in praise of 8x10 on epson v700

[Pfeiffer Duckett]

I've got a wet mount kit from aztek, and have been mounting 810 transparencies to a sheet of glass and floating them upside down by four dimes.

I've been using epson scan, which I find gives me enough room to play with the DR. (I don't understand why I can't get the same results from silverfast or vuscan. Check out the amount of detail I get scanning at 2400 ppi. I get files over 2 gigs, which would give me prints of 80" x 100" @ 240 ppi, 63" x 80" @ 300 ppi or 47" x 60" @ 400 ppi.

Anyway, here are some examples.

I've been sitting at my computer all evening hitting a bunch of keys and saying 'enhance' out loud.

[Pfeiffer Duckett]

oops, forgot to mention that I hadn't put *any* USM on this.

none!

[Chris Strobel]

Thanks for sharing this.What have you found the wet mounting gives you versus dry mounting on the V?For me it was a final end to newton rings with 8x10, but thats about it.I see no DR benefits, at least with b&w fp4+ using Epson Scan.I finally stopped the wetmounting for 4x5's and have gone back to the stock Epson 4x5 holders after doing two days of extensive testing and seeing absolutely no improvements in the final print.Also since your using the Aztec kit, I assume you use Kami fluid, have you tried Lumina fluid by any chance?

[Pfeiffer Duckett]

I've tried taping them to a piece of anti-reflective glass, but I still got newton rings. I'm not seeing any improvement on DR, or grain structure, but the lack of newton rings and the vast reduction of dust worth the heartache of wet mounting. I've just been using Kami, the fumes haven't bothered me. I probably would have gone for Lumina, but the Kami was cheaper and I like the convenience of having everything come as a kit.

[Chris Strobel]

I've tried taping them to a piece of anti-reflective glass, but I still got newton rings. I'm not seeing any improvement on DR, or grain structure, but the lack of newton rings and the vast reduction of dust worth the heartache of wet mounting. I've just been using Kami, the fumes haven't bothered me. I probably would have gone for Lumina, but the Kami was cheaper and I like the convenience of having everything come as a kit.

Sounds about right.How have you found Kami as far as leaving residue behind?Lumina is not suppose to leave any residue, but it does, not a lot, but enough to require cleaning afterwords.

[Peter De Smidt]

All of the scanning fluids I've tried leave a residue: Kami, Prazio, Lumina...

[Lei Meng]

I too found those fluids leave residue so I quit using them.

As long as there's no Newton ring, 8x10 scan from those flatbed scanner is awesome (I use a Microtek 1800f). I print them to 40x50 inch size, that's only 5x enlargement.

Just my co-praise :)

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Thanks for sharing this.What have you found the wet mounting gives you versus dry mounting on the V?For me it was a final end to newton rings with 8x10, but thats about it.I see no DR benefits, at least with b&w fp4+ using Epson Scan.I finally stopped the wetmounting for 4x5's and have gone back to the stock Epson 4x5 holders after doing two days of extensive testing and seeing absolutely no improvements in the final print.Also since your using the Aztec kit, I assume you use Kami fluid, have you tried Lumina fluid by any chance?

This was my experience with Lumina wet mounting. For 4X5, it gave no benefit over scanning dry in the Epson 4X5 holders. On the downside, it made cleaning up the scans more time consuming because of all the dirt and air bubbles that resulted from wet mounting. I only use wet mounting for larger film to hold it flat, since I don't have a holder for 8X10 or 4X10 film.

[Pfeiffer Duckett]

really? you're getting more dirt from wet mounting? The bubbles, you need to just guide them to the edge with a pec-pad to get rid of them, or use more fluid.

I am getting residue, and I'm only mounting my 8x10s, everything smaller gets the holders.

[Allen in Montreal]

All of the scanning fluids I've tried leave a residue: Kami, Prazio, Lumina...

I have this too, even more so with Pyro processed negs.
Which makes me wonder, what are we doing wrong?

I use to sent negs out to be scanned and they did not come back with any traces of WMF residue.
Did they soak the negs in a Pec 12 bath as opposed to just wiping them down?

