Scanning question

[Ed_L]

I have an Acer 1240UT scanner which is capable of scanning negs and transparencies. Optical resolution is only 1200 spi, but that's good enough for small prints or for viewing on a monitor. Until today I have only scanned prints, and some B&W negs. Today I scanned a slide I took some time ago, and wound up with a lot of noise in the shadows, which doesn't surprise me. But there is also a spot which looks like a light leak or something. I scanned the slide three times, in different areas on the bed. The spot shows up in the same location on the scan. Does anyone have any ideas about why this happens? Looking at the slide through an 8 X loupe shows no signs of anything like that. Here is a sample straight out of the scanner.

Ed

[Paul Rupp]

Ed,
Just a thought, there might be a slight imperfection in the smoothness of the slide at that point, try turning it over and trying it again. Thay should help.

Hope it does!

Paul Rupp

[Ed_L]

Thanks for the reply Paul. It sounds reasonable that could be what you suggest. I'll give it a try and let you know how it works. Thanks again.

Ed

[DJ Dubovsky]

I aggree with Paul. Being that your slide or negative is so small you won't be able to see such an imperfection with the naked eye. If you have a lupe, you might use it to see the condition of the slide.
Let us know what you find by flipping it. It's a beautiful scene.
DJ

[Ed_L]

Just wanted to let everyone know that Paul was right! Thanks for the help. I don't know if I would have ever thought about that possibility.

Ed

[airubin]

Ed,

What is the dynamic range of your scanner? It is recommended that it be close to 4.0 or better for scanning slides.

I'm looking into the Nikon coolscan IV, but I am stlll doing some research on slide scanners.

Any comments?

Alan

[Ed_L]

Hi Alan. Where ya been? We've missed you around here. The dynamic range of my scanner isn't listed, but I know it's not as much as I need. The scanner is a flatbed with a transparency lid. The price is around $150.00, and I think it's a steal for that kind of money (got mine on e-bay for $103.00). I have quite a few medium to large format B&W negs (some quite old), and it comes in handy for that. I'd like to have a better film scanner, but I need to make do with what I have. Good luck on finding something.

Ed

[DJ Dubovsky]

Alan
Nice to see you back. You know they always tell you to look for the best dynamic range on your scanner but I have yet to see it listed when buying one. Any ideas where you find that info? I'm confused. None of the scanners I looked at had that listed.
DJ

[Ed_L]

Debbie,

Are you looking at flatbeds or film scanners? I think you will be much more likely to find that information on film scanners (although not all of them).

Ed

[airubin]

Ed and DJ,

I've been too tied up with business problems for the past several months. A new partner will be coming in within 2-3 weeks. Briefly, this has started a considerable amount of positive actions. My partner and I will turn the business over to him in two years.

We will have it tough for the next several months, but we are very positive about the changes that will be made. Right now, for example, I am redesigning our store's web site for online selling.

I'll fill you all in later when the site is up and running. Our target is to be ready in 4-6t weeks.

I've missed not having the time to spend in the forum, but I should be able to spend more time very soon.

Now for scanners--

The lower priced scanners usually do not list the dynamic range. The slide scanner, which are usually more expensive, do list it, especially if you are above the $500 level. I have not checked the higher priced flatbed scanners as I will go to a slide scanner.

I am interested in scanner the best of my slides from the past forty years. My goal is to consolidate them onto CD's until a better option comes along. Then I will not have to keep the many, many boxes that I have.

My wife is always reminding me that no one looks at the slides and they will not be saved by our kids in the future.

I spent three Sundays going through my father's slides when we sold our house. I had saved all his slides after he did, but they were condensed into one box.

It will be easier for me to file them on the CD's and the space requirements are substantially less.

Alan

[Paul Rupp]

Glad I could help Ed.

I would love to see the scan now, Tahoe is one of my favorite places!

Paul Rupp

[DJ Dubovsky]

Already bought one Ed. Got the Epson Perfection 1650 photo.

Alan
I guess that's why I never found it listed. I can't afford the ones that are $500 plus.
DJ

[thomasgeorge]

Dont put too much reliance on all the talk about dynamic range. Most of the time what is claimed and what is actually delivered are relatively far apart. I use a Minolta scan multi 2 neg scanner and have done quite a few slides with it, which turn out very well when scanned at around 700-1000lpi....the dynamic range is listed well below 4, around 3.5 I believe. More importiant is the ability to get uninterpolated scans in the above lpi range or higher and 12 or 16 bit capture. Having a flatbed with trans. adapter which has capacity enough to scan several slides at once is a plus...the dedicated slide/neg. scanning units are slow. If just planning on doing slides or 35mm strips and time isnt a serious consideration, one of the dedicated units in the $250.00 to $ 600.00 range might be worth looking at. I have seen the results from one of the HP slide/neg scanners with a D range of around 3.2 or so and they look good both on screen and printed. Getting something with noise/grain supression software included is to be strongly considered also as without it you will spend some time cleaning the scans up. Just some thoughts... Good luck Tom

[Tim_S]

Scanners for slides

Alan,

Your exact goals will make some difference in what will work for you. The main considerations are how many slides are you going to try and scan, and what is their ultimate display media?

If you have a lot of slides to scan, a film scanner is slow. Some units have stack feeders for 50 slides (Minolta and Nikon). These can save significant hands on time, but not time overall. Also, these are $400.00 additions to already high priced scanners.

Flatbed scanners are a lot faster, since they often can scan a large number of slides at a time. The major problems are limited Dmax and dpi resolution. In other words, a flat bed scanner won't be able to give you the shadow details you'd get from a scan on a film scanner, and the maximum dpi won't be as high from the flat bed either.

Another limitation of flatbed scanners is working with color negatives. Few have software for reversing the amber mask. You can do it by hand, but it if painfully tedious. I've tried it, it and it is not fun (some film is much easier than others...).

Still, the fundamental questions are the two I mentioned in the first paragraph. If you need to scan thousands of slides a film scanner will probably take unbearably long. On the other hand if your final output is intended to be a monitor (or lcd projector) you don't need the 2700 to 4800 dpi resolution of a film scanner for 35mm film. A 1000dpi flatbed would give good enough results, as long as you don't have a lot of shadow details to include.

For my photos I do a "catalog" scan on an Microtek Artixscan 1100 at 1000 dpi where I can scan 12 slides at a time in the special tray. That gives me screen filling pictures, that are good enough for monitor viewing. When I pick one to print I re-scan the original on a Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro at a dpi appropriate to the output size. That is more involved that just scanning once at high resolution but it saves a lot of time, since I only print a few.

I hope this helps.

This is my first post ever to RetouchPro, and I seem to have rambled on for quite some length... Hi everyone.

--tks

[airubin]

Hi Tim,

There is not any time limit to the posts, so just ramble on.

This is a quick reply and I just started work. I'll get back to later with some questions.

I intend to screen all my slides and only scan the ones that I want to save. I don't need 100 picdtures of my kids when a few good ones will do. The same will apply to my vacation and other pictures.

It will be a time consuming job, but part of the fun will be looking through all the old slices. I doubt if I will scan more than 10% of them, but you never know until you get started.

Talk to yuou later,

Alan