Cezanne Elite Chrome Test

[jetcode]

I tried some chromes tonight to see how the Cezanne Elite handled them. The following images are derived from the main tree image. Note that the file was captured in 16 bit from 4x5 Velvia to a 1.32 gig file. The image was processed in ColorGenius at scan time. The original image is not sharp and while some of this may be due to CCD vs PMT my guess is I was using a really poor lens and didn't have good proper focus. This image was from my early days. The two tiles are from the main image at 100% before I resized to 96 dpi and applied unsharp mask to the image; 20% 2.0 pixel 0 threshold. They are presented here to inspect for grain and noise. The main image was saved with a jpeg compression of 50%.

Sandy would you be up for scanning this image on your drum scanner for comparison?

Joe

[Scott Rosenberg]

joe, please take no umbrage by this, as it is merely a friendly suggestion, but if you are going to go to all the trouble of conducting a round-robin scanning experiment, why not start with a critically sharp original?

also, doesn't sandy (if you mean king) have a creo eversmart pro, and not a drum scanner?

just a suggestion, admittedly an unsolicited one...

[jetcode]

joe, please take no umbrage by this, as it is merely a friendly suggestion, but if you are going to go to all the trouble of conducting a round-robin scanning experiment, why not start with a critically sharp original?

also, doesn't sandy (if you mean king) have a creo eversmart pro, and not a drum scanner?

just a suggestion, admittedly an unsolicited one...

I'm working on it Scott, I have lots of film that I am revisiting. The one thing to note about this image, if the scanner was producing a lot of noise it wouldn't matter if the image was sharp or not the noise would be there. Once I find a nice crisp image I will post the results in this thread. I don't have a lot of chrome. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Joe

[Ted Harris]

The original image is not sharp and while some of this may be due to CCD vs PMT my guess is I was using a really poor lens and didn't have good proper focus. This image was from my early days. The two tiles are from the main image at 100% before I resized to 96 dpi and applied unsharp mask to the image; 20% 2.0 pixel 0 threshold.

Joe a couple of points and questions:

1) Did you look at the film on a light table with a good quality loupe before you scanned? If so, what did that tell you about sharpness?

2) You noted that the file was 16bit. At what spi were you scanning?

3) How did you resize? The routine you use here can have major effects on the final image.

3) If you were sharpening a file with a resolution of 96 ppi then your sharpenoing routine is not one that would get you the best results not to mention that smart sharpening is a much better way to go.

To add to what Scott said, a scanning round robin is going to tell you little that you can't already find out from mother sources. The Scanner comparison that is on the Large Format Home Page is probably as good as it gets for comparisons of this type and it is not perfect. You have no real idea of the skill of the other scanners, don't know if they rigorously followed the same routine, know nothing about the quality of their hardware, etc. Nor, for that matter, do you really know about the condition of your own equipment.

Finally, small JPEG's of scanned images give us only the barest of bones to use as a guideline as to what the actual image looks like.

[jetcode]

The original image is not sharp and while some of this may be due to CCD vs PMT my guess is I was using a really poor lens and didn't have good proper focus. This image was from my early days. The two tiles are from the main image at 100% before I resized to 96 dpi and applied unsharp mask to the image; 20% 2.0 pixel 0 threshold.

Joe a couple of points and questions:

1) Did you look at the film on a light table with a good quality loupe before you scanned? If so, what did that tell you about sharpness?

2) You noted that the file was 16bit. At what spi were you scanning?

3) How did you resize? The routine you use here can have major effects on the final image.

3) If you were sharpening a file with a resolution of 96 ppi then your sharpenoing routine is not one that would get you the best results not to mention that smart sharpening is a much better way to go.

To add to what Scott said, a scanning round robin is going to tell you little that you can't already find out from mother sources. The Scanner comparison that is on the Large Format Home Page is probably as good as it gets for comparisons of this type and it is not perfect. You have no real idea of the skill of the other scanners, don't know if they rigorously followed the same routine, know nothing about the quality of their hardware, etc. Nor, for that matter, do you really know about the condition of your own equipment.

