Epson V 700 SCANNER

[bounty]

Hello, I am new to this site and was wondering about the V 700 Epson scanner that I bought. I haven't received it yet, but before I do I was hoping that some one would give me some tips about using it. I understand that it comes with some editing software, but since I have photoshop do I have to use the software that are included with the scanner. Can I just scan my negatives using the professional mode that adjust colors and many other features and download it to my PC and eventually retouch it with photoshop????

Thank you

Bounty

[Jeffrey Sipress]

I believe most Epson scanners come with software that can run as a separate application, and a plugin that allows it to be accessed through photoshop. I think you're covered.

[Aender Brepsom]

Hello Bounty and welcome to this forum.

I use an Epson V700 myself to scan 4x5" and 6x17 for web use and here is how I do it:

In Photoshop, I go to file->import and chose the V700.
The Epson software opens and I use the professional mode there to make some adjustments if needed. The scanned file is then automatically opened in Photoshop where I can retouch it and save it.
Quite easy.
Many people use the Silverfast scan software and will be able to give you some advice on that.

Regards

Aender

[Jon Shiu]

If you are scanning film, you can experiment with the height adjusters on the film holders in order to get the sharpest scan: I think it is 3.0mm normally, 2.5mm without the feet and 3.5mm with the feet turned around to + (distances are from the film to the glass). If you are scanning 8x10, you just lay the film on the glass in an area guide. The film holders are not too bad, but don't hold the film very flat and may not scan to the edges of the film. I had planned on getting the glass film holder from Fisher... the 4 plastic screw height adjusters for that seem a little bit fiddly.

Jon

[bounty]

Thank you. Aender (bien le site photographique) sounds like a good idea. You start from Photoshop scan the negatives and retouch it with photoshop
Jon what do you mean by 2.5,3,3.5 mm?

Ok I can berely wait to get my scanner

Bounty

[sparq]

I use V700 with OEM scanning software on Windows. Silverfast SE is good enough for me because all I need from it is a raw scan in 16bpc (no sharpening, no brightness curves, no color correction, nothing). I then process all scans in Picture Window Pro that has an excellent support for 16bpc images and that can process very large files, too (I process tiffs up to 1GB in size on a dell notebook with 3GB of RAM). Photoshop is a too expensive toy for me. I use a mounting station from www.betterscanning.com instead of those flimsy #$@!$#@! film holders provided by epson.

[bounty]

Ho,ho I heard htat before. Are the epson film holder that bad:eek: :eek: ??

Bounty

[Aender Brepsom]

I haven't tried the betterscanning holders, but the Epson holders need to be handled carefully, I agree. I am not scanning hundreds of slides per week, so I think I can live with the Epson holders.

[sparq]

Ho,ho I heard htat before. Are the epson film holder that bad:eek: :eek: ??

Bounty

Yeah, they plain suck. For instance, I can't make some MF films fit into the too narrow channels of the OEM holder. The calibration is another good argument. The 3rd party holder lets you focus to the film plane very precisely if you don't mind some fiddling. ;)

A sequence of raw 3200DPI scans with .2mm increments:
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2035/1664778870_ba674a82da_o.gif

[Kirk Gittings]

I haven't tried the betterscanning holders, but the Epson holders need to be handled carefully, I agree. I am not scanning hundreds of slides per week, so I think I can live with the Epson holders.

The Better Scanning holders are indeed well made and the height adjustments are superior. For dry scanning 120 film in strips the BS holders hold the film much flatter than the Epsons. For dry scanning 4x5 I prefer the Epson holder modified with gaffers tape height adjustments instead of those weird things they come with, while for wet scanning anything I prefer the BS holder over the Epson wet tray.

The native Epson software is adequate, but as your skill increases (and your expectations) you will ultimately want software with better tools and more adjustments. I use SF AI Studio which has all the bells and whistles I need. Some prefer Viewscan, which has some interesting features, and is cheap, though I hate the interface.

