scanner/digital questions

[mattpallante]

Hello! I'm new to digital, and I'd like to ask for help in making some decisions. I've only played with a DSLR so far...I want to try scanning my LF negs and printing. I'm thinking of getting an Epson 700 SCANNER AND 3800 PRINTER. The negs will be B&W, 4 by 5, and 5 by 7. I would like to do 3 times enlargements. I've not done film scanning before. I'll get a QTR and third party inks. I'm thinking 360 dpi for printing, with a 16 bit scan/edit workflow.
1) Do I scan RGB or grayscale?
2) Does the fact that these negs were developed in PMK pyro affect #1 question?
3) Is the Betterlight wet/dry film holder a good product?
4) How to I estimate file sizes? Say a 5 by 7 neg scanned @ 1080 ppi for a 3 times enlargement? Would this be a good ppi?
5) My editor is Lightzone version 3 dot whatever, can it open and edit a file of this size, with my Intel/Imac 2.33 GHZ and 3 GHZ ram?
6) I'm currently using HP5, would FP4 give me a better scan?
7) Which third party inks for B&W on the 3800? Comments on the 3800 for B&W?
8) Can I do a wider print with the QTR?
Thanks much for any advice, info, and education...Matt

[Greg Lockrey]

1) RGB and use the green layer it's sharper.
4) You don't need to limit yourself with estimating your enlargements. Scan as large as your memory can handle readily.
7) Stay with Epson inks, you'll be glad you did. Why would anyone buy a printer of the 3800 caliber and muck it up with third party inks? The canned ABW is very good with the 3800 and QTR is good too.
8) Wider ??? You are limited to 34.4" no matter what you use.

[Peter De Smidt]

1) Do I scan RGB or grayscale?

There's only one way to find out. Scan in color and examine the channels in Photoshop. With regular BW, my Canon 9950f usually does best with Vuescan's making the gray file from the green channel.

2) Does the fact that these negs were developed in PMK pyro affect #1 question?

Probably. The blue channel will see the most density, but it also tends to have the most noise.

3) Is the Betterlight wet/dry film holder a good product?

It's necessary for a great scan (and enlargment) to have the negative flat while avoiding Newton's rings. With large grained films, I've found wet-mounting to give finer grained scans and more detail. With fine-grained films, I've not found a difference. Currently, I scan with the negative taped below white plexiglass, with the negative shimmed to the ideal height determined by experiment.

5) My editor is Lightzone version 3 dot whatever, can it open and edit a file of this size, with my Intel/Imac 2.33 GHZ and 3 GHZ ram?

Email the software people.

6) I'm currently using HP5, would FP4 give me a better scan?

Probably. Fine-grained film scans better than course grain film. To get the structure of grain right, you actualled need very high resolution, as a good number of sections of each grain should be sampled. If the grain isn't going to show in the image, then the resolution requirements are lower. Technical Pan gives me by far the best scans of any film.

7) Which third party inks for B&W on the 3800? Comments on the 3800 for B&W?

Probably MIS. I ran Mis K4 on a R2400. At first, everything was peachy. Then after about 6 months of use, I started to get nozzel problems. I switched back to Epson, and these problems went away. I'd try the Epson inks first. I have an r2400, and it does a terrific job with BW. I expect the 3800 is the same.

8) Can I do a wider print with the QTR?

Thanks much for any advice, info, and education...Matt[/QUOTE]

I think so, but ask Roy Harrington for sure.

[Joanna Carter]

Hello! I'm new to digital, and I'd like to ask for help in making some decisions. I've only played with a DSLR so far...I want to try scanning my LF negs and printing. I'm thinking of getting an Epson 700 SCANNER AND 3800 PRINTER. The negs will be B&W, 4 by 5, and 5 by 7. I would like to do 3 times enlargements. I've not done film scanning before. I'll get a QTR and third party inks. I'm thinking 360 dpi for printing, with a 16 bit scan/edit workflow.

By 3x enlargement, you are looking at 12x15 or just under A3+. The guidance for scanning resolution is to create a file at the finished size at 240/300dpi. You don't need to go to 360 as this will not yield any perceptible extra quality. 240dpi is perfectly adequate for the size that you anticipate so that means you will need to scan at at least 720 dpi; I routinely scan at 1200 to give me a 5x enlargement and to allow for any cropping, then downsize to the finished size just for printing but not saving that change to retain the larger image.

I scan in 16bit grayscale, adjusting the levels in the Epson driver to avoid cliping/flatness.

The Betterlight holder looks to be excellent, although I personally wouldn't bother with wet mounting for the size you require. Finding the optimum scanning height is well worth the effort.

If you want grain then FP4 is good but otherwise Delta 100 or Fuji Acros 100 are excellent fine grain alternatives.

If you are looking at alternative inks then may I suggest the Fotospeed Quill system? The inks are very reliable to the point that, when I recently had to leave my printer unused for 2 months, I only needed to run a couple of auto-clean cycles to get back to full working. This level of cleaning is what I would also expect from Epson inks.

Why would you bother with QTR? The Epson driver has an advanced B&W setting dialog which is very sophisticated and the K3 blacks inks provide a superbly balanced black that can be toned without any discernable metamerism.

