Epson v750 scan times for 4x5

[Ed Richards]

I am thinking about replacing my ancient Canon 9950F scanner. At 2400 DPI, 16 bits, grey scale, it takes about 2 minutes to scan a 4x5 negative on a fast computer. I am curious about the scan times for the V750 at this level of resolution and at 4800.

[photobymike]

Is there a really a good reason to scan a 4x5 at 4800 ?.. The v750 is a faster scanner than the v700 per Epson website. The scan speed is more computer dependent at higher resolutions than you would imagine. You are moving megabytes of scan and process and storing them on your hard drive. From my experience is you will need a 64 operating system to handle the hi rez scans. On my Sony i7 laptop running Vista; i could not scan higher than 4800 on 35mm and it would not do a group scan. I have found that scanning at any resolution was posible on my G5 Mac Pro with Leopard.... My daughter's has a i7 Sony laptop win7 64 that does a sufficient job at any resolution also. Bottom line it is the computer that does the heavy lifting when scanning....with 64bit hardware and software needed to do the job. An up to date USB port is needed also as this can be a choke point. If you are using an older computer, it would be advisable to add a modern USB. This has the potential to almost double your scan speed on a v750.

[Ed Richards]

As I mentioned, I have a fast computer. (If you are not able to do higher rez scans, try Vuescan, it does virtual memory for bigger scans.) I am trying to get an idea of whether the 700 or 750 is faster for scanning than the 9950F. It is about 9 minutes for 4800 at 16 bit and gray scale.

[photobymike]

Fast computer could mean anything..... You need USB 2 or USB 3 ports ... and you need ram not virtual memory. There are limits to virtual memory that can be used in the scanning operation. It depends on how its setup and what processes are using it at the time of scanning... Then there is the efficiency of the driver.... According to the revues the Canon's propriety Dust and Scratch Removal is faster than ICE on the Epson, there was no judgement whether it was better tho... The Epson scanners like ram over the virtual disk... my opinion based on my expereince with using several Epson v700 and v750 scanners on several computer types and OSs.... Lots of ram on a 64bit system makes these scanners fly at a max resolution of 12800. My sense is that a v750 would be faster, but it depends a lot on hardware and operating system. I scan a lot of 4x5 BW color and transparencies, at varying resolutions with no problem at all. I use Epson's software which i like a lot... Vuescan and Silverfast which i use exclusively for my 4x5 scans. I have also used the wet mount holder, but to messy to use all the time. the systems i have used is i7 laptop win7 also an HP laptop with Snowleopard installed and a G5 Quad Mac with Leopard installed. The fastest is the G5 with 8 gigs of ram. I have 2 v700 and a v750 that i scan with.

[Leigh]

Definitely use Firewire 800 if available. That's how I run my V750 and it does make a difference; much faster than USB3.

As others have said, install as much RAM as the machine will take. Ignore any mention of "virtual memory". That's just disk storage.

I strongly recommend a good 64-bit operating system like Linux or Mac OS X 10.x. Note this does not include any offering from μ$oft.

Avoid the marketing hype of "multi-core" processors. Your software is unlikely to need/use more than two cores.
No matter how many cores you have, only one is active at any particular instant, and they all access the same RAM, disks, and I/O.

- Leigh

[Corran]

My older Windows XP 32-bit system with 4GB RAM and a quadcore processor scans a 4x5 sheet at 4000DPI in about 5-10 minutes. The catch? I'm not using an Epson Vxxx.

I've used another computer with a V700, Windows 7 64-bit, 8GB RAM, and the scans take a lot longer. Like 30 minutes. It's not my computer though so I haven't optimized it.

My point - I don't think it's all in the computer regarding scan times, and also, you don't need some overpriced shiny Mac to do fast scans.

Also multi-core processors DO use more than one core at a time. If the software is designed to do so.