film scanners

[sleeping]

Yeah, I realize that, however the iscan software we’re using to scan from the 4490 under Linux won’t give the option to scan above 2400 dpi. Zeke messed around with it, but near as we can tell, 2400 dpi is the true optical resolution limit for our scanner. We found references online to this being the case with a lot of scanners (that the true limit is lower than the stated limit).

Gotcha – yeah, I can scan at up to 12800 dpi(!) with my software, but that’s just 4800 interpolated.

Here’s a raw scan at 4800:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1034/743004330_01f65072cc_o.jpg

[Elsinore]

wow nice! And yeah, supposedly the 4490 will also do something like 12800 interpolated. My dad once scanned a 19th or early 20th century family photo at ultra high resolution like that because there was a photo on the mantel that was in the picture, and he knew it might be the only chance to get a photo of that ancestor. The resolution was good enough that he was able to grab the mantel photo and get a nice print out of it. The size of that photo within the original picture was an inch or less–can’t remember, but it was small.

[Curious]

sleeping i can’t find where you said which scanner you are using. your scan on my screen at 803×534 looks perfect as is. when expanded to 6880×4575 not so much. however your file size is <8MB which seems a bit low for that dpi. or maybe not now that i think about it. my fire truck expanded is half the total pixel wide and roughly half the file size. which given that yours is 4800 and mine is 2400 makes sense.

yeah i’m rambling and writing out load while i try to figure all this out.

Elsinore an inch is the short side of a 35mm neg. if that means anything.

[sleeping]

Curious – The scanner is an epson v-750. I wouldn’t expect a scan at that sort of resolution to look great on a monitor at 100% – that’s the equivalent of a print about 60″ wide, assuming your monitor resolution is around 100dpi. I think I could get a pretty good 16×24 or so print from it, though.

[Curious]

sleeping i’ve been trying to figure printing resolution from this scanning resolution calculator that was linked to from the PSAEF the other day. i get confused converting pixels to dpi. my monitor is 96 dpi so if i use 1024 in pixels … ?? if i measure the fire truck on screen which is 793 pixels it’s 12.5 inches.

am i confusing both of us or just me?

all the calculations on that site end up with files sizes that are 8 times more than yours (assuming 24 bit RGB) or mine. even allowing for the 2400 vs. 4800 scan. when i actually use the ruler and measure yours collapsed it’s (roughly) 8.5 x12.5 which means a 16 x 24 is a fourfold increase in area covered.

hope you don’t mind but i downloaded the image and am playing with it in ACDSee viewer which tells me the % of magnification.

[sleeping]

The calculator is probably assuming an uncompressed image format. If I save the file as an uncompressed RGB .tif, it’s like 90MB.

6800/24″ = 283 DPI for a 16×24 print. That’s a little less than what’s considered ideal (300-ish), but not much.

If you resize it in photoshop so it’s about 2400 pixels wide, that would be a rough approximation on screen of what you’d get in a 16×24 print (a good print would almost certainly look better, though)

[Curious]

so my fire truck at 3384/14 = 241 dpi or a marginal print at 11×14. that assumes the scan was any good to begin with.

did the resize thing in PS (almost choked my computer even with a gig of RAM) and then looked at the results in ACDSee at 100% and now see what you mean. and you’re absolutely right a print from a negative would be better. having printed a lot of 35mm b/w up to poster size it’s the way to go for the best results.

does this mean i now have to carry the DSLR and the film camera?

anyway thanks for all your help.

and thank you to all the others that helped.

it looks like i’m going to have to get off more money than i was expecting – make that hoping- to get good results. i really do want to get all my old stuff digitized so i can use some of it. and besides not having the room a darkroom equipped for 4×5 with a color head was $3500 last time i checked.

[Curious]

I’m a little leary of the scanners that can do both transparent and reflective media, and the ones that scan more than one image at a time. On that last point, I question the mechanical tolerances.

sleeping before chunking down my hard earned dollars one last question. i looked at your scanner on the espon site and it seems to use holders very similar to the 4990. have you ever tried using plastic film holder sheets and the 8×10 transparency thing instead of their mechanical holders? or simply laying the plastic strip holder on the glass and closing the lid? basically what one would do if physically printing a contact sheet. i’m thinking if that works you could crop out the frames you like ignoring the others. assuming the software didn’t separate the frames for you. there is the potential problem of the plastic (two layers of it) which with a contact sheet obviously doesn’t matter.

[sleeping]

I’m a little leary of the scanners that can do both transparent and reflective media, and the ones that scan more than one image at a time. On that last point, I question the mechanical tolerances.

sleeping before chunking down my hard earned dollars one last question. i looked at your scanner on the espon site and it seems to use holders very similar to the 4990. have you ever tried using plastic film holder sheets and the 8×10 transparency thing instead of their mechanical holders?