Finally, small JPEG's of scanned images give us only the barest of bones to use as a guideline as to what the actual image looks like.

spoken like the pro you are Ted

the spi is 3600, I will investigate the image on the light table but I know it's not sharp because I scanned new 4x10 test images on Bergger 200 using a 210mm macro that are crystal clear, I can hold this image to the light and see it is soft, bad first choice

I resized using bicubic sharper

I did notice that the MAC I'm running is SLOW!!! while it may be fine for scanning images, post processing using curves takes forever, post processing using AI (whatever that means) has little impact which tells me it is a scanner adjustment or a very simple post process

Yes, the test in the forum is excellent but Screen and newer Imacons are not featured. The goal of this exercise for me was to see that scanning chromes (checking for density and noise) is indeed possible though I will most likely only shoot negative materials

[Brian Ellis]

I see these kinds of tests all the time, several here recently. I haven't wanted to ask this question because the people making them all seem to have ultra-expensive equipment and generally appear to know more about scanning than I do. But Ted's response has prompted me to ask the question so, without intending to disparage anyone's tests including these, here it is:

why do I care what a small segment of one scan looks like compared to a small segment of a scan from another scanner, or for that matter why do I care what a scan of the entire image looks like compared to one from another scanner? Isn't how the print looks the only thing that matters? Do I really care, for example, that one scan has more noise than another or that one produces better contrast than another or even that one looks sharper at 100% view than another, if in each case I can make essentially identical prints from them with Photoshop or Noise Ninja or some other tool?

I can understand that for a pro doing his or her own printing, where time is money, there's an advantage to getting a scan that requires as little subsequent processing as possible but I'm not a pro and I spend a lot of time on each print that I make anyhow, so adding another five or ten minutes to eliminate noise or sharpen the print or fix whatever other "defect" exists in my scan as compared to another scanner that wouldn't have produced that "defect" doesn't matter to me. Of course if one of the two scans is so "defective" that no amount of processing can fix it, that's another story. Anyhow, as I say, I don't mean to disparage these kinds of tests, I just don't see the point of most of them.

[jetcode]

why do I care what a small segment of one scan looks like compared to a small segment of a scan from another scanner, or for that matter why do I care what a scan of the entire image looks like compared to one from another scanner? Isn't how the print looks the only thing that matters?

if your scanned image sucks imagine what the print will look like
as far as posting this here, probably wasn't a real good idea, but then again i'm just a hack anyway

[Phong]

why do I care what a small segment of one scan looks like compared to a small segment of a scan from another scanner, or for that matter why do I care what a scan of the entire image looks like compared to one from another scanner? Isn't how the print looks the only thing that matters? Do I really care, for example, that one scan has more noise than another or that one produces better contrast than another or even that one looks sharper at 100% view than another, if in each case I can make essentially identical prints from them with Photoshop or Noise Ninja or some other tool?

I am with you 100%, Brian. For these tests to be useful, there has to be a strong corelation between how a scan looks on the screen and how the resulting prints look on paper. While there certainly is a corelation, there are so many other variables (sample variations, print size, printer and ink, paper, nature of image, etc.) that really make many of the stated or implied conclusions quite dubious. Furthermore, while a set of tests could be valid for one person, the conclusion cannot universally be applicable to others.

[jetcode]

My first chrome test was excessively noisy supporting Sandy King's premise that a drum scan is superior to a flat bed scan. This test proves otherwise (for me). It was not meant to be conclusive nor do I really care if anyone approves of its presentation though I will no longer do so as it creates great irritation for the readers of this forum.

[Brian Ellis]

My first chrome test was excessively noisy supporting Sandy King's premise that a drum scan is superior to a flat bed scan. This test proves otherwise (for me). It was not meant to be conclusive nor do I really care if anyone approves of its presentation though I will no longer do so as it creates great irritation for the readers of this forum.

If this is addressed to me, I'm very sorry if I offended you, I certainly didn't mean to and I tried to make it clear that in asking my question I was simply seeking information, it certainly wasn't intended as a back-handed way of disparaging your tests or any other similar tests.