Drum or flat scan?

[carlosmh1910]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking to convert 4x5 to digital so I can use the large inkjet printers at school (and use photoshop as well) but my question is: Can a flatbed scanner give me high enough quality to print at 40x50? Drum scans are expensive, so I was hoping to cut down on cost, but my work is VERY texture and detailed orientated, so I don't want to lose that when I enlarge. The reason I made the digital-to-film switch was for enlargement purposes, but not sure the best way to go about it. Any advice would be great! Thanks.

[mrkauffman]

what flat bed would you be using?

id say a high resolution scan of a 4x5 negative on a v700/750 should give you a good 40x50 but ill let those who have actually done it chime in.

[carlosmh1910]

I'm not sure what scanner (flatbed) because I have not bought it yet.

[Leigh]

The Epson V750 enables you to scan 4x5 @ 6500 ppi, which equates to 650 ppi at 10x enlargement.

That's twice the nominal 300 ppi that you print, so it should work OK.

I've found the scans to be excellent when viewed on-screen. I don't print in that size range.

- Leigh

[Bruce Watson]

Can a flatbed scanner give me high enough quality to print at 40x50?

It all comes down to how you define "high enough quality". If you are asking if a consumer flatbed can give the same image quality as a drum scanner at 10-12x enlargement, the answer is no. Not even close. But do you need that quality level?

A better question is, do you need to print at 50 x 40 inches? I've found that the vast majority of images don't need and don't want to be printed that large. IOW, just because you *can* do it, doesn't mean you *should* do it. Just sayin'. And if you limit your enlargement to the 4-5x range, consumer flatbed scans should be more or less sufficient.

If you are worried about costs, the wise thing to do is print smaller. Printing smaller lowers the cost of everything in the post processing chain, from scan to Photoshop time, to printing, to framing.

[Noah A]

If you have free access to large printers at your university it's a great time to experiment with large prints. If you want to print large you should try it.

I've used lots of scanners, from the old Leafscans to Nikon film scanners, Epson flatbeds and drum scanners.

Perhaps my idea of quality is different than others, or perhaps I'm really bad at flatbed scanning, but I don't think the quality of an Epson flatbed is even remotely close to being able to give a good 40x50.

I have an Epson 4990 that I bought when I started shooting 8x10. I have access to a V750, and I recently bought a Howtek drum scanner.

With the flatbed scanners, I experimented with custom neg holders to find the ideal focus, and I also tried wet mounting.

Ultimately, I think the Epsons are usable for about a 16x20 print from 4x5, though there is a real advantage with drum scans even for smaller prints.

I would never, ever try a 50-inch print from an Epson scan. I guess if it's your only option and the printing is free, then there's no harm in trying.

Does your school have any scanners? Or are you in a city where you may be able to rent time on a scanner? For example here in philly there is a photo arts center where you can rent time on an imacon scanner. The imacon, while not a true drum scanner, would probably give you good quality for that size print. And the imacons are fast, so you can get a bunch of scans done during a 1 hour rental.

If I were you, I'd try to find an epson to try out. Scan your neg and then you can make small section prints at the enlargement factor of your final prints. Perhaps you can get the same neg scanned on an imacon and a drum scanner for comparison.

[carlosmh1910]

Noah,
The school has scanners called Epson V500. I've been printing at 13x19.5 and the prints are just too small. I know bigger is not always better, but for this specific project, big is ideal. I'll try to see if I can't rent a drum scan in the city (The school is in Chicago). Thanks!

[Brian Ellis]

Different people have different standard for what's acceptable quality and what isn't. But for me, a 4x enlargement is about the best I'm happy with from my Epson 4990 (which is essentially the same scanner as the current 700/750 series). The resolution that Leigh mentions doesn't reflect the actual ppi that the 700/750 series is capable of resolving. That's more like 2200 ppi. So I wouldn't be happy at all with a 40x50 enlargement from a 4x5 negative made with that scanner. There are of course other "flat" scanners that cost a lot more than the 700/750 series but I've never used them.

[Peter De Smidt]

If you can, have someone make a good scan with a V750, and then have someone make a good scan of the same film with one of the better drum scanners. Make prints. Compare. They don't have to be huge prints, as they could be crops from the scan, perhaps 16 x 20s.

Another option would be pro flatbeds such as a Kodak/Creo, Screen Cezanne.

Do you want to scan color or bw? If you shoot lots of Velvia, especially in contrasty situations, a drum scanner would be the way to go, as they do the best job with high density film.

[Noah A]

Usually you can't rent drum scanners since they're a tiny bit more complicated to use. But in a big city like Chicago I'd think you could rent time on an Imacon by the hour.

[Lenny Eiger]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking to convert 4x5 to digital so I can use the large inkjet printers at school (and use photoshop as well) but my question is: Can a flatbed scanner give me high enough quality to print at 40x50? Drum scans are expensive, so I was hoping to cut down on cost, but my work is VERY texture and detailed orientated, so I don't want to lose that when I enlarge. The reason I made the digital-to-film switch was for enlargement purposes, but not sure the best way to go about it. Any advice would be great! Thanks.

Drum scans can be expensive, but if you want the detail and texture at a large size, there is no comparison.

Make friends with someone who has a drum scanner. Learn how to mount and mount for them one day a week or something for a couple of hours in exchange for free scans. That's how my intern does it. He gets free scans... buys a box of acetate every once in a while, just to be nice....

