Espon V750-M Pro Scanner

[AVCHD]

New to digital thing. I shoot 8x10 slide film all the time. But the labs who print from 8x10 by using enlarger are disappearing. Then I consider to use film scanner for my 8x10 slides and then ask labs to print it.

Is Epson V750-M Pro scanner is good enough if I need my prints up to 20"x24"?

[Greg Lockrey]

New to digital thing. I shoot 8x10 slide film all the time. But the labs who print from 8x10 by using enlarger are disappearing. Then I consider to use film scanner for my 8x10 slides and then ask labs to print it.

Is Epson V750-M Pro scanner is good enough if I need my prints up to 20"x24"?

Yes

[Daniel_Buck]

yes, you should have no trouble getting 20x24" prints from an 8x10. My guess (based on what I have seen with 4x5's) is that probably any scanner that will scan an 8x10 film will easily give you enough for a 20x24, since it's just over a 2X enlargement during the scan.

[marschp]

New to digital thing. I shoot 8x10 slide film all the time. But the labs who print from 8x10 by using enlarger are disappearing. Then I consider to use film scanner for my 8x10 slides and then ask labs to print it.

Is Epson V750-M Pro scanner is good enough if I need my prints up to 20"x24"?

If you've never done any scanning before then its worth asking around about the 'art' of scanning in order to set your expectations at the right level. In my experience bringing your scanning in-house requires a considerable amount of effort and understanding. I've been using an Epson 750 Pro now for several months and am still not getting satisfactory scans with it. Despite following all the advice about colour profiling and using the best scanning software, I still find scans are too dark, with loss of shadow detail. That requires an amount of post-processing in Photoshop before the resulting image looks anything like the original transparency. Take a look at my pbase site (Out and About gallery) for a few examples of recent 5.x4 scans. Paul.

[Joanna Carter]

... I still find scans are too dark, with loss of shadow detail. ...

You may already know this but, I have found that altering the gamma on the scan up to but not more than 2.4 can help in this regard.

[Greg Lockrey]

You may already know this but, I have found that altering the gamma on the scan up to but not more than 2.4 can help in this regard.

Or paying attention to the Levels histograms and output setings. The more you do at the scanner requires less to do in Photoshop where a lot of noise is added when you make your corrections.

[Joanna Carter]

Or paying attention to the Levels histograms and output setings. The more you do at the scanner requires less to do in Photoshop where a lot of noise is added when you make your corrections.

But surely, if you have profiled the scanner, you should have completely flat settings for levels and curves, etc, that never change from scan to scan? However, the one thing that can change without altering the profile is to increase the gamma.

[Steve Kefford]

Or paying attention to the Levels histograms and output setings. The more you do at the scanner requires less to do in Photoshop where a lot of noise is added when you make your corrections.

I have never heard of level changes in PS adding noise. Posterisation, perhaps, but not noise.

However, provided you are working on the same number of bits, there should not be any difference between doing the level edits in PS or the scanner sw. There might be workflow issues, but the end result should be the same.

Steve

[Brian Ellis]

20x24 prints should work fine with the V750 and 8x10 film. I've used the 4990, the predecessor of the V750, with 8x10 b&w negative film and obtained excellent results with prints close to that size.

I've never had any trouble with scans being consistently too dark with a properly exposed negative. OTOH, I use Silverfast Ai and have spent many many hours studying the book "Silverfast:The Official Guide" and other resources as well as attending the excellent scanning workshop that Ted Harris and Michael Mutmansky teach so I fancy myself to be a pretty good scanner person (or if I'm not it isn't the fault of the machine).

[Michael Mutmansky]

Oh great Brian, blame it on us... If there's any problems, they're all Ted's fault, I'm sure.

Actually the only issue I see with large prints from a consumer scanner is DMAX. For B&W scanning, you won't generally run into a problem, but with chromes, you may(or may not, depending on your expectations, etc.) find yourself somewhat dissatisfied with your shadow detail.

This is inherent to the lesser expensive scanners, and there are some tricks to squeeze a little more out of them, but in the end, they won't hold shadow detil a well as a higher-end scanner.

Adjusting the gamma or applying a curve to open up the shadows can help compensate, but there comes a point where there is no more usable information, and that point will be a little worse with consumer gear. Profiling won't help that.

As adjustments are made, the noise that is inherent in the shadows will become more visible, and this is a key area where the shadow performance of a consumer scanner will become apparent when compared to a better device.

Unfortunately, beyond the V750, there isn't much to choose from until you get into the $4,000 range for a used higher-end scanner, so you don't have much of a choice.

