Screen Cezanne Users Unite

[Gentoo]

Hello All,

With the help of you I got the FT5500 fully up and running. I maxed the G4 (933MHz) to 1.5 GByte RAM / Sonnet SATA PCI Card + SSD / Belkin USB2 for ColorMunki and installed Leopard 10.5.8. I can confirm that as long as you don't open any other programms than ColorGenius, it's a practical and stable system (TimeMachine and result images straight to NAS via AFP). So, yes migration from OS9 to OS X Leopard in terms of network integration was a big step.

As always there are some tar pits I stumbled over - it maybe of use for somebody ...

1. When I installed ColorGenius 2.13 under OS X 10.4 and run the server app the whole system froze and a grey system screen appeared stating that the system had to be restarted. Since I could reproduce this freeze (even when using the maintainer) I checked the messages (see below) and found under panic.log that there was an issue with the SCSI card - BUT WAIT: it said SCSI(Adaptec78XX) !!! So the system used the wrong driver. Going to Adaptecs web site and downloading/installing the correct 2930CU driver fixed the issue. As sonn as Leopard was installed I immediately installed this driver here as well - no issues so far.



2. After connecting and scanning some slides I decided to clean the device / table. I also cleaned the lamps (a lot of dust settled there as well) but did not insert the lamp in the correct position. As a result the driver presented me an unspecified 1006 error saying that there was a communication error with the device. Since reflective scans run ok I knew that there was somthing wrong with the transparency lamp. Opening the lamp cover and switching on the device (front cover closed) confirmed the feeling: the lamp did not flash on. Setting the bulb to its correct position did the trick.



3. When scanning dark slides and using adapted ICC profiles for shadow optimization I experienced blooming almost 1 - 2 cm into the image. Therefore I cut my own masks for all kinds of formats. Here in Germany there is an art store (boesner) where I bought a heavy weighted paper with one side white and the opposite with glossy black surface, which eases the mounting with tesa 4104 tape (the same I use for drum scanning). It works quite well but for flatness I consider to add another (metal?) mask to flatten the sandwich.



So far I'm very amazed, what you can achive with this device. I'll follow up when I scanned some Velvias and Ektachromes ....

Cheers,
Stefan

[Peter De Smidt]

Thanks for the info, Stefan. Good masks are very important. Happy scanning!

[Blasted]

Hi there,

A while back I got hold of a Cezanne elite and I've finally managed to get it all hooked up and running (after a large amount of faffing about). I got the scanner because I wanted to be able to scan film negatives, get them on my computer, edit and maybe print stuff out. I also have a v500 but thought this scanner would get a bit more out of the negatives.

I am going to state right now that I have little in the way of knowledge relating to scanning and to be honest some of it looks way to complicated for me. Personally I would be very happy to have a simple but effective work stream to get scans knocked out at a decent quality and not compromise the benefits of shooting film.

Any way I did a couple of test runs today and to be honest I'm a bit dissapointed. I don't know if its me or the machine but I scanned a 120 negative in black and white at 2000spi and when you zoom in its super pixalated, really quite harsh.

Does anyone have a simple work flow for using colour genius 2?

Thanks.

[Peter De Smidt]

Make sure to turn off sharpening in the scanner software.

[Blasted]

Hi Peter, I will try that. I found your blog article so will have a go at following that. I originally scanned a 6x6 black and white as a grey scale at 2000spi and got a 22mb file.

[Peter De Smidt]

Are you using Photoshop? If so, the easiest way to scan is to set your resolution, keep the magnification at 100%, choose positive film, 16 bit output, RGB.

If you look at the picture, you'll see two columns, Finish Options and Finish. Click and drag items in the Finish column into the Finish Options, such that the Finish column is empty. Name your scan and press scan. This will produce as unprocessed a file as you can get. It is easy to adjust these files in Photoshop. You will end up with an RGB image. If doing BW negs, invert the image. Pick the best channel and throw the others away. Use curves to modify the image....

[Blasted]

Afternoon,

Whilst practicing with a few more negative scans I noticed scratches showing up in the final images. The negatives are fine and after checking the standard bed there appears to be a number of very fine scratches. Has anyone had any success or know if it’s possible to polish these out? It’s not a glass bed rather a slightly opaque heavy acrylic. Additionally the lightweight holder with the black handles has a few scratches, but this is a much more lightweight acrylic, I’m assuming they are both types of acrylic.

I have a second bed but that’s a clear glass but I assume that’s for scanning reflective material. I tried it but got patterns in my images.

Thanks

[Vord]

I've tried hand polishing but mine were too deep, I haven't tried since but as I have acquired many polishes in the mean time I might give machine polishing it a go soon and I'll let you know how it goes.
In any case I'd advise you to get a very soft polish applicant to get into the texture. I used some pec pads the first time around and probably mostly took material off the top.

[Peter De Smidt]

The texture is to prevent Newton's rings. If you polish it off, you're likely to get rings, unless you wet-mount your negatives.

My original bed was scratched, but I had a glass tray from an Agfa T2500 scanner. I made a board from MDF exactly the size the of the original bed, and I routed out and area for the glass tray to sit. I can take a picture tomorrow. The Agfa tray is removable, and I take it out of the scanner to wet-mount negatives to it.

5mm (or 6mm) P99 one-side, textured acrylic is very similar to the original bed.

[Blasted]

Thanks for the responses. In a past life I was involved in aircraft engineering. We had a department that used to polish the scratches out of aircraft canopies. These were a form of acrylic and it was essential that the polishing out didn’t affect the optical performance of the canopy; it’s no use trying to spot an enemy aircraft if everything is wobbly. I might try a very small one in the corner. Mind you they were clear not textured.

I had a look for the P99 stuff but it might be a bit difficult to get in the UK unless its under a different name.

Vord, I and I assume many others would like to know how you get on as it seems to be a common problem.