SillyComparison-Howtek-Eversmart-Epson

[sanking]

There has been in the past a lot of discussion re: the scan quality of various types of scanners. I thought the following comparison, which were all made by me with my equipment, might prove interesting to some of you. My motivation in carrying out this test was not to prove anything, but just to see for myself how the three scanners performed in practice with the same B&W negative, scanned by the same operator, with all factors equal. Note: I don't use color transparency film and have no interest in comparing color. I do use color negative film from time to time, but always with the intention of converting it to B&W, taking advantage of the RGB filters for conversion.

Equipment: Howtek D4000, Eversmart Pro, Epson V700

Negative: B&W Agfa Infrared, exposed with R72 filter. The crop area corresponds to an area of about .5" X .4" of the original negative.

Scan: Carried out at maximum optical resolution for the three scanners, then rezzed up or down to 4000 dpi. So, Howtek D4000 left as is, scan with Eversmart Pro at 3175 dpi rezzed up to 4000 dpi, scan wtih Epson V700 at 6400 dpi reduced to 4000 dpi. To makes this as apple to apple as possible I fluid mounted all three scans. I also used an Apple computer for all of the scans.

Sharpening: None done with any scanner at time of scan. Later, the same capture sharpening and creative sharpening routines were run with the scans from the three machines. This was done with the PhotoKit Sharpening software. Note that I did not try to match sharpness, just show what the scans look like at this point with the same sharpening routines applied.

Contrast: An attempt was made to normalize density and contrast. There is probably still some difference but I did the best I could.

Sandy King

[Peter De Smidt]

Interesting comparison. Thank you for doing it!

[Lachlan 717]

Which is which, Sandy?

[sanking]

Which is which, Sandy?

When you put your cursor over the file the name of the scanner should appear. It does with my comnputer. But if it does not, the crop scans from left to right are, 1) Epson V700, 2) Howtek D4000, and 3) Eversmart Pro.

Sandy

[engl]

Thanks for sharing the result of this comparison. Am I right in believing that the scans are left to right: Howtek-Eversmart-Epson? Or is matching the image to the scanner meant as a challenge ?

Two comments:
1. The contrast of the middle image seems a lot lower than the other two.
2. The images do not seem to be at 4000DPI. If the crop is a 0.5"x0.4" area I'd expect the image to be 2000 pixels wide.

Edit: I saw the answer to the "which is which" part had already been answered. I did not notice the text on mouse over, but I think it seemed unreasonable that the Epson had more detail than an Howtek

[sanking]

Thanks for sharing the result of this comparison. Am I right in believing that the scans are left to right: Howtek-Eversmart-Epson? Or is matching the image to the scanner meant as a challenge ?

Two comments:
1. The contrast of the middle image seems a lot lower than the other two.
2. The images do not seem to be at 4000DPI. If the crop is a 0.5"x0.4" area I'd expect the image to be 2000 pixels wide.

Edit: I saw the answer to the "which is which" part had already been answered. I did not notice the text on mouse over, but I think it seemed unreasonable that the Epson had more detail than an Howtek

Not sure how the image size appears for you, but the three image files I uploaded were about 2000 X 1600 pixel in size. I cropped them directly from the larger full size scan of the negative. Perhaps the image file was reduced in size for the site?

Sandy

[Lachlan 717]

When you put your cursor over the file the name of the scanner should appear. It does with my comnputer. But if it does not, the crop scans from left to right are, 1) Epson V700, 2) Howtek D4000, and 3) Eversmart Pro.

Sandy

Thanks, Sandy.

I was looking on an iPhone; no cursor!

[engl]

Not sure how the image size appears for you, but the three image files I uploaded were about 2000 X 1600 pixel in size. I cropped them directly from the larger full size scan of the negative. Perhaps the image file was reduced in size for the site?

Sandy

I believe they were, the three crops in your original post are about 50-60kB big each, and all 650 pixels wide.

[sanking]

I believe they were, the three crops in your original post are about 50-60kB big each, and all 650 pixels wide.

Well, I will be happy to upload the full size crops, (about 2000 X 1500 pixels in size in .jpeg format, around 3.5 mb) to another location if anyone wants to offer a temporary repository.

Seems ironic that on a LF format uploads are restricted to such a small size!!

Sandy

[Asher Kelman]

Well, I will be happy to upload the full size crops, (about 2000 X 1500 pixels in size in .jpeg format, around 3.5 mb) to another location if anyone wants to offer a temporary repository.

Seems ironic that on a LF format uploads are restricted to such a small size!!

Sandy

Sandy,

Impressive work! Using an S curve in Photoshop, how close can you get the v700 to the Eversmart scan?

Also, I'd love to know how you cam to buy all three? What's the logic?

Asher