Attached picture doesn't show printing but does show tonal range and detail of scanning as above.

YMMV, yada yada, etc

[Ted Harris]

Matt,

Much of the info supplied is good but as the last poster said YMMV. You might want to do some experimenting before you make final decisions. You can do that easily at our next workshop in September .... see the banner on Midwest website ... www.mpex.com ... download the brochure.

[Brian Ellis]

"I'll get a QTR and third party inks. . . . Which third party inks for B&W on the 3800? Comments on the 3800 for B&W?"

With QTR there's no need to use a third party b&w ink in the 3800. I used MIS inks and Paul Roark's curves for years before QTR came along because back then it was impossible to get a neutral b&w print using color inks unless you bought a RIP for $500 and up. However, MIS has always had aggravating quality control problems. I don't know how many cartridges I returned because they leaked or the cartridges weren't recognized by my printer. Then there was the time I spent days trying to figure out why my prints all of a sudden had a magenta tint, only to eventually learn from MIS that their supplier got the ink mixture wrong.

I bought QTR when it first came out ($50) and have been using it ever since, first with an Epson 2200 printer and now with a 3800, in each case with the standard Epson Ultra Chrome inks. I still prefer it to Advanced Black and White for the 3800 though many people who use ABW say it's fine too. Either way, with the 3800 I don't think you'll need to worry about using a third party ink for b&w printing. However, if I had to use one it would be either MIS or the Cone inks.

[Joanna Carter]

... Either way, with the 3800 I don't think you'll need to worry about using a third party ink for b&w printing. However, if I had to use one it would be either MIS or the Cone inks.

I would agree with you Brian, that you really don't need third-party inks "because" you are doing B&W; that was a solution for printers before the K3 series when you had to make up grays from coloured inks. The only reason I can see for using third-party inks is to save money by using a continuous ink system.

However, I would like to ask those suggesting QTR, apart from product loyalty, why they think it is necessary and what advantages they perceive it offers over the Epson driver facilities?

I, Personally, use the Epson advanced B&W with a *tiny* adjustment of horizontal 6 and vertical 9, to give me a beautiful "bromide" warm print without any *obvious* toning effect. Friends who are darkroom printers have commented that they had great difficulty telling the difference between my prints and theirs.

[Ted Harris]

Matt, you also may want to look at the Canon and HP printer offerings, IMO both give you better B&W output. If you can live witht eh 13x19 maximum paper size of the HP B9180 then you will have a very robust printer with superb B&W output at about half the price of the 3800 and with none of the ink clogging worries of Epson printers. If you want to go larger then the Canon iPF 5000 (soon to be replaced by the 5100) outperforms the 3800 in many ways and can be had at sale prices for jsut about the same money as the 3800. You can read my review of the 5000 in the current issue of View Camera. I'd recommend it over the 3800 for a few simple reasons alone: 1) roll fed papere as well as a tray .. the 3800 has no roll feeder, 2) 12 ink set as opposed to 8 in the 3800 and 3) much more sophisticated printer driver.

[Michael Mutmansky]

Matt,

FP4 will scan with less visible grain than HP5. Some people like the look of grain, though, so it's somewhat of a personal choice. HP5 has a nice characteristic shoulder that makes it less prone to overdone highlights. That can come in handy in high contrast situations.

I think the era of third party inks is starting to end. The quality of B&W printing from stock inks from Epson, Canon, and possibly HP is high enough to all but eliminate the need for the B&W inksets from outside vendors. That doesn't mean that some people will prefer them still, but the stock inksets are definitely viable for B&W printing these days.

I use an Epson 4800 with QTR and the stock inksets for my B&W printing, partially because I need to be able to print in color as well, but also because I want an air-dried silver gelatin paper look, and the third-party inks are all formulated for mat 'fine art' papers.

PMK is an interesting problem for a scanner. You have to be very careful of the channel differences when scanning, or you will blow out the highlights. Other than that, there is nothing different about PMK. It should produce a scan with less apparent grain compared to the same film developed in a non-staining formula.


----Michael

[Peter De Smidt]

I use an Epson 4800 with QTR and the stock inksets for my B&W printing, partially because I need to be able to print in color as well, but also because I want an air-dried silver gelatin paper look, and the third-party inks are all formulated for mat 'fine art' papers.

I used the Mis K4 inks with Photo Black for quite awhile on Epson Semi-Gloss, Semi-matte, and Silver Rag. The look was slightly less glossy than Epson's K3. I liked the MIS look, but I got sick of various issues.

PMK is an interesting problem for a scanner. You have to be very careful of the channel differences when scanning, or you will blow out the highlights. Other than that, there is nothing different about PMK. It should produce a scan with less apparent grain compared to the same film developed in a non-staining formula.

Not necessarily. PMK is a great developer, but it is not a fine-grained. It will (probably) give less grain than a negative developed to the same contrast in a non-staining Pyro developer. It will, though, give larger grain than the same film developed in D76 or Xtol developed to the same contrast. (Note that same contrast is a tricky thing with dealing the stain.)