[Chris Strobel]

I have this too, even more so with Pyro processed negs.


Hmmm.... Interesting.All my negs are Pyro processed.The interesting thing is, most of the residue with Lumina fluid I see is on the glass mounting plate, the film backing, and the transcan overlay that I use to place over the film backing overlay for squeegeeing out the air bubbles (the squeegee Scanscience supplied works very well for getting rid of air bubbles).Experimenting just two days ago, I was playing with a wet mounted 4x5, but this time not placing an overlay or fluid on the film backing, only the emulsion.Afterward disassembling the whole thing, I hung the transcan overlay on a film clip and propped the glass up on its side for drying.I then held the 4x5 neg between my fingers and with the other hand directed a stream of gentle cool blow dryer air at both sides of of the neg.After about 30-45 sec. the whole thing was dry, and I really couldn't see any residue.However on the other two pieces allowed to air dry there was residue as usual.The thing that really ticks me though is on the manufacturers site, they show before and after scans with a sharper scan and more dmax on the fluid mounted neg.I have not been able to reproduce those results at all, and felt kind of ripped off.The only thing that made me feel better was that I would on occasion get newton rings laying an 8x10 directly on the platen with the Epson film area guide, not every single time, but more times than I was comfortable with, and the fluid 8x10 kit does away with those every time.Has anyone else tried a cool blowdryer on gentle on their negs after dis-assembly?

[Peter De Smidt]

I use film cleaner to clean the film right after wet-mounting. I then hang the film to dry.

[Thalmees]

Thanks for sharing your experience.

[Frank Petronio]

I never got Newton's Rings taping to real Anti-Newton Ring glass (not just non-reflective). I used the four pennies dry on my 4990 and got fine results.

Just waiting for Lenny Eiger to pop up next ;-)

[David de Gruyl]

I never got Newton's Rings taping to real Anti-Newton Ring glass (not just non-reflective). I used the four pennies dry on my 4990 and got fine results.

Can you elaborate on this?

Is it: Tape film flat to the underside of glass (film to ANR side) and suspend the film over the scanning plane using pennies.

That is fine, I suspect.

What I don't follow is how you set the scanner to focus on the film. (I have a 750, but in principle it should be the same). Is this meant to be the proper height of a film holder's film? Did you adjust the height, the first time?

[Peter De Smidt]

It's best to test for the plane of sharpest focus.

I used to use Frank's technique, although I used pieces of tape instead of pennies.

[Ken Allen]

Thoughts on adjusting density range using the scanner software: When I worked at Leaf on the Leaf scanners, I learned that any adjustment you make in the scanner software in brightness, contrast, exposure, color balance, all happens after the image is digitized. Meaning that if you adjust exposure in the scanner software nothing happens in the amount of light or length of exposure in the actual hardware. I believe this holds true to most of today's CCD scanners. All of the adjustments are made in software after the digital processor. Therefore I recommend not making any exposure/color adjustments in the scanner. Instead make a flat scan into 48 bit RGB and save that unadjusted file as an archive file or "RAW file". Then use Photoshop or some other editing program to adjust the color/contrast/density to meet your needs for today and save that as a new version.
The big benefit of this is that you get the most accurate (if not pleasing) and consistent scans. Also, the scanning process will likely go faster when you're not worrying about adjustments.
Museums use this process so they can accurately render originals whether they are light, dark, off color or faded. And they can rescan after displaying the image to determine if there has been degradation.

Best,
Ken Allen

[Lenny Eiger]

Just waiting for Lenny Eiger to pop up next ;)

I'm a photographer, too. And just like the rest of you I'm a tinkerer. I celebrate it any time someone can get duct tape to work for them, or any other less expensive technique.

The only time I get riled is when someone tries to tell me that a workaround is the same as a professional solution... If it works, great, if its all you need, terrific. Just don't tell me a ccd is the same as a pmt scan. Just don't tell me a digital camera can outdo a 4x5. Not for what I want to do anyway...

Lenny

[sanking]

Just waiting for Lenny Eiger to pop up next ;-)


He's back!!