I, for one, would be very careful to check the shadow performance of the scanner with a few scans before i decided it was the way to go.


---Michael

[Greg Lockrey]

I have never heard of level changes in PS adding noise. Posterisation, perhaps, but not noise.

However, provided you are working on the same number of bits, there should not be any difference between doing the level edits in PS or the scanner sw. There might be workflow issues, but the end result should be the same.

Steve

Look at your levels after you adjust color level in ps vs doing it at the scanner. You will see that the histogram starts to "break up" or have spaces. This is more what I meant to say.

[Keith S. Walklet]

As has been discussed in previous threads on these flatbed scanners, the default settings yield what one would expect from any automatic adjustment: an average scan. But by simply setting the white and black points with the levels adjustment of the scanning software (and checking the results in Photoshop to make sure no clipping occured, and a tweak to the gamma (my experience shows a setting of 1.2 works best) has proven to way to get the most from my 4870. Turn off all sharpening and scan at the highest optical scanning resolution the scanner offers. I routinely enlarge my 4x5 chrome scans to 30x40 with excellent results.

[Kirk Gittings]

I have never heard of level changes in PS adding noise. Posterisation, perhaps, but not noise.

However, provided you are working on the same number of bits, there should not be any difference between doing the level edits in PS or the scanner sw. There might be workflow issues, but the end result should be the same.

Steve

The prosumer scanners all have a fair amount of noise. Enhanced noise from steep curves etc. often looks somewhat like posterization. According to SF and my own tests, major edits like steep curves and clipping are better done in the scanner stage where the most raw information is available. The software then delivers a full histogram with the big edits in place to PS. You may not notice this if you do not work your files much, but if you manipulate tone allot, noise enhancement can be minimized by doing the big edits in the scanner software.

[Greg Lockrey]

I happened on this fact quite by accident. I do 95% of my scanning in making repro of reflective art. While doing this I was wondering how could I get a "good" scan in terms of fidelity right out of the scanner when I can't see the original unless I removed it from the scanner thereby screwing up my alignments for multible stitching scans? So what I did was make my scan, run it through PS to make my corrections and leave that image on the screen handy for a reference. Then I rescanned and made all of my adjustments in the scanner to match the PS image. What I noticed was that scans manipulated in PS many times had gaps in the histogram and those directly from the scanner were clean. (I first noticed these gaps from scans made by that much heralded BGSU VCT Lab who charges everyone about $90+ for a flat art scan. :eek: ) The prints had more fidelity done corrected in scanner also. Now my scanner once profiled is tweeked to give my a faithful repro right out of the box. Very little manipulation is required in PS other than spotting and stitching and very minor color adjustments.

[AVCHD]

By using V750 to scan a 8x10 slide with max resolution, what is the file size?

[Steve Kefford]

Look at your levels after you adjust color level in ps vs doing it at the scanner. You will see that the histogram starts to "break up" or have spaces. This is more what I meant to say.

That is the posterisation I referred to. You mention doing it at the scanner, but with most scanners, you are not doing it "at the scanner". Most edits during the scan process are to data that has already been scanned, and it does not make a difference if you do it immediatley after the scan (as in the scanner sw) or later (in PS). Hence, it should make no difference. This is assuming that you are working at the same bit-depth.

Steve

[Steve Kefford]

The prosumer scanners all have a fair amount of noise. Enhanced noise from steep curves etc. often looks somewhat like posterization. According to SF and my own tests, major edits like steep curves and clipping are better done in the scanner stage where the most raw information is available. The software then delivers a full histogram with the big edits in place to PS. You may not notice this if you do not work your files much, but if you manipulate tone allot, noise enhancement can be minimized by doing the big edits in the scanner software.

How does a curves adjustment create noise? Making a curves adjustment is a determanistic process. If you make the same adjustment to the same data, you will get the same result every time. Thus it can't be noise, which is a random non-determanistic effect.

If making adjustments in the scanner sw is creating different results than in PS, then the scanner sw is doing some other stuff behind your back, which is a very good reason to use PS. That is of course unless you are reducing the bit-depth before doing the PS adjustments. They should be working on the same data, and hence produce the same results.

Steve

[Greg Lockrey]

That is the posterisation I referred to. You mention doing it at the scanner, but with most scanners, you are not doing it "at the scanner". Most edits during the scan process are to data that has already been scanned, and it does not make a difference if you do it immediatley after the scan (as in the scanner sw) or later (in PS). Hence, it should make no difference. This is assuming that you are working at the same bit-depth.

