Professional lab scanning issues

[jetcode]

Joe,
I have to respectfully disagree with your comment about scanner operators.

Why is it we place this mystique around the scan operator, the heavenly father who will make or break the scan? I have a Cezanne Elite, I am not Ted, I get great scans. Scanning is an art that can be learned and perfected. Everyone starts from the same place.

[IanMazursky]

I am not advocating any sort of mystique, just respect.
Just as you would like me to respect you as an artist and not just someone who can press the shutter.
Would you respect a master printer or just call him a glorified enlarger monkey?
He is not just burning and dodging willy nilly, he is drawing on years of experience and training.

For better or worse I am a scanner operator, photographer, printer and retoucher.
I take pride in each and every scan. Many others do the same.
But in every crowd, there are some bad apples. We have gotten a bad reputation because of them.
It's also not true that we all start from the same place. Some have the benefit or can afford training from the manufacturer.
Some apprentice with masters scanners and some just wing it. Winging it takes time and lots of failures before something goods comes out.

Your running a flatbed. It's much easier to run one than a drum scanner.
It takes allot of time and practice to learn how to prepare, mount, clean, judge the prescan, adjust tone & curves and aperture/resolution.
On average i spend 5-20 minutes on each image (prescan), tweaking the curve and color before i start the scan.
Its a labour of love more than anything.

[jetcode]

I really enjoy how truly easy it is to get great scans from my flatbed

[jetcode]

I really enjoy how truly easy it is to get great scans from my flatbed

I would like to add that I as an engineer understand the implications of someone who has invested wisely in their craft. That said what becomes the bottom line as much as equipment and scan operator expertise is quality care concerning the results when applying their craft to something you hold valuable.

The scans I get may not be good enough for many but I am willing to spend the time necessary to make them right by my own judgment. My scanner makes the task fairly easy.

[Richard Kenward]

[QUOTE=IanMazursky;305353]Joe,
I have to respectfully disagree with your comment about scanner operators.

Drum scanning is an art as much as a science.
snip

I agree that the best drum scanning is a combination of the two and the determination to get the very best out of the film no matter how long it takes.

As for scan clean-up, I'm of the opinion that the aim should be to produce scans out of the scanner that need the absolute minimum of afterwork. Messing around with the pixels later because of lack of care in preparing film for scanning and then in the fluid mounting is a bad policy.

Great scans don't just happen, they are created, so be prepared to pay a decent amount for what goes into them.

Cheers

Richard <www.precision-drum-scanning.co.uk>