ScanMate drum scanner DIY maintenance, troubleshooting, mods

calebarchie said:
I think it's safe to say no two models are alike 🙂

Wish mine would hurry up and get here already!
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So you managed to get your hands on one, congratulations! Which model did you get?

Maybe things will be different once I get access to the monitor program and calibrate my scanner from there.
 
Kamph said:
So you managed to get your hands on one, congratulations! Which model did you get?

Maybe things will be different once I get access to the monitor program and calibrate my scanner from there.
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Yes several months ago now, snail-mailed here (sea). Apparently it has been in the country for a few weeks, taking it's sweet time getting to woop woop aus.

I got the 4000, I don't print that big 😉
 
Netsoft2k said:
On my SM11K, I scanned at 11000 DPI at 8 BIT RAW and 16 BIT RAW and the scans are equally sharp with no issues. Did the same test on 5K at 5000 DPI and things got very interesting. 8 BIT RAW scans are as expected but the 16 BIT RAW scan is corrupted. I then scanned in 16 BIT TIFF and everything is fine but TIFF is noticeably sharper than RAW. This is really bizarre - thanks Kamph for bringing this to my attention. I had no idea.

On a side note, 11000 DPI on this scanner still makes my jaw drop.
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You probably have some sort of sharpening on if the TIFF is sharper. 8bit and 16bit raw will be equally sharp of course. But the raw file should be sharper than the TIFF, as it has no post processing. Unless the post processing is sharpening.

I had the same outcome on SM5000 also, 16bit raw comes out corrupted. On SM11000 it works just fine.
 
Kamph said:
Thank you!



I absolutely agree in regards to AF, however, my copy of the Plustek do resolve the grain of any film I've thrown at it quite easily, as long as the film is perfectly flat. Pepper grain isen't caused by aliased grain btw, it's small air bubbles caught in the emulsion, this is rather well known. I've used an Imacon before, and it too showed the pepper grain. I'll upload a comparison of the Plustek and the 5K at some point. When scanning using the Raw setting the Scanview IS sharper than the Plustek, but I'm not quite sure if that's the case when not scanning Raw due to the wierd softening effect introduced by QC. 5K wins on everything else of course and by a wide margin at that.



But 16 bit Raw works on your 5K now? 🙂
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I think people use the pepper grain term on all sorts of things, never heard about air bubbles before. Usually i see sharpened unfocused scans, that look like crap.. sharpening is something that should be never used with film in my opinion. If the scan is good, there is no reason. And if the scan is bad, it wont save it.. just makes it look more like crap.

Personally i would not waste my time with scanners that cant focus, its pretty much the most important function in the scanner.

And no, the 16bit raw does not work on the SM5000, i sold that. I got a SM11000 currently. On it the 16bit raw works fine.

SM5000 required a new firmware to work at all with CQ5, the program asked for it. You can dowload the firmware from the CQscan program. In the file menu you have the download firmware option that sends the file to the machine.
 
monkeyfist said:
SM5000 required a new firmware to work at all with CQ5, the program asked for it. You can dowload the firmware from the CQscan program. In the file menu you have the download firmware option that sends the file to the machine.
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The download firmware option just opens the "ColorQuartet Pro 5.2" folder for me. I guess I need to get the file from http://aleksikoski.com/temp/Scanner%...00/SCA04000.A6 ?

I'm a bit afraid of updating the firmware though. My current version is 8.13 (if you click on the update firmware option it tells you).

Also, I've heard that the 16bit raw setting on the 11K just gives you an 8 bit file. Any truth to that?
 
monkeyfist said:
I think people use the pepper grain term on all sorts of things, never heard about air bubbles before. Usually i see sharpened unfocused scans, that look like crap.. sharpening is something that should be never used with film in my opinion. If the scan is good, there is no reason. And if the scan is bad, it wont save it.. just makes it look more like crap.
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I always disable sharpening in the scan software, and every other PP function for that matter. Imacons add some sharpening even when you disable sharpening, you actually have to put the sharpening at a specific negative value in order to disable it - the exact value escapes me. Scans from CCD scanners do sometimes need a bit of sharpening in my opinion though.
It's rather easy to tell if a scan is out of focus or not. I can promise you that pepper grain has nothing to do with out of focus scans, and it only materialise itself on some Fuji stock.
 
Netsoft2k said:
Photoshop claims that the file is 16 bit. File size is significantly larger too.
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That's good to know!

Really it's just very, very odd that the 5K can't do 16bit raw. I can't wrap my head around the fact that people who bought this scanner originally would simply accept such a significant bug. You would think that such problems would be ironed out rather quickly considering that it's a professional tool!
 
I agree with you Kamph - seems odd that a machine that was $50K + in its day would have this big of a flaw.

BTW, since there aren't very many full resolution sample scans from these machines, I figured I would make one for anyone interested. This is a 11000 DPI 16 Bit Raw converted to B&W from a 35MM Kodak TMAX 100 @ 80.