I tried it just now, and it seems to work OK, I didn’t scan at an ultra high resolution, but it looks sharp enough for web use anyway. The color may be a bit more muted than if it was in the film holder, but it’s not great film for colors (konica centuria 200).

Excuse the dust, I just slapped it on the bed without cleaning the bed or the negative sleeve.

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1199/757040636_2d97da0dc4_o.jpg

The disadvantage of this compared to the film holders, at least if you want the individual pictures instead of a contact sheet, is that it won’t automatically extract them – you’d have to select each one manually or scan the whole thing and crop each one out later.

[Curious]

The disadvantage of this compared to the film holders, at least if you want the individual pictures instead of a contact sheet, is that it won’t automatically extract them – you’d have to select each one manually or scan the whole thing and crop each one out later.

first thanks for experimenting. i’d thought of the downside but as you well know there are advantages to contact sheets. what i’m thinking is sort of a “thumbnail” image via the contact sheet which would make for much faster sorting. i have a tendency to shot multiple exposures that have little variation in composition or exposure. also i shot a lot of crap. looking through those holders the other day re-affirmed that. if i did a run of “contact” sheets it would make selecting for actual archiving easier. also it might give me clues on how well any particular negative might scan. ie under/over exposed, not really sharp, dull picture, etc. quite frankly if i had to scan each and every frame i’ve ever exposed the burn out factor would kick in fairly soon. at one time i was only paying for raw film, developing and printing were free. a benefit of a part time job in a b/w darkroom. the net result was lots of stuff that not only didn’t get printed then but isn’t worth more than a cursory glance now. there are however some gems in all that stuff and those should be made available.

anyway thanks again. that experiment convinced me that i’ll get enough use from the scanner to justify the cost.

[Curious]

well it’s ordered. i had told my self (and others) that i wasn’t going to buy any more computer hardware, cameras, etc. for the foreseeable future. but being the gadget junky that i am … well maybe when the results are printed it will all be worth while. my sister gave me a dry mount press for christmas (an older one she had) and a bunch of supplies for it.

anyway i’ll no longer have any excuse for not scanning the film that lurks in various closets.

and it will be another incentive to stop smoking since the saving from that would pay for the scanner in three months.

thanks sleeping for the link to the rebate (form printed when placing the order), your input and the contact sheet test.

also thanks to schnee and Elsinore for your input.

[Curious]

well it would seem i have a lot to learn BUT here’s the first test of trying to make a contact sheet. used the 8 x10 film holder but didn’t set the scan size properly so it cropped some.

scanner came friday but i delayed setting it up until now. given that this scanner is really different than the last one it will be a while before i’m proficient with it. hell it will be a while until i’m beyond the basics.

thanks again for all your help.

[Curious]

an update for anyone who cares. the scanner works well except for not having a setting for 120 and 4 x 5 film holders. there is a film size tab missing in the “configuration” setting. the documentation says it’s there but it’s not. there is a work around but it’s a bit cumbersome. so far online tech support hasn’t been any help.

the UI is not intuitive but can be figured out. you really have to pay attention when setting up from session to session especially if changing film type. or i’m not too bright and don’t watch what i’m doing, which is just as likely.

a big plus — the rebate check arrived this weekend. seven week turnaround.

i haven’t done too much of my film but did a lot for a friend. she had lots of old negatives from her childhood (50 years ago +/-) and later on in every format you can imagine. 620, 120, 126, 35 and even a 110 strip. mostly b/w but some color. while it took several hours to do all she wanted the results were worth it.

so on a scale of 1-10 overall a 7.5… ease of scan (software) a 5 or 6… speed of scan 8 (even high res stuff goes reasonably quickly) and the results 9 or 10 as far as usable for the intended purpose. i haven’t really pushed the scanner yet for a super high res output, super clean for a big poster sized print but expect that you could get that if you were willing to spent some time tweaking the settings and had a “good” negative.

so if any of you have $300 (while the rebate is in effect)($400 normally) and want a scanner that will do pretty much any size format film you throw at it up to 8 x 10 the Epson 4990 Photo is my choice.

not a paid endorsement, not affiliated with epson, no ax to grind here.

[Curious]

another attempt at AW post about the scanner. i’ve been scanning old pictures this weekend. some just old, some damaged. here are some results with and without the Digital ICE program. examples one and three (color shots and old lady) are testaments to the program at it’s best. the middle ones (birthday party) not so much. the “fixed” one doesn’t have the spots but the sharpness leaves a lot to be desired.

but even with that it’s just so much easier than trying to fix them in photoshop.

[Author]

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