Share your ultimate v700 B&W 4x5 workflow!

[Frank Petronio]

You can print anything as big as you want. It's not like the image is going to fall to pieces and the larger it is, the further away you view it. The 14x44-foot billboards you see from the highway are printed at 20dpi, I made one with a 2-megapixel digital camera (and a lot of Photoshop work) back in the late 90s.

The Howtek is still a lot smoother while still being sharper but it does inspire me to tighten up my v700 procedures.

[rustyair]

You can print anything as big as you want. It's not like the image is going to fall to pieces and the larger it is, the further away you view it. The 14x44-foot billboards you see from the highway are printed at 20dpi, I made one with a 2-megapixel digital camera (and a lot of Photoshop work) back in the late 90s.

The Howtek is still a lot smoother while still being sharper but it does inspire me to tighten up my v700 procedures.

I meant same view distance.

[Frank Petronio]

Again, nobody is stopping you from printing as large as you want. The difference between a v700 and a drum scan is going to be incremental and unless you do two equal prints, you may well be impressed with the v700 scan. However once you compare, you'll be convinced - I think.

The thing is, if you spend several hundred bucks on a big print, you might as well throw down another hundred for a better scan and do everything as well as possible.

For my work, I scan on a v700 and print modest sizes (I have a 13x19 printer). This works fine for portfolio prints, gifts, and most display-art images. However if I do something big for a show or a client, I can justify spending the cash to do it better. I couldn't afford to do it for everything unless it was all sold, got a grant, etc. Luckily, if you use the Epson scanners and Photoshop properly, you can get very good results from cheap consumer equipment. Just don't fool yourself into thinking it is just as good.

I have a 30x40 Jon Cone Iris print on watercolor paper hanging in my garage, the aluminum backing got dented and it's no good for nice display. But I scanned that in 1992 on a 600 dpi Xerox Kurzweil B&W flatbed ($3600, SCSI) and it looks damn good. I'm sure a modern drum scan and a 30x40 on glossy Baryta would look even better, but I can still appreciate the relatively crude old scan/print.

[timparkin]

Wow Thanks Tim, The sharpened v700 file looks amazing comparing to Howtek drum scan file. Sample file is awesome too!

One question to Tim, Does that mean v700 scanned file could be printed as big as the howtek file?

In terms of resolution I would say so - if the neg had more detail then the Howtek could probably get more than the Epson but the differences would not be noticeable unless you were scanning side by side. If you had a really sharp neg (medium format or a very nice lens at f/16-22) then the Howtek will get more out..

Tim

[Darin Boville]

O.K., here I go.

I'm running tests with the Betterscanning rig so now's a good time to worry about all those semi-mysterious Vuescan settings.

Questions!

1) I have Mode set to "Transparency." Will that cause the higher resolution lens to be engaged?

2) Make gray from...should that be set to Green or Auto or....?

3) Number of samples. Should I do more than 1--time of scanning doesn't make a real difference to me. How high should I go?

4) Multi-exposure. Should I check this?

--Darin

[David Higgs]

I've found that multi-exposure and increasing samples is a random affair. Sometimes you end up with an improved scan but more often than not, the Epson isn't accurate enough in it's positioning and with multiple samples there is a loss of resolution. I'd be interested if anyone is getting different results - I'm dry scanning at present.

[Darin Boville]

I spent the day yesterday--and I mean "the day" as in "all day" scanning my first batch of negs. Had all sorts of problems with weird shadows (well, bright spots, really, since it is reversed) on the neg. Fairly clear shapes, sometimes more rectangular, sometimes more semi-circular. Looked like the cut-outs on the side of the BetterScanning holder. I've got a very generous gap between the edge of the neg and the mask so maybe that's it. Or maybe because I'm not using the supplied opaque mask but using blue masking tape instead. So I covered all the gaps with more tape. I think it is working but it was a slow day. The negs look good, though. I'm using multi-sample so if that isn't right I hope somone chimes in soon!

--Darin

[Kirk Gittings]

I've found that multi-exposure and increasing samples is a random affair. Sometimes you end up with an improved scan but more often than not, the Epson isn't accurate enough in it's positioning and with multiple samples there is a loss of resolution. I'd be interested if anyone is getting different results - I'm dry scanning at present.

I gave up on multi-scanning because of the loss of resolution.

[SergeiR]

I gave up on multi-scanning because of the loss of resolution.

Interesting. I never really tried to compare it (except for speed).. but its good to know that i didnt use that option for a reason

(still do multiexposure, though)

[Darin Boville]

I gave up on multi-scanning because of the loss of resolution.

Hey Kirt,

Do you mean just "multiscanning" (which I take to mean multiple passes of the read head) or "multisampling" (which I take to mean a single pass of the read head with more samples taken at each point)? Or both?

I'm doing multi-sampling now but not multiscanning.

--Darin