Steve

I'm no techno geek, so you may be correct on what's really happening and with the technical terms. All I know is that when I prescan my image, make the same adustment I would in PS to get the look I want, then the scan is not broken up as if I did the scan and adjusted in PS. Ultimately the print is better since I have a "target" to get. I done my corrections in PS for a long time and they seemed to be good, until I made this discovery and done the comparison. Bit depth is the same. Both histograms have the same shape other than the PS version is always broken up if there is any substantial change to a level. There may be a better way to do this, but so far this has been the least problematic for me.

[Bob McCarthy]

By using V750 to scan a 8x10 slide with max resolution, what is the file size?

Her said optical resolution. A signifcant diference from "claimed" resolution.

My 4990 is getting iffy at 1800 dpi, for example. A far way from the 4800 dpi claimed by epson.

I see no reason to go over 1200 dpi with an 8x10 negative with this gentlemans output parameters. Even that may be overkill.

Bob

[marschp]

You may already know this but, I have found that altering the gamma on the scan up to but not more than 2.4 can help in this regard.

Thanks Joanna - I'll give that a try and see if it helps. Paul

[neil poulsen]

That is the posterisation I referred to. You mention doing it at the scanner, but with most scanners, you are not doing it "at the scanner". Most edits during the scan process are to data that has already been scanned, and it does not make a difference if you do it immediatley after the scan (as in the scanner sw) or later (in PS). Hence, it should make no difference. This is assuming that you are working at the same bit-depth.

Steve

This has been my contention, that (most) prosumer scanners inherently aren't doing anything different from Photoshop. For example, if it were possible to adjust gains, or the brightness level of the scanning light, then I could see an advantage. Or, if the scanner were collecting the data at a higher bit depth than 16, I could see an advantage. But, I've yet to hear a credible engineering argument as to why it's better to do edits at scan.

If anyone has an engineering based (how does it work) argument as to why editing at scan works better, I'd be interested in hearing it.

[Helen Bach]

Wouldn't there be some advantages if the scanner software only exported non-linear files - ie if the exported file was always a transformation of the linear data coming from the CCD/ADC? A similar argument to the one used for explaining why some adjustments are better made on a camera RAW file rather than one that has been converted to a non-linear form (for example the difference in the treatment of highlights between editing in Adobe Camera Raw and in Photoshop).

Best,
Helen

[neil poulsen]

In spite of it's deterministic nature, I can see one case where Photoshop "creates" noise. By a reasonable definition, "noise" is the difference between the actual image and what's in the data. (A computerized image is just a data file.) In the interpolation process, Photoshop models pixels that are likely different than they would have been, had the original image been captured at the desired resolution.

It's interesting. In many respects, Photoshop is a statistical engine. I wonder if there are indeed Photoshop algorithms based on random number generation.

[Kirk Keyes]

Air brush...?

[Keith S. Walklet]

A note to Bob on the diminished quality of 1800 spi vs. 1200. It is best to stay with whole derivatives of the claimed optical dpi. The 4800 dpi of the Epson is their 4800 dpi, represented by 4800 picture elements on the scanning array, which are arranged in offset rows.

Other threads go into this in more detail, but in short, 4800 spi on a drum scanner is not equivalent to 4800 spi on a flatbed, but you should notice incremental improvements in your results up to the claimed max optical resolution of the flatbed, after which you are getting interpolated data.

To scan an 8x10 at full optical resolution with a 4800 dpi flatbed will result in an impractically large file, that could only be managed with a reduction in size (see Layer Transfer Technique) that permits editing in PS.

[Greg Lockrey]

What are we saying here? Are we saying that making the scan at whatever the profile determend to be correct. Don't do anything to that file at the scanner send the file to PS and make the corrections there, the file will be the same as if I made my corrections first? I must be missing something, I don't see this to be the case.:confused: Why are the histograms broken if I do my corrections in PS and not when done at the scanner?

[Steve Kefford]

In spite of it's deterministic nature, I can see one case where Photoshop "creates" noise. By a reasonable definition, "noise" is the difference between the actual image and what's in the data. (A computerized image is just a data file.) In the interpolation process, Photoshop models pixels that are likely different than they would have been, had the original image been captured at the desired resolution.....

Obviously the definition of what noise is is important when discussing it. I don't understand your definition because, as you suggest, the image is the data. Besides, noise is a fairly standard concept.

A definition from Wikipedia "Image noise is a random, usually unwanted, fluctuation of pixel values in an image. Image noise can originate in film grain, or in electronic noise in the input device (scanner or digital camera) sensor and circuitry, or in the unavoidable shot noise of an ideal photon detector. Image noise is most apparent in image regions with low signal level, such as shadow regions or underexposed images."

