epson 4990 scanner

[John Berry ( Roadkill )]

For a sample here is a post from another site I visit :
http://groups.msn.com/Asktheoleproaboutphotography/general.msnw?action=get_message&mview=0&ID_Message=210124&LastModified=4675533776554029691

[John Berry ( Roadkill )]

I sacn 4X5 at 2400 PPI 48 bit RGB = 560 meg. I have JPC's master class book and he recomends scanning in RGB and doing what Kirk said earlier in this thread or dropping each channel on the image as a layer and masking to use different channels for different parts of the image. I did that with one B&W neg and had a 3.4 gig file to start mixing with!

[Julio Fernandez]

John: Silverfast 6Ai is also in my experience great software. It enables you to extract maximum information before you edit in Photoshop for after all, Photoshop can only work on what is in the scan. That said, Silverfast can only extract what the scanner sees. What any scanner will see in dry mounted film is considerable scattering of the light which emphasizes imperfections and diminishes contrast and brilliance. That gives drum scanners the optical edge, because they always are used with wet mounting. If you want to take the 499o or any other flatbed scanner to the max use it with mounting just like a drum scanner. You can learn more about wet mounting in the yahoo group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SCANMAX/

[David R Munson]

I just bought one a few weeks ago and so far I couldn't be more pleased. I've been getting great results from it on both color and B&W, both with thinner and denser negs. Everything here was scanned on the 4990. I just wish I had more time for scanning right now, because it does a great job. It's putting new life into some of my old work that, until now, I only had mediocre scans of (at best).

[Brian Ellis]

John - Thanks for the response. I have JPC's Master Class book also and don't remember reading anything in it like Kirk suggests (as always, my memory certainly could be faulty). But rather than my searching the entire book could you point out where he suggests scanning grayscale in rgb as Kirk suggested? I'd like to read what he has to say because on his web site he certainly says he usually sees no difference between scanning in grayscale and scanning in rgb. Please understand, I'm not in the least questioning Kirk's method, in fact I plan to try it, nor am I arguing with you. I'm just trying to gather information so that hopefully I can settle on one method and feel comfortable with it.

[Eirik Berger]

I have also purchased this scanner resently, The purpose is to scan my 8x10" BW negatives in a decent way. I have realized that I need to do some researching/testing to get the best results possible.

I tried both Silverfast AI and the Epson software, but lately I have done some testing with Vuescan with great results.
I have experimented with multisampling (from 2-16x, but I guess i will stick with 8x in the future) and with "Long exposure pass".

Krik and Brian, the idea to scan BW negatives as 48-bit RGB and then choose the blue channel sounds very interesting. I agree with Brians concerns regarding file sizes. The files will be too large for my hardware to handle.
An selection in Vuescan is "Make grey from". You can choose between Auto, Red, Green, Blue and Infrared.
Will this do the same as scanning it in RGB and choose the blue channel? I will definetly test this.

[Ed Richards]

> An selection in Vuescan is "Make grey from". You can choose between Auto, Red, Green, Blue and Infrared. Will this do the same as scanning it in RGB and choose the blue channel?

Yes, and it will reduce the file size problem dramatically. Using vuescan to reduce the file size before writing the file also helps. I have found that sampling at 4800 DPI and then having Vuescan reduce the file by 2 (effectively 2400 DPI) is the best bet. This is better than multisampling for me because of the alignment issues - the scanner light heats the negative and causes it to move during long multisampling passes. Since this gives me about 180 meg file from 4x5, you are going to end up with about a 700 meg file. My guess is that 8x10 is not a pure scale up in resolution (movement, film flatness, etc.), so you might try resizing these files to about 500 and see if there is any difference. Keep us posted - I suspect this will work very well, as long as Newton's rings do not become a problem. Handing the 500 meg files is another story, unless you have a very fast computer and lots of ram, or a LOT of patience.:-)

[Eirik Berger]

Movement because of multisampling I havent thought of, but that may be a problem of course. I use Scotch tape to ensure that the negatives lies flat on the glass. This should solve movement problems. I have also flipped the negative with the emulsion side down to reduce newton rings, and flip it back in vuescan (Mirror). I have not seen newton rings ever since with Fuji Acros (with Tmax I still see newtonrings from time to time).

How do you make Vuescan reduce filesize by 2?
Is it "TIFF size reduction" under the "output" tab?

I have learned a lot today, I will keep you posted.

[Kirk Gittings]

Movement during multisampling is an issue with SF and my 4990. SF "Studio" version has an alignment program that works pretty well but some times the movement is too great for the software to solve.

Three points:

Make sure your scanner is on a very firm surface that will absorb the vibrations.

Make sure that an air conditioner is not blowing directly on the scanner.

This sounds weird but it works. Tilt the scanner on its left side and tape the lid down. That takes the weight off the center of a 4x5 and gives some improvement in sharpness.

Do a batch scan from the samenegative and settings. The first one will take the heat and settle down. the second or third will be best. Pick the best one and throw the others away. It works.

[Ed Richards]

> Is it "TIFF size reduction" under the "output" tab?

Yes. Just set it to 2, or even 3, if you want to see the effect of different downsamplings.

> Movement during multisampling is an issue with SF and my 4990.

Silverfast makes multiple scans. The latest Vuescan takes multiple samples with a single pass, so scanner movement is not an issue, at least within reason. I am not sure what taping may do if the negative is trying to buckle from the heat. Are you sure you need to multi-scan at all? Unless your negative is really dense or really thin, it may not matter.