Sandy King

[urs0polar]

What glass are people buying for "the pennies method"? I'm just getting into 8x10 and I'm not into spending $250 on a scanscience kit quite yet. A betterscanning mounting station is what I use for 4x5, and my optimal focus plane is around ~1.8 mm. I'm fine with dry mounting to a piece of ANR glass...

What would everyone recommend on the cheap?

[Peter De Smidt]

You can try single-sided, anti-glare picture framing glass. This is the kind with a texture on one side. You never want to use this to frame your photographs with, as you'll lose sharpness and contrast, but it often works as an inexpensive substitute for anti-Newton (Leibnizian?) glass.

[sanking]

What glass are people buying for "the pennies method"? I'm just getting into 8x10 and I'm not into spending $250 on a scanscience kit quite yet. A betterscanning mounting station is what I use for 4x5, and my optimal focus plane is around ~1.8 mm. I'm fine with dry mounting to a piece of ANR glass...

What would everyone recommend on the cheap?

Most framing stores sell an anti-glare glass that works in this application as well as AN glass, IMO. Just have a piece cut to the dimension of you scanner bed so that it will fit neatly into the area. Then you can dry mount directly tot he AN side of the glass, or if you want to do a bit better you can fluid mount to the bottom/clear side of the glass, with the AN side facing up toward the light. If you fluid mount and determine plane of best focus this will give you as good a result as you can get with the Epson V700.

If your negative is 8X10 you will have to choose ilm area guide, which will set the "high resolution" lens. If your negative is 6.5X8.5" or less in size you can choose film holder and the software will set the "super high resolution" lens, which will give higher resolution to the tune of about 600-800 dpi.

Results are not going to match a drum scanner but if you do a good job of processing the scan file you should be able to make a very good 32X40" print from your 8X10 scan.

Appropriate post-scan processing technuqye of the image file, which includes sharpening, tonal adjustments, clean-up, etc. goes a longer way to determine final print quality than the resolution of the scan.

Sandy


Sandy

[JC Kuba]

What glass are people buying for "the pennies method"? I'm just getting into 8x10 and I'm not into spending $250 on a scanscience kit quite yet. A betterscanning mounting station is what I use for 4x5, and my optimal focus plane is around ~1.8 mm. I'm fine with dry mounting to a piece of ANR glass...

What would everyone recommend on the cheap?

I've been using the V700 to scan my 8x10s and so far haven't had any problems with newton rings regardless of which side I place face down.

[urs0polar]

Most framing stores sell an anti-glare glass that works in this application as well as AN glass, IMO. Just have a piece cut to the dimension of you scanner bed so that it will fit neatly into the area. Then you can dry mount directly tot he AN side of the glass, or if you want to do a bit better you can fluid mount to the bottom/clear side of the glass, with the AN side facing up toward the light. If you fluid mount and determine plane of best focus this will give you as good a result as you can get with the Epson V700.

If your negative is 8X10 you will have to choose ilm area guide, which will set the "high resolution" lens. If your negative is 6.5X8.5" or less in size you can choose film holder and the software will set the "super high resolution" lens, which will give higher resolution to the tune of about 600-800 dpi.

Results are not going to match a drum scanner but if you do a good job of processing the scan file you should be able to make a very good 32X40" print from your 8X10 scan.

Appropriate post-scan processing technuqye of the image file, which includes sharpening, tonal adjustments, clean-up, etc. goes a longer way to determine final print quality than the resolution of the scan.

Sandy


Sandy


Hi All,

Thanks for the tip about the picture glass. I'll see what I can find. focalpoint has AN glass for $100 that fits the scanner bed; I'll see what I can find in anti-glare picture glass.


Sandy,

I wasn't aware that the resolution goes down on the V700 when you scan 8x10... seems more and more to me that 8x10 is not "just like 4x5 but bigger" :)

Not to hijack the thread, but where would I go to learn more about post-scan processing technique? I feel very deficient in this area with all formats. (hmm maybe I should start a new thread for that as well).

Thanks!

-Mark

[sanking]

[QUOTE=Mark Hodos;573878

Not to hijack the thread, but where would I go to learn more about post-scan processing technique? I feel very deficient in this area with all formats. (hmm maybe I should start a new thread for that as well).

