Scanner questions

[Brian Ellis]

Kirk - Why is it necessary to scan a negative as a positive to get a raw scan? Wouldn't a scan of a negative as a negative but doing everything else you suggest also be a raw scan?

[tim atherton]

Vuescan lets you capture the complete raw scan - I use that for colour neg, and then NegPos to convert it.

(NegPos doesn't seem to do quite as well with B&W - but that's probably just me - but you can get the greyscale raw scan the same way with vuescan)

[Kirk Gittings]

Ed,
For color negs, you could do that but why would you want to? You would need a color profile to accurately correct for that manufactures orange mask and those are only available in scanner software as far as I know. It would be virtually impossible to correct a raw scan of a color negative back to a decent positive image without those profiles.

[tim atherton]

Kirk, I've found NegPos does a much better job of converting raw colour neg scans than most of the scanner software (I have a slightly older version of Silverfast which is pretty good) - especially once you have tweaked it.

(btw - I find the older version of the software that's on the website actually still works better fro me than the free upgrade for licensed users)

I'll try and dig up the website, but you can google it and download the 30 day trial version

[Kirk Gittings]

Thanks Tim, I have never even heard of that.

[Kirk Gittings]

"Kirk - Why is it necessary to scan a negative as a positive to get a raw scan? Wouldn't a scan of a negative as a negative but doing everything else you suggest also be a raw scan?"

Brian, Yes of course. I was simply answering his statement that it couldn't be done in SF. I am not sure why anyone would want to do this. The silverfast profiles work exceedinly well at interpreting various neg films color and b&w. Though sometimes I actually prefer the wrong profile such as Ilford Pan F profile for Fuji Acros. But I have never tried or even heard of Neg/Pos. I will try it. Maybe I have missed something good.

[tim atherton]

http://www.c-f-systems.com/Phototips.html

www.c-f-systems.com/Docs/NegPosNotes.htm

http://www.c-f-systems.com/PhotoMathDocs.html

http://www.c-f-systems.com/DunthornCalibration.html

http://www.c-f-systems.com/

etc

NegPos is a bit like early vuescan - you need to read the manual and do your own fiddling, but I have got exceptionally good results with it - especially on some colour negs that vuescan or silverfast seemed to have trouble with (one is an english pebble beach where the millions of pebbles run every colour from white through greys to blues to pinks beiges and greens - nothing I tried could ever quite cope with it...)

[M Brian Mills]

I have used the Epson 3200, 4870, and 4990 for scanning 4x5 black and white, color-neg, and chrome. I have found that ALL give excellent results. Even from the 3200 I have been able to print as large as 40x48 and have had people get to where their nose is almost touching the print to try to determine if it is digital or analog.
I just made another print a week ago at 24x30 and I must say...I love it.
I purchased an Epson 4990 (for the greater D-Max) for myself as the other Epson scanners I used were owned by others.
I highly recommend this scanner.

[Prashant]

I recently asked a local dealer about 1800f and he said it should be between 12-1300 Euro( in Germany.). RWhite did not have it at the time. If you want I can give you his address.
I plan to use RF most of the time so wish to replace my Minolta Multi by Nikon8000.