scanner, scanner, wherefore art thou scanner?

[monkeybort]

so i’m going to get a scanner. i would like something that can do flatbed as well as negatives, and i don’t want to spend more than $800 or so. i’m thinking the Epson Perfection 4990 pro, but would looove some input!! suggestions, recommendations, experiences?

thanks everyone!!!

[Anonymous]

If you want to scan negatives or slides, get a slide scanner. If you want to scan prints, get a print scanner. Don’t try to get one that does both.

If you are trying to convert your film photos to digital, get a slide scanner. Any of the modern Nikon slide scanners will do. Canon’s Canoscan is also a good value.

Scans from negatives and slides produce much higher quality digital files than scans from prints.

[chakalakasp]

Oops, forgot to log in. That was me. 🙂

[monkeybort]

If you want to scan negatives or slides, get a slide scanner. If you want to scan prints, get a print scanner. Don’t try to get one that does both.

If you are trying to convert your film photos to digital, get a slide scanner. Any of the modern Nikon slide scanners will do. Canon’s Canoscan is also a good value.

Scans from negatives and slides produce much higher quality digital files than scans from prints.

well, i’ll have mostly slides and negs to scan, but i was thinking it would be nice to have a flatbed (for doing scanograms, and scanning polaroids and stuff) as well. on the other hand, the SO has a flatbed already…hmmm.

[veruca]

I’m interested in the answer to this question as well. My HP All-in-one just isn’t cutting it – the glass has some haze from underneath and this is a replacement from the original we had that did the same thing. 😕

[idle_hands]

i don’t think you can go wrong with the Epson Perfection 4990 pro monkeybort.

i bought the canon LiDE 80 – it’s good enough for my purposes. it does negs and flatbed scanning. nothing fancy though

---

Why, yes, I do like trilobites!

[chakalakasp]

If you’re mainly doing slides and film, get a slide and film scanner. They’re much, much, much, much better at scanning slides and film. All of the modern ones will even digitally remove dust from the image as you scan. Unless you have a $20,000 oil-mount flatbed, you’re just not gonna get the same quality with a flatbed as you would with a slide scanner.

You should always try to scan the negative or the slide if you can, as opposed to the print, unless you want to post-process it with some old fashioned dark-room work instead of photoshop work.

BTW, if all you’re planning to scan is Polaroids and stuff, you can pick up a cheap $100 flatbed that’ll do that just fine.

This will do you quite well for a slide/neg scanner:

http://tinyurl.com/cmk4z

Or this, if you have more money:

http://tinyurl.com/b9xow

[monkeybort]

If you’re mainly doing slides and film, get a slide and film scanner. They’re much, much, much, much better at scanning slides and film. All of the modern ones will even digitally remove dust from the image as you scan. Unless you have a $20,000 oil-mount flatbed, you’re just not gonna get the same quality with a flatbed as you would with a slide scanner.

You should always try to scan the negative or the slide if you can, as opposed to the print, unless you want to post-process it with some old fashioned dark-room work instead of photoshop work.

BTW, if all you’re planning to scan is Polaroids and stuff, you can pick up a cheap $100 flatbed that’ll do that just fine.

This will do you quite well for a slide/neg scanner:

http://tinyurl.com/cmk4z

Or this, if you have more money:

http://tinyurl.com/b9xow

hmmm. ok, i think you guys have me talked into a dedicated slide/neg scanner, especially since my SO already has a flatbed that i can use.

how does everyone feel about those nikon scanners? (coolscan? something like that. it’s linked in chakalakasp’s post)

[Born Slippy]

The Minolta 5400 is a nice scanner, too for about the same money. Whatever one you get, get ICE dust/scratch removal built in.

[monkeybort]

so, i haven’t gotten the scanner yet, but now i definitely need a good flatbed. i’m starting to do some restoration work for a friend of his dad’s photos from the 20’s-60’s and they are all in print form with no negatives available. any suggestions?

[schnee]

I have the 1st gen Konica-Minolta 5400. I’m quite happy with it; it scans all the flaws in my images from either slide or negative film. I’ve heard very nice things about the Nikon Coolscans as well. The Nikon resolves 4000 dpi, while the K-M goes to 5400 dpi. This means that a 35mm image can go to 5400 x 7800 pixels, at 16-bit color depth. Using the 300 dpi output “rule” for prints, you’re talking a 18×26 image, and 300 dpi is on the high-side for large images.

Some trade-offs for larger resolution is larger files (200Mb per image from the K-M) and longer scan times (for full resolution). I find the K-M software confusing, but there are alternative such as VueScan, which is supposed to be very nice. The K-M’s autofocus does not always work, but for my “important” scans, I tend to manually focus the scanner anyway. I’ve heard that the Nikon’s autofocusing is very nice.

I reiterate the recommendation of making sure you get Digital ICE, which is a pretty nifty hardware/software mechanism for suppressing physical faults in the film (scratches, dust, &c.). It works much better than trying to fix those sort of things in an image editor. Both the Konica-Minolta and the Nikons have ICE.

One thing, however, those scanners are strictly for 35mm. You have something else to scan and you’ll need a different scanner (much more $$$).

[schnee]

I have the 1st gen Konica-Minolta 5400.

Oh, I forgot. The 5400 has something called “Grain Diffuser”. It is used to reduce the film grain. It is a hardware/software solution and works fairly well, at the expense of increased scan times.

The Nikon has something similar called Digital GEM, which, I think, is software-only.

Here’s a kicker – you may have heard that KM is getting out of the camera business by selling the camera line to Sony. It became effective April 1. I’m pretty sure that includes the scanner line. I’m not sure you can even buy a 5400 anymore.

I hear real nice things about the Nikon line… 😉

[monkeybort]

thank you for the advice schnee – i will definitely keep it in mind.

do you have any info on good flatbeds? i will need to scan prints for this project.

[schnee]

do you have any info on good flatbeds?

I don’t know diddly about flatbeds.

[monkeybort]

do you have any info on good flatbeds?

I don’t know diddly about flatbeds.

thanks for the info on film scanners – i’m very interested in the nikon.

🙂

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