscanner that can batch-scan a whole roll (!) of film. The only scanner at consumer-level that can do it, apart from some Kodak model.

It came via E-bay so had little software with it. I first had to install the drivers from a CD that came with it and then had to download Cyberview from the web. Now the device appears as a TWAIN scanner in graphic applications.

I also installed VUESCAN, but since I use the free download, it has the '$' allover the image and franckly, I seem to like the workflow of the Cyberview software better than the Vuescan (for batch scanning, that is).

That's for the introduction. I set Cyberview (launched from Microsoft Photo Editor) to scan a whole roll of film black and white on 900dpi (moderate, isn't it - should be just enough for 10x15cm prints, I reckon). The scanning is quite fast, around 15-30 minutes (didn't stay by) for the whole film.

But then... it takes a couple of hours for all scanned files to appear one by one on my filesystem!

What the *%$**# is this software doing? Is there so much 'optimization' to be done on a raw scan? I can't think of any image algorithm that takes so long on a lousy 1MB image.

Can someone out here tell me what is going on?

Does someone know if I can take raw scandata out of Cyberview (or Vuescan?)

Groeten,

Vic


PS. my PC is only 1 year old and is quite high-specced!

 

[Solinar]

Tell me about it. Ttry scanning a 6x9 neg at 2400 dpi resolution which seems to take 30 minutes for a 4 pass scan. The post scan processing seems to take about 3 to 5 minutes for the image to appear in Photoshop when using Vuescan. I have an Epson 4870 and Vuescan delivers a much better scan than the native Epson software. TIFF files in this format and resolution eat up about 180 megabytes of memory.

You are aware that Viewscan offers an advanced mode for almost everything it does. Under the Preference tab or the Output tab, you may be able allot more memory usage on your computer for this application.

For 35mm - I'm using a Pentium III with 512 gig of memory. A 16 pass scan @ full resolution on my KM Scan Dual IV takes about 10 minutes to appear in Photoshop when using Konica Minolta's software. That's for a 70 something megabyte TIFF file, by the way. I scan them one at a time.

 

[vicmortelmans]

Oops.

I have been a bit too fast in my criticism. Major part of the slowness seems to be caused by me asking Cyberview X to store the files on a network drive. When I store the files on the local harddisk, speed is much higher, even to the level I don't notice a significant postprocessing lag (still on the same resolution).

It puzzled me in the first place why it was so slow, although I couldn't see any process running that had a high level of CPU-usage, as image processing typically does.

Mystery solved. Probably you'll find some more favourable reviews of my new scanner on this forum soon! (and maybe I'll even post some pictures in the gallery, now digital images come closer at hand!)

Another remark in the sideline: some reviews of Cyberview X tell that there's no raw scanning mode. Maybe it's not raw-raw, but I find a source medium selection that says 'raw image'... what would it be?

For anyone dropping into this thread when finding information on the Microtek FIlmscan 3600 (also branded by Pacific Image as Primefilm, by Reflecta as Batchscan and I think also by Mediax): It is not always clear which software you need to work the scanner, but this is the picture:

1. you need to install the drivers, but this is not sufficient to capture images from within graphical applications through TWAIN interface

2. for TWAIN interface image capturing from within e.g. Microsoft Picture Editor, you need either
a. Cyberview X (free) or
b. Silverfast Ai ($$)

3. you can also use Vuescan ($), which (I think) directly interacts with the drivers, so no TWAIN-interface required

I used all three scanning interfaces (Cyberview X, Silverfast Ai and Vuescan; demo-versions of the latter two) and Cyberview X stays on top as concerned to workflow. It's much less configurable and has much less image postprocessing parameters to set (most of which I don't understand what they mean anyway); that's of course a drawback if that's what you're looking for.

Groeten,
Vic