My Scanning Technique

Film holder for 2-5"x7"? Maybe you meant 4"x5"?

I, along with many other users, question the resolution above 1,600 to 2,400 DPI. Depends on who you talk to and how they measured. Bottom line: the Epson scanners are the only game in town for film from 35mm to 8x10. There are a few of us who need this capacity.
Cheers!
 
venchka said:
Film holder for 2-5"x7"? Maybe you meant 4"x5"?

I, along with many other users, question the resolution above 1,600 to 2,400 DPI. Depends on who you talk to and how they measured. Bottom line: the Epson scanners are the only game in town for film from 35mm to 8x10. There are a few of us who need this capacity.
Cheers!
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Yes, you are correct, I meant to say 4" x 5", and thanks for catching that.

I usually "top out" at 2400 DPI. There is a visible difference at 3200 DPI, but it's very subtle (you need a good, accurately profiled monitor to see the slight difference).
 
Thank you so much for taking the time to prepare all three parts. I found it very useful as I recently bought a scanner and have been hesitant in starting to scan my film.

One question -

I bought the Nikon Coolscan 9000 and it came with the Nikon scanning software. Have you done a review of the Nikon scanning software and/or do you know how it compares to the software you reviewed?

Thanks.

Ellen
 
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ornate_wrasse said:
Thank you so much for taking the time to prepare all three parts. I found it very useful as I recently bought a scanner and have been hesitant in starting to scan my film.

One question -

I bought the Nikon Coolscan 9000 and it came with the Nikon scanning software. Have you done a review or the Nikon scanning software and/or do you know how it compares to the software you reviewed?

Thanks.

Ellen
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Ellen,

You made a wise purchase, that is a very good scanner. As for the software you might find it a bit dated (and no, I havent used NikonScan in years).

2 of the packages I reviewed (both Vuescan & Silverfast) will work with your scanner (and modern operating systems), and they both have free trials available.

I think you will find both to be improvements from the original manufacturer's offering.
 
tonyjuliano said:
Ellen,

You made a wise purchase, that is a very good scanner. As for the software you might find it a bit dated (and no, I havent used NikonScan in years).

2 of the packages I reviewed (both Vuescan & Silverfast) will work with your scanner (and modern operating systems), and they both have free trials available.

I think you will find both to be improvements from the original manufacturer's offering.
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Thanks Tony. I went to look at the Silverfast website and it appears that the software will work with my Mac OS X 10.4.11.

I'll have to check Vuescan as well.

Ellen
 
While not Tony, you'll find those who swear by Nikon Scan, and others who swear at it :) If you have a Mac, there may be compatibility problems with the current software, but I am running it successfully, as are others. I'd suggest you give it a try, as it's "free". The alternatives are Vuescan, which IIRC is about $79, and Silverfast, which is probably $400-500 or so. I have found Nikon Scan pretty good for most situations, but a search of the forums will show others who dislike it.

Unfortunately, Nikon no longer updates Nikon Scan (and I'm not sure if they support it in its current state), so on a long-term basis I think either Vuescan or Silverfast will be a necessity.

You'll also find complaints about the complexity of using Vuescan and using Silverfast, so there's no clear, easy answer. The good news is you can download a demo version of Silverfast, and buying Vuescan won't break the bank. You can then decide. But, for now, why not go with what you already have?

Good luck!
 
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Nice review of the scanner, although the image you ended on didn't really seem like a good representation of this scanners ability to resolve detail.

Most of the work on my website was scanned with the Epson. No scanner is perfect, but the Epson is very good, for it's price. Slightly better 35mm performance is all I could ask for, which is why it's a tricky scanner for rangefinder forum. You're not really taking advantage of Leica glass with this thing. However Hasselblad squares can really sing, to say nothing of Rodenstock 4x5s! The 8x10 capability is there, but not recommended, unless newton rings are your thing.
 
sper said:
Nice review of the scanner, although the image you ended on didn't really seem like a good representation of this scanners ability to resolve detail.

Most of the work on my website was scanned with the Epson. No scanner is perfect, but the Epson is very good, for it's price. Slightly better 35mm performance is all I could ask for, which is why it's a tricky scanner for rangefinder forum. You're not really taking advantage of Leica glass with this thing. However Hasselblad squares can really sing, to say nothing of Rodenstock 4x5s! The 8x10 capability is there, but not recommended, unless newton rings are your thing.
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Please keep in mind that the scan posted was far from full resolution (wordpress limits the size if the files I can post).

As for the EpsonScan, I think it does an admirable job on B&W or positive film. when it comes to color negatives though, you can forget about it.
 
While not Tony, you'll find those who swear by Nikon Scan, and others who swear at it :) If you have a Mac, there may be compatibility problems with the current software
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I had the impression that if you're running a more current Mac OS X that it would not work but if you had 10.4.11, as I do, it would work OK.


on a long-term basis I think either Vuescan or Silverfast will be a necessity.
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I guess the question is how deep are my pockets :) I admit I am intrigued by many of the features of Silverfast, but not sure I want to pay for them.

The good news is you can download a demo version of Silverfast, and buying Vuescan won't break the bank. You can then decide. But, for now, why not go with what you already have?
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For now, I plan to go with the Nikon scanning software, but I'll probably upgrade at some point in the future.

Thanks.

Ellen
 
You have put up some good information. One thing I noted in your review of the V700/V750 is that you thought the V750 came with Silverfast Ai Studio and thus that made it a much better deal. My 750 came with just Ai and the USA website says it still just ships with Ai. If that is still true, the $119 of Ai versus the $233 to $433 price range of the Ai Studio versions is a big difference. I just wanted to make sure you were doing an apples to apples comparison. I still think the V700 is the best value, especially if you can get a good example from the EpsonStore's clearance center (it recently was $415 with free shipping and a full warranty). Silverfast used to offer an upgrade price from the V700's Ai SE to the full Ai that was a decent deal. I haven't checked on that lately though.

Doug
 
This has prompted me to check out Silverfast again. I've been pleased with EpsonScan generally - what I don't like about it can be fixed in PS. But if I can reduce my post-processing time on negatives, that could be worth a little time invested in learning the ins and outs of Silverfast.
 
I like EpsonScan best myself but it seems to be a personal thing so each person needs to find what suits them best. You can download a free trial of Silverfast and Vuescan and test them out yourself.

Doug
 
Thanks so much for taking the time to do all of this. I have a v700 and use both epson and vuescan. I am torn as to which I like better

For clr neg i always use vuescan for the film base setting; makes a world of difference. With chromes I see almost no difference between the two. B+W seems to do just a bit better with vuescan.

Epson is faster for me to use and i perfer that interface.

I did get the older silverfast with my refurb v700 and tried it abit but i could not get used to the inteface.
 
atlcruiser said:
Thanks so much for taking the time to do all of this. I have a v700 and use both epson and vuescan. I am torn as to which I like better

For clr neg i always use vuescan for the film base setting; makes a world of difference. With chromes I see almost no difference between the two. B+W seems to do just a bit better with vuescan.

Epson is faster for me to use and i perfer that interface.

I did get the older silverfast with my refurb v700 and tried it abit but i could not get used to the inteface.
Click to expand...

Thanks for reading, David. Like I stated in my post, I've found that EpsonScan and Vuescan do very well if confined to B&W for positive film. It's with color negative film that Silverfast really takes the lead.

One thing I did find annoying about EpsonScan though, and I forgot to mention it on my Blog, is the way it crops my negatives when using the film holders without my prior approval.
 
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