Hi All,

How good a quality scanner do you need for scanning B&W negitives and color prints?

I'm using a Umax2200, but I believe that it will probably not be good enough. I got a decent result on it with a print, but I was not too concerned about top notch quality.

TIA

Alan

Hi Alan, you may have to answer your own question. By that I mean that you should run some tests to see if that scanner does the job you need it to do. I am not familar with the UMax 2200 at all so I can't give you a judgment on it's capabilities.

What you need to look for is the quality of the resolution and how sharp the images are. Most lower quality scanners make the output images a little too soft and they have problems with resolution quality. Most scanners advertise their output resolution as if that is the most important aspect, which it isn't. The imaging sensor is very important because the scanner is like a digital camera, the better the sensor the better the picture.

If you do decide that a new scanner is required than I recommend the Epson 3200. It should be selling for around 400.00, so if this is in your price range than this is the way you should go. I have the Epson 2450 which is the scanner the 3200 replaced. I feel it is the best pictue scanner in it's price reange.

I hope this helps.

Hi Kevin,

I know that the dynamic range is the how good a scanner is. The Imax 2200 was not very good for slides, so I got the Nikon IV, which works fine.

I do not know if the results would be the same for a B&W negative or print, but the only way is to try.

I'm interested in scanning images that are between 60-80 years old.

A little more research is required.

Alan

You can get excellent results from even the cheapest scanners if you learn and adjust to their limitations. There's a thread somewhere here about analysing scanners for their 'sweet spot' by scanning a blank sheet of white paper and using levels or threshold to exagerate the minute differences in tonality on the scan. Also, a lot of scanners perform much better if you simply turn off all software adjustments their driver might make.

Here is a link to the "Sweet Spot" thread. (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2819&highlight=sweet+spot)