Nikon ES4000 scanner

[airubin]

I just got my new Nikon ES4000. It is too early to give you any meaningful comments as I’ve only spent about 1 hour of non-installation time with it. The Nikon techie suggested that I use as much memory as possible, so I upgraded my Dell laptop from 96 MB to 512 MB. I’ve been planning to do this for over a year, so he pushed me over the edge. I do not know if that much is necessary, but since I was doing it I decided to go all the way to the max on my computer.

I did scan one print negative. It had some minor scratches and dirt. The scan with ICE enabled eliminated them. I understand that you have to watch how you use ICE so that you do not make the image a little fuzzy.

I scanned at the max that Nikon allowed, 4000 psi. The image was a little dark and slightly off hue. I could not correct it as I had not yet increased the memory and adjusting the image was just too slow. I suspect that I should adjust the color of the monitor to match the scanner for starters.

I’m looking for scanning tips.

I’m inclined to do some image adjustment in the scan, but use PhotoShop to do the final editing.

Should I scan at a lower pixels/inch? I would like to start with as much digital information as possible, but where are the trade off levels.

I’ve done some scanning, but now I have to be concerned about controlling from the start.

Nikon’s software allows you to do image adjustments, such as curves, etc., before you scan. Also, I have to keep Genuine Factuals 2.0 in mind.

Fire away.

Alan

[G. Couch]

Hey Alan!

It might help to know what you are mainly going to be scanning and what the final output is. If it's 35mm slides and you just want 8" x 10"s, then you probably do not need to scan at higher then 2400ppi.

The number one thing is to calibrate your monitor. There are a lot of good sites out there, including this one, with info on calibration. I know there have been several threads on monitor calibration that you may want to check out. Ther are also a few good newsgroups (comp.perifs.scanners ) where you can find tons of info.

[jeaniesa]

Hi Alan,

You have heard of www.scantips.com, right? You'll get a lot of great tips at that site. Plus the newsgroups that Greg mentioned.

I have a Minolta Scan Elite (2820 dpi tops) with ICE and love it. I always scan with ICE on - saves me from major cleanup work and I don't notice the fuzziness as some people claim to. Perhaps it is different with different scanners though?

I find the Minolta does pretty well at getting the correct hue for slides, but not so well for negatives. I usually choose to color correct in PS rather than the scanner software because I feel I have more control over that in PS. However, I do correct for brightness as much as possible during the scanning phase - sometimes scanning both to bring out the shadow details and scanning a second time to bring out the highlight details - then combining the two photos in PS when there is a lot of contrast in the photo. I have never been happy with an image straight from the scanner - I always do some sort of meddling in PS. (BTW, don't use the scanner sharpening feature if you plan on editing after the scan - sharpening should be the last thing that you do in any image manipulation.)

As far as scanning resolution, like Greg said, it depends on what you want to do with the image. If you think you'll ever want to print larger than 8x10", then you'll want to scan at higher than 2700 dpi. Otherwise, 2700 dpi should be fine. (I'm wishing I had the capability to scan at 4000 dpi so that I could print larger images to frame and hang on my walls.) Sure you could use GF to enlarge a photo scanned at lower resolution, but you won't get as good a result as scanning directly from the slide/negative where the original information is.

Of course, the higher dpi you scan at, the larger the resulting image and the slower the processing in PS (or any other program) since there are more pixels to "massage" with every edit that's applied. Plus, if you work with layers, remember that the file size grows very quickly with each new layer added.

Hope this helps some,
Jeanie

[Don Stefanik]

Hi Alan,
I just recently got the CoolScan 4000 as well. It does yield very large files but oh the quality. I used to have the very good HP photosmart S20 and was happy with it . But the ICE cubed software and as well as the high dynamic range were the big attraction. I been reading Bruce Frasiers comments about the software and agree pertty much with his assessment. I may get Vuescan software to augment Nikon Scan software.

Don

[Doug Nelson]

I will admit to severe ES4000 envy. As far as slide scanners go, that is my dream machine. You think maybe Nikon donates scanners to needy websites?