[Brian Ellis]

If this is your first serious scanner you might want to stay with the Epson software for a while, it's basic and easy to use and does a perfectly adequate job. But once you get comfortable with the basic technique you might then consider Vuescan or one of the Silverfast programs. I've used all three and prefer Silverfast Ai but using Silverfast to its best advantage involves a steep learning curve (at least it did for me). Vuescan is a little easier but the controls are less intuitive and the help available for it is limited and kind of confusing. Again, just my opinion.

[bounty]

Ok, I read a review posted on google about the Epson V 700 done by a british gentleman that pretty much described the V 700 as a very good scanner.
I am a couple days from receiving my 700 and would like to know if there are a standard rule about dpi when it comes to scan negatives. may be it's in the manual, but by experience can you guys tell me what a 35 mm, 2 1/4 and 4X5 negatives be scanned at?
For examlpe It seems like for the 4X 5 negative 1200 dpi does a fine job, so why go 2400?


thank you

Bounty

[Armin Seeholzer]

35mm at 6400 DPI
mf at 4800 or 2400
4x5 at 2400
It gets a tiny bit sharper at 2400 then at 1200 !

Hope it helps Armin

[ifer]

some people go for 4000dpi for 4x5.
i think it basically how large you have the image to be printed.

[bounty]

Yes, it's very helpful.
thank you.
I just got my V700 last night. Didn't have too much time to play with it yet, but the online manual sucks (at least in my case) I would rather have something to carry and study around. I noticed that in the configuration it doesn't say 4 X5 I think it has 6X6 6X8 6X9 I forgot the rest but didn't see 4X5 .

Bounty

[bounty]

Hey guys I forgot to tell you




HAPPY THANKSGIVING FROM SUNNY San Diego

[bounty]

Ok I am back
I am getting use to the scaner, but my gosh those files are huge.
I scanned a 4X5 at 2400 dpi wich resulted of a 4 MB file, but when I opened up photoshop and did some editing the file went up to 30 MB. One a the pictures went up to 50 MB after photoshop editing.
Is there a way around it not to have so many MB?:confused:
Can we use photoshop and edit before the scan??? I realize that it sounds silly, but hey I asked anyway:o .


Bounty

[Ted Harris]

Hmmmmmm, if you scanned a full frame 4x5 at 2400 dpi in 16bit RGB, which is the way you should, then you should have had a file size in the 600 MB range.

In today's photo world a 4 MB file is tiny and a 60 MB file is still small. When I shoot in raw mode with my Fuji S5 I get a 25 MB file ... for comparison.

No, you can't edit before the scan, there is nothing to edit.

[bounty]

Wow, 60 MB is small??? I don't have 600 MB for sure. I am scanning at 2400 dpi not sure about the 16 bit rgb, though. I don't shoot raw, because the files are too big for my taste and it's not like I am a pro making $$$$$$$$$$$ selling very high resolution pictures.
Sorry about the silly question concerning editing before scanning.

Thank you for replying
Bounty

[Ted Harris]

You should check all your settings .... if you want to chat with me to walk through settings send me a PM with a phone number.

[bounty]

Thanks, let me check the setting first, but since I am at work it's going to take some times

thank you

Bounty

[Ken Lee]

You might find this interesting:
http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/models/vseries.html

The fellow makes film holders that improve on the standard holder, and allow you to adjust the height for best sharpness. I tried it on my 4990, and it improves sharpness.

Another thing to consider is that when using a view camera for landscapes like the one you have submitted here, we often apply forward tilt. Depending on how high the objects are in the center of the image, they can stick up, out of the plane of focus. Of course, at f/32 and beyond, that wouldn't be a problem in this photo - but perhaps in others.

In any event, consumer-grade scanners do have their limitations. They usually deliver 2/3 of their stated resolution, at best.

[bounty]

Ted. I finally got the chance to look at my scanner. I am not sure about the 16 bit RGB you are speaking of? Where is this at? I see the 24 & 48 bit color, with the & 16 grayscale. I am confused because I scanned some 4X5 at 2400 DPI and they are 4 MB not 300 MB??????????????????????


bOUNTY

[Kirk Gittings]

48 bit color is what Ted means by 16 bit RGB, 16 bits for each of the three RGB channels. This confused me too when I first started.

