ScanMate drum scanner DIY maintenance, troubleshooting, mods

Scanmate Problems, Pictures too dark

Scanmate Problems, Pictures too dark

Hello from germany! As I was told in the Scanner Pictures-Thread, this is the right place for my question.

I found this thread while following a link posted by jazaga beneath one of my pictures at flickr.
Since one year I´m scanning with a Scanmate 11000 and am quite happy with scanning negatives. But when scanning slides that have a huge tonal range and very dark areas I run into great problems. I tried CQ 5.2 (TIFF RAW, TIFF LAB and everything) and CT and ended up with CT superior to CQ regarding the shadow performance. I also determined that the shadow detail gets a bit better if I scan with higher resolution.
The Problem: Overall the scans are quite dark when coming out of the scanner. There is a lot of detail in the shadows but the tones are too narrow, if I spread it up in PS or Lightroom I end up with noise and extreme problems of light areas bleeding into dark ones, also the shadows are extremely red. I do of course white calibration, but not through the film but throug Mylar and fluid.
I can´t complain about sharpness. I have a picture to show you the problem, perhaps somebody can help me. Please! I´m trying and suffering for over 1 year now. I had also contact to ABC-Scan, but the technician there told me to tweak the curves in CQ but this is DEFENETLY not the solution.

This is the Picture Photographed with my ordinary D600 and a 85mm lens (not a macro)! This comes not even close to what my bare eye can see, the highlights in the slide are NOT blown out and the shadows show a lot of detail!
https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3702/13482745875_cdaeee8963_c.jpg
auf Flickr
This is the picture coming out of the scanner with Colortrio 2 and a Gamma of 1,8, of corse I did white calibration, although not through the picture but through mylar and fluid. Scanned at 8000 dpi in 4 portions
https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2904/13482760215_162a13c1db_c.jpg
auf Flickr
This is the scan after a lot of PS
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7121/13482769175_2ace3fc2b8_c.jpg
auf Flickr
I think the sharpness is ok (no sharpening or highpass)
https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2882/13482885263_5fd6733e03_c.jpg
auf Flickr
But the lights are severly bleeding into the dark areas
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7426/13483140834_ae13850781_c.jpg
auf Flickr
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7036/13483141624_bbd695f3cb.jpg
auf Flickr
 
Jzagaja told me in the other thread to use a new bulb. I did, the bulb I´m using at the moment is 1 week old and has done only a few scans.
 
Optics need to be cleaned (halos around the strong highlight contrasts), fiber input, front lens and maybe also dichrotic mirros (be extremely careful cleaning those not to mess up their order and positions) and optics probably need to be aligned (lighttube-to-sensorhead, bulb projecton mark-to-fibre-input), just in case I'd calibrate the aperture plate with the monitor program.

On more complicated matters: PMTs can be "tired" as well when you have a very narrow tonality over the slide scans. Was the scanner used by a pro lab before? Those scanners tend to get a lot of running and can result tired PMTs (optical fiber can dim in time too).
 
This is my scanner and underexposed Velvia:

13546222895_c35b13c439_b.jpg


Margus - I cleaned the lens but halos are always there e.g. film perforation. Do you have it too?
 
Film backing is a different matter - I think this is a particular scanner's shadow rendering or probably AD converter's or signal-path own "character"? In natural design drum scanners with clean optics and signal paths usually are the very best scanner type in terms of film halo-reduction, since they scan a very tiny spot (single pixel actually) at the time. Most CCD scanners, including the high-ends tend to create more halos since they scan bigger patch of pixels throug their lens at the time and can't have such small apertures - they're very dependent on the lens optical- and coating quality to minimize halos as much they can. On the pic above you can see how V700 halos as hell compared to SM - i.e. the sky agains the roof, killing details in the halo transition zone, or even the brighter lamp glass against its dark frame. While the drum scanner draws out those contrasty lines and zones out very clearly in comparison.

Halo reduction wise only DSLR camera scanning beats it but in a very artificial way - the combination of interpolation of Bayer- or X-Trans CCD/CMOS pixel pattern combined with highly developed in-camera signal processing engine (noise reduction, microcontrast and acutance enhancement etc), basically cheating their way out around very contrasty details by artificially making them "look" sharp and clean (often rendering you the microcontrast and perceived sharpness you can't see if you inspect the film on the light table with a very good loupe), wherheas drum scanner is completely blind to interpoation, in fact it doesn't even understand it since it "sees" image as one pixel at the time.
 
There is high possibility that stock DC motor 285787 by Maxon can be used instead of original custom made. Only thing that must be done is polarity change.
 
Could be a memory issue. Though I use a different Scanmate model (3000, as opposed to 11000), sometimes I get horizontal cyan stripes full width of the preview window, and sometimes shorter. Assuming you use ColorQuartet - quitting CQ/CQScan, starting it up again and doing a few previews in a row solves the cyan lines issue. I would also suggest leaving any rotation in CQ to zero, I'd occasionally get short red lines at random places in the scan if there was rotation applied.
My scanner is connected to a G4 Mac "Digital Audio" model that has had three completely new sets of RAM (3x PC133 512MB) installed in the last eight years. Maybe your PC is picky about RAM as well.
 
No more issues.

I'm trying to scan 4x5" using 0.15mm PC foil. Both are too thick and results in air bubbles especially at the ends 🙁 Kami AN spray - a lot of work with removing and dust sticks to it.

Maximum possible resolution in CQ for 4x5" negative ~2500dpi otherwise buffer error.
 
Yes, it is well known you can't pass about 10500 pixel for a line (64KB line buffer).

As for the foils, I use 0.1 or 0.05. Both work great, but with 0.05 you lose a bit less resolving power.

Fernando
 
Price is almost the same - 15 EUR difference so I've ordered 143202 (original). Haven't installed yet.

How sharp can be black marker on the drum at 8000 dpi? This is what I'm getting after drum alignment at both ends, 2x2mm crop:

14505520239_5af12d4740_o.jpg
 
Differences between CQ and CT:

- CT sets drum white to 255 255 255 (brighter image)
- CT manages selected crop better (no shifts)
- CT has problem with register error (wavy edges)
- Assign e.g. Adobe RGB to CT scan for right colour tone and saturation

14507349440_55e9da911e_o.jpg
 
This is old and new motor. Did you get part B as in old motor? How did you remove part A?
 

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Hi!
Did not get part B with the new motor.
And I don't remember how we removed part A; will ask my friend (who actually did the job) if he remembers (it's been more than 1 year ago).
 
LED light seems usable but flux is much weaker (Cree CXA without condenser lens) resulting unsuccesful calibration and typical green cast. Below example is with normalised white point and Cree is rated with CRI 90 (PSU 32V, 700mA). Interestingly Cree scan is sharper and pickups Newton ring 🙂

14743407440_2237096988_b.jpg
 
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