Leaf 45 scanner

[Doug Dolde]

Since my name was mentioned I guess some clarification might be in order.

I use the Leafscan 45 with Silverfast and Burney Poh's glass mounting plate. Go to Yahoo Groups for more info on this though he may not have many left for sale. His plate lets me wet mount the transparencies using Kami or baby oil (messier but actually better than Kami in terms of solid contact with no voids).

To up the resolution I scan a 4x5 in two passes at 2540 dpi then stitch them with PanaVue Image Assembler. I can't see any flaws in the stitching using this software. So I get a file that will print at 24x30 (360 dpi).

Is the Leafscan 45 perfect? No...there is some color fringing which is likely due to the three passes not aligning perfectly. But at actual pixels I can't see it nor can I see it on a print. Also it is a bit slow but I run Silverfast in stand alone mode so I can be working on another image in Photoshop while it is scanning in the background. So slow doesn't bother me.

I find the color quite good (I haven't done a color profile of the scanner) and better than the Epson 4990. The sharpness is WAY superior to the Epson as well.

Still, it doesn't beat a Tango drum scan which for me is the gold standard. I also compared a scan I did several years ago on an Imacon Photo scanner at 3200 dpi. The Imacon did give some more detail mostly I think due to the higher dpi.

[manuel johson]

Thank you all for your great feedback. I am not clear about the technique Doug is describing. Are you scanning a one half of the image and latter the other and stitching them afterwards? I would check yahoo groups for more info.

[Doug Dolde]

Thank you all for your great feedback. I am not clear about the technique Doug is describing. Are you scanning a one half of the image and latter the other and stitching them afterwards? I would check yahoo groups for more info.

Yes I scan the 4x5 in portrait mode in two halves @ 2540 dpi then stitch them using Panavue Image Assembler's Mosaic mode. Flawless.

[Doug Dolde]

I concur with what has been written above. I sold my LeafScan45 after finding that the Epson 1680 and 4870 that I owned at that same time gave better results. My current Epson 4990 is even better. The Leaf was sharper but its lower resolution on 4x5 film would not match the prints made by the Epsons. For 6x6 and 6x7 the LeafScan was superior to the 1680 and 4870, but not that much.

My experience is just the opposite. Sold the 4990 after getting the Leaf. However I do use the glass plate and wet mount, use Silverfast, and scan 4x5 at 2540 in two halves then stitch. If you weren't doing all this the Epson might appear better. But doing this I get scans that are so close to Tango scans I have stopped sending them out entirely.

[Henry Ambrose]

Well sure Doug, if you stitch two scans carefully and well the Leaf would perform great. But if you just run the the LeafScan 45 and 4990 head to head the Epson wins handily with its higher resolution.

What I don't get is the talk about the Leaf software being difficult to use. I think its one of the simplest and easiest ever. The Leaf is a great machine given its limitations.

[Doug Dolde]

http://www.painted-with-light.com/NE...2006_LARGE.jpg


Here's a scan done on the Leaf.

[Henry Ambrose]

Looks good.
In what part of Arizona was this taken?

[Doug Dolde]

No way. This is the Hoh Rain Forest in the Olympic National Park, Washington.

Arizona doesn't have a rain forest

[Marco]

I've been using a 4990 for a year now to scan my 4x5" and 8x10" originals, I don't enlarge more than 4X and print on an Epson 9600 and I found the resulting prints good, we (me and my wife) had a solo show in Milan in march and there were prints from 4990 scans and prints from Creo scans, at our low level of enlargement nobody was able to say the differences.
What is very different thuogh is the digital workflow involved: since the Epson 4990 scans are very soft, you have to work very hard and in a very sophisticated way in PS to obtain good results (i.e. to restore apparent sharpeness without causing too much noise or other strange artifacts), while with a Creo or, better, a drum scanner, the post production work is much easier...

Ciao
Marco