Thanks!

-Mark[/QUOTE]

I would recommend The Creative Digital Darkroom byh Katrin Eismann and Sean Duggan, published by O'Reilly Media.

Sandy King

[Peter De Smidt]

Katrin Eismann is a very reliable author, although I haven't read the book Sandy recommends. The Real World Photoshop series is also pretty good. If you'd rather see video tutorials, kelbytraining.com has some good ones.

[urs0polar]

Sandy and Peter,

Thank you so much! I'll go look into those on Amazon. Thank you again for the help!

-Mark

[urs0polar]

I've been using the V700 to scan my 8x10s and so far haven't had any problems with newton rings regardless of which side I place face down.

Hi JC,

I'm not so worried about Newton Rings as I am about hitting the optimal plane of focus.

I'm definitely going to try just laying it flat on the glass as well, now that I know it worked for you.

Thanks!
-Mark

[JC Kuba]

Mark,

My scans seem to be "sharp enough" for 13x19 prints when I just lay the 8x10 on the glass, but I haven't raised the negative off the glass to see if it I could get a sharper scan. If you experiment around I hope you post your results. I've read where people have found optimum focus to be above the glass on the 4990, but haven't heard similar things about the 700/750. I guess it would make some sort of sense for the manufacturer to error on the side of it being above the glass as opposed to it being below the glass in which case you would have to get inside the unit and adjust the lens to focus heigher.

[Peter De Smidt]

Try a scan emulsion down, and then try a scan emulsion up. It doesn't have to cover the whole negative. Compare scans. If the emulsion up one is sharper, then the focus point is above the bed. If they are the same, it's probably close to the bed. There seems to be a fair amount of variance from scanner to scanner.

[urs0polar]

Mark,

My scans seem to be "sharp enough" for 13x19 prints when I just lay the 8x10 on the glass, but I haven't raised the negative off the glass to see if it I could get a sharper scan. If you experiment around I hope you post your results. I've read where people have found optimum focus to be above the glass on the 4990, but haven't heard similar things about the 700/750. I guess it would make some sort of sense for the manufacturer to error on the side of it being above the glass as opposed to it being below the glass in which case you would have to get inside the unit and adjust the lens to focus heigher.

I have experimented around with the betterscanning mounting station, and on my particular v700, it's about ~1.8mm above the glass. However, I've heard they settle and so forth as well, so maybe I need to do it again.

But of course, this is for the mounting station, which is smaller and allows you to use the "high resolution" lens... so who knows where the lens that does 8x10 focuses.

If it wasn't all plastic and fragile-feeling, I would love to open the V700 up and see if I could focus it. But that seems like a good way for me to fumble something and break it.


Try a scan emulsion down, and then try a scan emulsion up. It doesn't have to cover the whole negative. Compare scans. If the emulsion up one is sharper, then the focus point is above the bed. If they are the same, it's probably close to the bed. There seems to be a fair amount of variance from scanner to scanner.

I like this idea; that's what I'm going to do. Hope I can tell the difference!

All I need now is for my lensboard adapter for the 8x10 to show up so I can start...

thanks again

Mark

[sanking]

Mark,

My scans seem to be "sharp enough" for 13x19 prints when I just lay the 8x10 on the glass, but I haven't raised the negative off the glass to see if it I could get a sharper scan. If you experiment around I hope you post your results. I've read where people have found optimum focus to be above the glass on the 4990, but haven't heard similar things about the 700/750. I guess it would make some sort of sense for the manufacturer to error on the side of it being above the glass as opposed to it being below the glass in which case you would have to get inside the unit and adjust the lens to focus heigher.

This will vary a bit with scanners but with the 4990 the best plane of focus is generally above the glass, generally about 0.5mm to 1.0mm above the glass. My experience is that with the V700 when you choose film area guide, which selects the high resolution lens, best plane of focus is also about 0.5mm to 1.0mm above the glass. However, when you choose film holder, which selects the "super high resolution" lens, the best plane of focus is well above the glass, about 2.5mm in my case, and some have reported up to 3.0mm.

Sandy King