really high end drumscanners & negatives

[adrian tyler]

hello all, i've a question that has been bugging me for years, i work in the graphic arts and design and produce illustrated books for museums and such likes. i got interested in photography thanks to this work, but i must say that the best (digital) colour correctors i have come across here in spain are not the people i've found in labs – digital pretty new there – but the people who work in the photomecanical separators, repro houses. infact there are a few photographers in spain like my self who produce there work in a repro house rather than a lab for that reason.

which brings me to my question: the repro house that i work with have 2 very high end drumscanners, a hell chromograph s3010 and an s3900, we can work round slides and b/w negs but the thing is they are unable to get any decent software for scanning and converting colour negs, which is really frustrating because, on paper at least, these scanners blow most of the competition away.

i'd really appreciate any ideas or pointers as to who i could approach or what to do about this situation.

thanks to all.

adrian

[Bruce Watson]

I feel your pain. The Hell scanners are excellent machines. They were built for major league pre-press, which meant scanning chromes at high volumes. And at this, they excel. What they don't do well is negatives, and that is due to the software, as you surmise.

AFAIK, there is no third party software to drive the Hell scanners. If you can't find such software, you can still proceed.

First option, scan the negatives as chromes. Invert them and remove the orange contrast mask in Photoshop. It's somewhat tedious and time comsuming, but it's do-able. You'd want 16 bit scans for this though because some of your corrections may be large, at least initially as you and the scanner operator work things out.

Second option is to look for a drum scan provider who has a scanner that has negative friendly software. The desktop scanners are your best bet here I think, since they were designed to be more versatile to serve the broader needs of the smaller pre-press houses with their "fringe" customer base (IOW the non-advertising and non-magazine work). I'm talking about scanners like the Optronics ColorGetters (I have one, and ColorRight 2.0 does an excellent job with negatives), the Howteks and Azteks (Aztek bought the scanner business from Howtek years ago, and makes DPL software which is supposed to be excellent with all films), the Screens, and the ScanMates. The ICGs might be a good alternative in Europe (made in UK) but I don't know how negative friendly their software is.

Third option is to buy your own drum scanner on the used market. They are generally quite inexpensive (mine was about 5% of new cost, and the price has since dropped by half again). The learning curve for drum scanning is about the same as the learning curve for using a LF camera. If I can do it, you can do it! And, it doesn't take many scans to justify buying your own scanner at the prices on the used markets these days. In my case it was around 50 scans, and I've done hundreds in the last few years. That said, drum scanners in general are big, noisy, generate lots of waste heat, and really want to run in an airconditioned environment.

Feel free to contact me off list if you think I can help.

[Michael Mutmansky]

There is one other option that you may want to explore. If you can produce linear unconverted TIFF files from the drum scanneras, you should be able to use Silverfast HDR to convert the file from a digital copy of the negative into a good color reproduction of the source subject.

It's my impression from trials that I have done that the SF software works the best for quality color from color negative film. Since the HDR version can read a file and convert, it may be a good way to do the color conversion, and it may produce much better results than the Hell software.

YOu should be able to test this without any investment, other than time. download the SF HDR trial version and make a few negatives on the drum that are essentially scanned as unmanipulated chromes (no color correction and no curves applied). I don't know if that would me performing a true linear scan or not, because you need to address the linearity of the PMT and scanning system. However, some simple tests could tell you if it were worth more agressive effort to hone in on a good system. I suspect it will be worth the effort.


---Michael

[Gordon Moat]

I wish I had a contact for you in Spain, though I have not done any work through there. After graduating in 1998, I went into the design for print (graphic design) and pre-press preparation industry in California. My entry into photography is more recent, though I still do graphic design. In general, the feeling amongst many in the printing industry in the US is that photographers don't understand commercial printing, and rarely know much beyond RGB; an unfortunate assumption, though not without reason. So it does not surprise me that you find more knowledge from pre-press and service bureaux.

The Hell Chromograph is getting quite old as drum scanners go, though as you have found is still capable of good results. Linotype-Hell was the product of Linotype acquiring Hell, and then Heidelberg combined that into their company. Heidelberg are largely out of the scanning industry, so unless someone like LaserSoft want to make a version of SilverFast for it, I doubt new software will happen. When scanning negatives, you could always have it scanned as an even range transparency, then invert in PhotoShop later, though I understand that is not a convenient workflow. I have done this on lower specification film scanners, usually with better results than the scanning software would give me to scan as a negative.

The Heidelberg Tango is newer, but without software updates. A later machine called the Nexscan was actually a high end flatbed, though not very good compared to modern items. The software went from Linocolor to Newcolor, which support negative scanning, though do not support the older Hell Chromograph. None of these machines nor any of the software are sold by Heidelberg currently.

A place with a Creo EverSmart or iQSmart might be able to do a better job of the scans, if their operator knows what he/she is doing. These are modern high end flat scanners that will actually outperform that old Hell drum scanner. Other high end flat scanners are Fuji Lanovia Quattro and Screen Cezanne. Dainippon Screen also make drum scanners that are quite good, though the best drum scanners currently made are from ICG. If you find a place that has any one of those, they can potentially do a better job scanning negatives, if their operator runs these properly. Best of luck.

Ciao!

Gordon Moat

[adrian tyler]

thanks for your thoughts, that's pretty much what i had feared, we have scanned negs as positives and converted in photoshop but as you say gordon it's not the best workround.

i'll give the file conversion in silverfast a try but it seems that, short of buying a new scanner, anything we do with colour negs on these machines will be a bit of a "fudge".

[julian]

thanks for your thoughts, that's pretty much what i had feared, we have scanned negs as positives and converted in photoshop but as you say gordon it's not the best workround.

i'll give the file conversion in silverfast a try but it seems that, short of buying a new scanner, anything we do with colour negs on these machines will be a bit of a "fudge".

Afrian send me a positive 16bit scan and I'll see what negpos can do. You'll need to courier it though as it will be to big for my ftp

Julian

[Tom Westbrook]

Check out NegPos, a PS plug-in for color conversion. Tim Atherton mentioned it here a while ago and I've been impressed with its conversion capabilities, esp. with color neg material. It's has a fairly clunky user interface. It does a much better job than Silverfast or PS by itself does, IMHO. There's a demo version: http://www.c-f-systems.com/Plug-ins.html

[Leigh Perry]

Adrian, take a look at NegPos by David Dunthorn. It's a breakthrough PS plug-in for inverting neg scans. You will need to scan as a 16 bit positive -- the essential step is to get a true linear scan (gamma = 1.0), and David now provides some hints for how to get these for certain scanners, including any supported by Vuescan.

Download the trial version and try it out for free.

[Leigh Perry]

That must be a record! Three concurrent NegPos posts.

[julian]

That must be a record! Three concurrent NegPos posts.

Although I think Kirk found silverfast to be better! Once you 've done the calibration, Adrian, it is a one click solution... I'll do the calibration for you if you want...