New article by Leigh Perry: Collaborative scanner comparison

[Leonard Evens]

I don't see any images under Mozilla Firefox. The page did work properly in a previous version. I do have javascript enabled.

[Alan Corker]

The scan target itself is flawed it seems to be shot under artificial light and therefore has a very constricted colour-space or tonal range thereby favouring the cheaper scanners.

I use on a daily basis a Heidelberg Topaz that wipes the floor with my own Epson 4990 in every respect (as you would expect at that price, however the point is a relative quality comparison, not a price comparison). I only usually use my 4990 for 1:1 reflective document archiving which is all it really does well.

Your results only show how good each unit is at scanning that particular individual target, and should not be used to form an overall and authoritative or definitive relative comparison.

Why not scan a Kodak IT8 5x4" transparency target and produce an ICC profile for each unit under test, then graphically overlay each IT8 profile onto the Adobe 1998, or some such, common reference colour space? I can't think of a quicker more accurate way to quantify the capability of a scanner and quickly identify it's weaknesses in terms of colour reproduction. For testing resolution, just a simple LPMM chart should answer any question you have?

Very best regards.

[Paddy Quinn]

"Why not scan a Kodak IT8 5x4" transparency target and produce an ICC profile for each unit under test, then graphically overlay each IT8 profile onto the Adobe 1998, or some such, common reference colour space? I can't think of a quicker more accurate way to quantify the capability of a scanner and quickly identify it's weaknesses in terms of colour reproduction. For testing resolution, just a simple LPMM chart should answer any question you have?"

Why? because most of us don't photograph charts and targets, rather "real" things. This is the same argument made by the old lens testing/lpm/USAF target crowd. The results were often good in theory but not always so in the real world.

"Your results only show how good each unit is at scanning that particular individual target, and should not be used to form an overall and authoritative or definitive relative comparison."

nor does it claim to

(I think the test image here was shot in daylight by the way?)

[Ed K.]

Great stuff. I don't think that the Epson 4990 test results are

very far off, if at all. It's a good scanner for proofs and small prints

and that's about it. My results, even with Silverfast AI yield

similar results to those shown - soft, artifacts and close, but no

dice kind of output. For those of us who have to get drum scans done

at a lab, it would be very revealing to send the same slide around

to various labs to compare the results.

[Doug Dolde]

A Seybold scanner report worth reading addresses the high end scanners.

http://www.seyboldreports.com/SRPS/subs/3001/html/pixelperfect2.html

[Steven]

The Microtek i800 and the Epson V700 are out. Are there any plans to try and add them to the list? They both look to be promising (for the price, or course).

[Leigh Perry]

I'll include any scanners that I can get access to. If someone has either, just let me know.

[Aaron Rocky]

Crosfield gives the best shadow detail IMO.

[Ron Marshall]

The 4990 is fine for a three times enlargement from b/w or color neg, it doesn't do as well with transparencies.

[DrPablo]

I'd been having a hard time getting shadow detail from positive transparencies to scan well using Lasersoft Ai and my Microtek i800. But I've discovered that if you go in and manually increase the gamma to 2.2 or so and scan in 48-bit HDR there will be plenty of shadow detail. You can then use curves in PS to restore the contrast.