Canon AE1 35MM 11000 DPI Test
 
Kamph said:
I'm a bit afraid of updating the firmware though. My current version is 8.13 (if you click on the update firmware option it tells you). ?
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This was good info. So my firmware is 10.4... so i think you should try updating, maybe that would do the trick?

And yes, the file is the firmware. It was from the same disk that got my SM5000 working on CQ5. Some CQ4 disk that someone had uploaded here.

But i do not know what version it actually is. I never updated this machine, just the SM5000 as it did not run at all without update.

Now we need to know what is the latest firmware!.. and how can i get it.
 
Kamph said:
That's good to know!

Really it's just very, very odd that the 5K can't do 16bit raw. I can't wrap my head around the fact that people who bought this scanner originally would simply accept such a significant bug. You would think that such problems would be ironed out rather quickly considering that it's a professional tool!
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SM5000 does 16bit files (just not in raw), well.. 12bit as the machine is 12bit. SM11000 is 14bit.

But the only 8bit files is some sort of myth. Not true.

I think 8bit scanning was a norm though, simply as 16bit files were so big. Think about the computers then, they had less power & space than your cellphone... fiddling with these files even now requires some serious computing power & storage space. This is why the software is made to do all the color adjustments etc. to output 8bit files for use. Nowadays the workflow is different, scan raw and store 16bit files for editing.
 
Yes, I doubt pre-press used 16-bit, judging by how CQ is designed, time is money!!

If some one can please upload TIFF vs RAW 16-bit examples from the 5000 that would be great.
 
Netsoft2k said:
Caleb - Not sure if these are going to help but here are the one I scanned yesterday to test the behavior. Notice the Tiff is sharper but I think it's because I had the settings set to "Normal" in sharpness while testing which were only applied to the Tiff scan.

SM5K 5000 DPI 8 BIT RAW

SM5K 5000 DPI 16 BIT RAW

SM5K 5000 DPI 16 BIT TIFF
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Thank you for that, the 16-bit raw is corrupt?

Although you say yours is working fine, I'd like to see how much dramatically worse the TIFF is if at all for the ones supposedly not working properly.
 
Caleb - yes, the 16 BIT RAW is corrupt. I personally don't see any loss in quality in the TIff vs. the Raw. My machine is calibrated with an IT8 target which only corrects in Tiff so I'll personally never really use RAW.
 
Netsoft2k said:
Caleb - Not sure if these are going to help but here are the one I scanned yesterday to test the behavior. Notice the Tiff is sharper but I think it's because I had the settings set to "Normal" in sharpness while testing which were only applied to the Tiff scan.

SM5K 5000 DPI 8 BIT RAW

SM5K 5000 DPI 16 BIT RAW

SM5K 5000 DPI 16 BIT TIFF
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Really interesting samples.

I am thinking about buying an SM 5000 to complement my ColorGetter.

Thing is... if there isn't an ability to output a completely unprocessed file, that might be an issue.

I do not know CQ at all. But, if it's possible to output a 16-bit TIFF file with every single processing option switched off, would that be more-or-less exactly the same as a RAW...?
 
James1 said:
Really interesting samples.

I am thinking about buying an SM 5000 to complement my ColorGetter.

Thing is... if there isn't an ability to output a completely unprocessed file, that might be an issue.

I do not know CQ at all. But, if it's possible to output a 16-bit TIFF file with every single processing option switched off, would that be more-or-less exactly the same as a RAW...?
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No, unfortunately not! It seems that QC applies some sort of softening to all settings besides Raw.

I'll try to update my machine as advised by Monkeyfist and see if that sorts out the 16bit raw - stay tuned!

Update: Failed to update with the file provided by Monkeyfist.

Maybe the chaps over at ABC-scan can shed some light on the issue as well? Anyone tried to write them yet? Are they still located in Denmark?
 
Hi, I 'm new here ... 🙂 From France... I am a SM3K & SM11K user with CQ5 and WinXP
For help, if it is needed, few details :
SM3K and SM5K have 12bit sensor, and SM11K have a 14bit sensor
So, ColorQuartet is the software that interpolates 16-bit output file.
Not the scanner.
Color Trio, even last V2 use only 8-bit output file.
With CQ5, if you scan without setting ( Shadows, highlight, color, USM ) + no embed profil. So you have a native file 16 bits interpolated ( Tiff or else... )
For a Tiff, you just have to settle the white calibration, focus and aperture.
If you want use an icc profile ( IT8 adjustements for example ), it is better to use PS and open the scanned file with, as " no profile file ", do not change it, and then, assign the correct ICC profile by using the preview mode.
So you can use differents ICC profile and chose the best with the preview mode.
If you have an IT8 target and the software who generate the ICC profile, it is easy.
I must admit I've never used the function "raw" with CQ... no need for the moment, may be one day...
 
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