But a 4x5 scanned at 16 bit, 2400 ppi should give you about a 300mb file. If you are not getting that you have some settings wrong. Post a screen shot of your settings if you can.

BTW, Ted and I are now scheduling our next Scanning & Digital Workflow Workshop for late January or early February in Columbus OH. Send me or Ted a PM for more info.

[bounty]

48 bit color is what Ted means by 16 bit RGB, 16 bits for each of the three RGB channels. This confused me too when I first started.

But a 4x5 scanned at 16 bit, 2400 ppi should give you about a 300mb file. If you are not getting that you have some settings wrong. Post a screen shot of your settings if you can.

BTW, Ted and I are now scheduling our next Scanning & Digital Workflow Workshop for late January or early February in Columbus OH. Send me or Ted a PM for more info.

Ok so far so good, but I dont have 300MB only 5 MB. What is a PM? Is it like exif? If I sent you a shoot would it be enough?How do I download the shoot into this site?

Bounty

[Kirk Gittings]

A PM is a personal message. To post an image go to the "Go Advanced" reply, then down to "attach files" and "manage attachments" and download as per specifications.

[Bjorn Nilsson]

Are you getting a JPEG file maybe??? In that case it could be as small as you say. Normally most of us set the scanner software to deliver TIFF files.

//Björn

[bounty]

Are you getting a JPEG file maybe??? In that case it could be as small as you say. Normally most of us set the scanner software to deliver TIFF files.

//Björn

Yes I am getting a JPEG file.
Not sure where or how I set it up to JPEG. Refresh my memory as far as setting it up to TIFF, JPEG,...........
What do you guys usually do with a 600 MB file?Do you print?
I download it to a web site which doesn't allow me to upload more than 24 MB this is why I am saving JPEG. May be I shoudl save it as a TIFF extension too???

Bounty

[Michael T. Murphy]

There are really two different "sizes" for your file. There is the stored size on disk, and there is the working size in Photoshop.

The JPEG file sizes can be fairly small on disk. The Photoshop file sizes are quite a bit different. My scans from for 4x5 with the V700 run from about 300 meg to 1 gigabyte. I *think* those are the 8 bit sizes. About double that for 16 bit.

Even for those large files, the JPEG size on disk can be small, around 5meg. So that is what you will need to use to upload the files with your size restrictions.

Your scanning settings will be a set of compromises depending on your computing power and storage space and the time you are willing to wait.

Of course it is best to scan at a high resolution in 16 bit to a TIFF file (no compression, no compromise of image quality.) The concept is to capture the best possible scan the first time, then resize that (repurpose) as needed.

So, for example, if you need to upload as you mentioned, you could open the TIFF in Photoshop and save it as a JPEG to get a small size on disk. If you need a small image for the web, you do your processing, adjustments, then downsize to about 800x600 pixels in Photoshop. That is maybe about 600K in PS, maybe 65K on disk.

In reality, it can be very slow and a PITA to scan at high resolution at 16bit, and almost impossible to do *anything* in Photoshop if you don't have enough RAM.

What computer are you using? How much RAM? How much storgae space?

I scan my 4x5 at 2400 dpi in 16 bit, no sharpening, save in TIFF. Then I adjust to a comfortable working size using the PS crop tool or Image Size without resampling.

Good luck! Scanning 4x5 is not so bad, because tere are not quite so many, and you can be a little "sloppy" in the process and still get good quality.

Question for folks: What seems to be the best scan height on the V700 for 4x5, with the Epson holders? Haven't had a chance to test yet. Thanks!

[bounty]

I hear you
I got a Hp windows vista only 1 GB and 320 GB of space + another 250 external HD.
I see what you are saying by using TIFF then image re-sizing. Like you said the file will be huge I have probably 30 4X5 and I am not going to print any of them. When I worked on PS with my smal 5MB JPEG it get up to 50 MB, so I am afraid of using TIFF on PS.
I can't imagine working on PS with a TIFF file.
Anyway , If you were to print a 11X 14 with JPEG and TIFF would you say that th difference will be HUGE or just noticable??????

Thanks for the info

I tried the 3mm space/height and it seems to be ok


Bounty