Creo IQ Smart 2 or 3 workflow

[Kirk Gittings]

Thanks all. Any specific tips with Pyro negatives? Most of what I will be scanning are those. Specificaaly the brownish ones from Pyrocat HD?

[sanking]

Thanks all. Any specific tips with Pyro negatives? Most of what I will be scanning are those. Specificaaly the brownish ones from Pyrocat HD?

Scan pyro negatives in RGB. Before converting to B&W have a look at the RGB channels to see if one is sharper or has better grain than the other. If the difference is small, as it usually is with Eversmart and IQ scanners, just proceed to changing the image to B&W with the PS converter. You can adjust grain and contrast quite a bit this point depending on how you plus or minus the various sliders.

Sandy

[Kirk Gittings]

Cool. Thanks Sandy.

[Brian K]

Kirk,

I second Brian's and Sandy's comments. I have an IQsmart 2; it is a terrific scanner and produces great files. I find that an additional benefit of scanning B&W using the OxyGen's RGB mode is that I have better control of the Black/White endpoints compared to the B&W mode. This is critical in getting the maximum tonality out of the negative and into the file. Fluid mounting is very easy with this machine - it was clearly designed for it. Make sure you set all of your configurations, with Oxy sharpening off, as a preset. The software has a habit of reverting to a default pre-set with scanner sharpening enabled. I agree with Brian that the scanner sharpening is overdone - my guess is that it was probably designed for newsprint/graphic applications.

Have a blast...it is a great machine.

George

George I scan in RGB but use the Tri-Gray as the input profile. I found that when I scanned in RGB and used the standard RGB input profile, the differences between the red, green and blue channels were huge and it was tough to adjust each of them to a satisfactory level. I think, and I may be wrong, that the Tri-gray input profile (and BTW I save the file using the SRGB output profile) uses all 3 color channels and balances them into an RGB grayscale image. Is this correct as far as you know?

[George Pappas]

Hi Brian,

sorry for the delay in responding..I have been offline for a bit... I haven't used the tri-gray input profile before so am not sure how it works in practice. What I do know is that scanning B&W using RGB Positive mode with IqSmart gives me more controls for setting endpoints & gradation than IQsmart's B&W mode. When I examine the R/G/B channels after scanning, I don't usually see the kind of difference you are describing. This applies to file developed in "conventional" developers and film developed in Pyro developers - I have plenty of both.

What I care about is capturing the maximum information that the negative has to give; that is why I like the endpoint controls in IQsmart's color mode so much - they let me get all of it more easily than B&W mode controls. I will have to take a look the tri-gray input profile you are describing..I"ll let you know what I find. I love the scanner and find that it is the best of all tradeoffs for me; however, the scanning software, while powerful, was designed for pre-press production rather than smaller-scale use and requires some effort to figure out...

[John Brady]

This scanner requires lots of independent learning since there seems to be so few of them around. I have an IQ2 that I bought new about four years ago.

When scanning color negs or chromes for final grayscale output, I like making the scan as color and then convert to grayscale using b&w conversion in photoshop where I have more control.

I agree with others that say to use limited sharpening. I use 1,2,2 and 5,6 for smoothing. It is critical that you do some in scanner sharpening and then final sharpening in photoshop.

Do any of you have input profiles for different films for Creo? I have been unable to find any.

This is a great scanner, but after many hundreds of scans I feel like I am still learning.

www.timeandlight.com

[Kirk Gittings]

So this is an IQsmart 3. On the whole a very capable quality machine. But surprisingly slow for a machine designed for comercial applications. One hour for a 4800 SPI for a 4x5? It took me maybe a day to get adequate knowledge of the software. It seems to work well but some quirky design issues like on the histogram where you set your endpoints. Why are the sliders at the top of the graph instead of at the bottom where they properly are on most software? Odd. The biggest drawback vs. a high end drum scan seems to be in scanning dense negatives where I think a good drum scan pulls better detail and separation.

Anyway, I ve been cranking through these supplementing my income via saved money for outsourced scans. Setup 6 at a pop and go for a long walk, lunch, a movie and a nap-come back and wah lah! Great High res scans. Love how Pyrocat negs scan on this puppy. Sweet.

[sanking]

Kirk,

The software I use with the Eversmart Pro is quite similar to what you are using with the IQ3 and I also find it a bit quirky. Part of the issue is that the original design was done back in the day when scanners did most of the final work on the pre-scan itself as the assumption the Scitex/Creo software was better than Photoshop. Another issue I dislike about the software is that you have to re-set the sharpening for every scan as it always resets to a certain default setting.

However, nothing especially slow about the scan time. Scanning a 4X5 sheet of film at 4000 spi also takes about an hour with a Howtek D4000/D4800.

Sandy

So this is an IQsmart 3. On the whole a very capable quality machine. But surprisingly slow for a machine designed for comercial applications. One hour for a 4800 SPI for a 4x5? It took me maybe a day to get adequate knowledge of the software. It seems to work well but some quirky design issues like on the histogram where you set your endpoints. Why are the sliders at the top of the graph instead of at the bottom where they properly are on most software? Odd. The biggest drawback vs. a high end drum scan seems to be in scanning dense negatives where I think a good drum scan pulls better detail and separation.

Anyway, I ve been cranking through these supplementing my income via saved money for outsourced scans. Setup 6 at a pop and go for a long walk, lunch, a movie and a nap-come back and wah lah! Great High res scans. Love how Pyrocat negs scan on this puppy. Sweet.

[Kirk Gittings]

Yes the damn reset to default sharpening! That has cost me a few rescans as I forgot to check it! The first day it was three times!

[Brian K]

Yes the damn reset to default sharpening! That has cost me a few rescans as I forgot to check it! The first day it was three times!

Kirk you can save your sharpening setting, then save the overall parameters, like trans or ref, rgb 16 bit AND your own sharpness default.