Originally, the discussion was about level/curve changes, which can not produce noise, not interpolation. However, I don't see how this could create noise either.

Steve

[David Luttmann]

Obviously the definition of what noise is is important when discussing it. I don't understand your definition because, as you suggest, the image is the data. Besides, noise is a fairly standard concept.

A definition from Wikipedia "Image noise is a random, usually unwanted, fluctuation of pixel values in an image. Image noise can originate in film grain, or in electronic noise in the input device (scanner or digital camera) sensor and circuitry, or in the unavoidable shot noise of an ideal photon detector. Image noise is most apparent in image regions with low signal level, such as shadow regions or underexposed images."

Originally, the discussion was about level/curve changes, which can not produce noise, not interpolation. However, I don't see how this could create noise either.

Steve

That's correct Steve. Adjusting curves in PS creates NO additional noise....it does however, make the noise that is in the original scan a heck of a lot more apparent by bring the junk in the shadows up into the midtones.....where they are now as plain as day.

[Steve Kefford]

... Adjusting curves in PS creates NO additional noise....it does however, make the noise that is in the original scan a heck of a lot more apparent by bring the junk in the shadows up into the midtones.....where they are now as plain as day.

Absolutley. But so does making the same adjustments with the scanner sw.

Steve

[Greg Lockrey]

Absolutley. But so does making the same adjustments with the scanner sw.

Steve

Not to be argumentative, I'm just trying to understand. If you make the adjustments at the scanner prior to the actual scanning, wouldn't this allievate the effects of noise and posterization, etc?

[Steve Kefford]

Not to be argumentative, I'm just trying to understand. If you make the adjustments at the scanner prior to the actual scanning, wouldn't this allievate the effects of noise and posterization, etc?

No. Although you are specifying the edits prior to the scan, the changes are made to the scanned data after the scan has been made. Just as if you do them in PS.

I have tried making some large curve adjustments, both in the scanner sw and later in PS, and the results look identical.

Steve

[Steve Kefford]

What are we saying here? Are we saying that making the scan at whatever the profile determend to be correct. Don't do anything to that file at the scanner send the file to PS and make the corrections there, the file will be the same as if I made my corrections first?

Yes. It will depend upon what scanner sw you are using. Some scanner sw will do stuff behind your back, and these changes might or might not make an "improvement". These things might include sharpening and noise removal, which give the false impression that you have a better scan and that the sw is superior to other sw. If this is the case, then it is specific to that particular sw, and these things could also be done in PS, with greater control.



I must be missing something, I don't see this to be the case.:confused: Why are the histograms broken if I do my corrections in PS and not when done at the scanner?

Can you see any difference? How are you doing this? You could be looking at a cached histogram - the warning icon will appear top right. Try refreshing or flatening the image and then look at the histogram.

Steve

[Greg Lockrey]

No. Although you are specifying the edits prior to the scan, the changes are made to the scanned data after the scan has been made. Just as if you do them in PS.

I have tried making some large curve adjustments, both in the scanner sw and later in PS, and the results look identical.

Steve

You are probably more technicaly correct about what should be happening than what I "think" I'm doing with the scanner. Seems to me that I haven't scanned anything until I made my adjustments to a prescan view then "make the scan" and send it to my photo file. My files are definitly different if I do the manipulations in PS only. They are full of gaps in the color space that I made the level changes is. Most of the time it also shows up in RGB also. Don't see it if the changes are made "in the scanner" prior to sending it to the saved file.

[Greg Lockrey]

Yes. It will depend upon what scanner sw you are using. Some scanner sw will do stuff behind your back, and these changes might or might not make an "improvement". These things might include sharpening and noise removal, which give the false impression that you have a better scan and that the sw is superior to other sw. If this is the case, then it is specific to that particular sw, and these things could also be done in PS, with greater control.



Can you see any difference? How are you doing this? You could be looking at a cached histogram - the warning icon will appear top right. Try refreshing or flatening the image and then look at the histogram.

Steve
Did that. Where I noticed this effect first was the scans made by BGSU VCT Lab (You heard of FLAAR) this is where all the high end printers send their originals to get scanned. At that point I sort of figured how they were doing their color matching. The clients that I have been getting from them weren't all that happy with their results BTW and I'm using just an Epson 10000xl and 750V Pro for my scanning work. I'm still learning. :) Often when one thinks he has something figured out, it may not be the case, especially when you are teaching yourself.