That would be my suggestion... you might even learn a lot...

Lenny

[Professional]

Send your 4x5 sheet to me and i will scan it with my digital MF, i don't know but that MF file maybe better than my V750 scanning, and it may be enough to print up to 40x50 you want, just i can't be sure DSLR or digital scanning can be better than a real scanner even flatbed, but i will not talk about a drum scanners, but in the future i will try to do a test if my digital MF can beat Nikon coolscan 9000, but i don't have that Nikon 9000 and can't find it anywhere here.

[Professional]

Usually you can't rent drum scanners since they're a tiny bit more complicated to use. But in a big city like Chicago I'd think you could rent time on an Imacon by the hour.

Is Imacon a drum scanner? I thought it is a virtual drum and not a true drum scanner

[Noah A]

Is Imacon a drum scanner? I thought it is a virtual drum and not a true drum scanner

No, the imacon is not a drum. I meant that while you usually can't rent a drum scanner, you can rent an imacon. Sorry if I ran the thoughts together.

The imacon is not a drum but it's better than a consumer flatbed so it might be a good option for scans on a budget.

[vinny]

hasn't this subject been discussed to death dozens of times in old threads since scanners were invented? he said, she said.

[Professional]

Too bad that i would like to find a drum scanner[not Imacon] that can scan up to 8x10, and they can ship it to UAE, where i can buy a drum scanner for 8x10?

[Karl Hudson]

The Heidelberg Nexscan is my favorite flatbed. It has a 5080 dpi optical res and there's no mirror in the light path. It's a larger free-standing machine which allows the lens and the 8000 pixel trilinear CCD to get pretty far away from the original and from each other, unlike a desktop flatbed. A friend of mine has a refurbished one available in Chicago. Feel free to contact me for more info...

[sanking]

Too bad that i would like to find a drum scanner[not Imacon] that can scan up to 8x10, and they can ship it to UAE, where i can buy a drum scanner for 8x10?


Here in the US it is not that hard to find high end drum scanners and professional quality flatbed scanners on the used market for far less than one would pay for a new Hasselblad/Imacon scanner. However, drum scanners and professional flatbed equipment are very large and heavy and one would have to pay a lot to ship out of the US, to say nothing of the issue of damage in transit. Even movement here in the US can run several hundred dollars to crate and ship this thpe of equipment, which typically weighs from 130 - 200 lbs at minimum.

You might contact http://www.genesis-equipment.com/whyGenesis.aspx to get a quote on purchase and shipment to your country of a drum scanner or high end flatbed. The purchase prices I have seen for good equipment are fairly reasonable, IMO, not sure what shipping costs would be.

Sandy King

[Professional]

Here in the US it is not that hard to find high end drum scanners and professional quality flatbed scanners on the used market for far less than one would pay for a new Hasselblad/Imacon scanner. However, drum scanners and professional flatbed equipment are very large and heavy and one would have to pay a lot to ship out of the US, to say nothing of the issue of damage in transit. Even movement here in the US can run several hundred dollars to crate and ship this thpe of equipment, which typically weighs from 130 - 200 lbs at minimum.

You might contact http://www.genesis-equipment.com/whyGenesis.aspx to get a quote on purchase and shipment to your country of a drum scanner or high end flatbed. The purchase prices I have seen for good equipment are fairly reasonable, IMO, not sure what shipping costs would be.

Sandy King

Thank you very much!

Yes, i am worry that i amy pay half the price of the item for the shipping, and the tax also will be added [we call it a custom duty, but it is same as tax even less in all cases].

I will give them a call or message them and see, but which scanner i should go with if i will scan up to 8x10 film?

[sanking]

Thank you very much!

Yes, i am worry that i amy pay half the price of the item for the shipping, and the tax also will be added [we call it a custom duty, but it is same as tax even less in all cases].

I will give them a call or message them and see, but which scanner i should go with if i will scan up to 8x10 film?


Three good choices would be Howtek 4500 (drum scanner), Fuji Cezanne (professional flatbed) and Creo/Kodak Eversmart Supreme (professional flatbed).

Also, contact Karl Hudson (see previous messages this thread). He may know of a Lino / Heidelberg scanner in Germany (or somewhere else in the world) that would cost less, considering shipping.

For my personal use with B&W and color negative film I would prefer the Howtek 4500 for 35mm and medium format, and the Eversmart Supreme for 8X10. For color transparency film you need a drum scanner for optimum results, regardless of format.

Sandy King

[Professional]

Three good choices would be Howtek 4500 (drum scanner), Fuji Cezanne (professional flatbed) and Creo/Kodak Eversmart Supreme (professional flatbed).

Also, contact Karl Hudson (see other threads this forum). He may know of a Lino / Heidelberg scanner in Germany that would cost less, considering shipping.

For my personal use with B&W and color negative film I would prefer the Howtek 4500 for 35mm and medium format, and the Eversmart Supreme for 8X10. For color transparency film you need a drum scanner for optimum results, regardless of format.

Sandy King

I shoot B&W, color Negative and Transparencies[slides], and i shoot medium fromat and not only LF, i don't shoot 35mm, so i will be using MF to LF[up to 8x10] with all kind of films

[zhengjdc]

I have owned both, and currently still owning a v700 and another Howtek D4000 drum scanner.

For 4x5, the resolution is more than enough over v700, and with doug's wet mounting kit, the result is very crispy, a drum scanner doesn't bring any advantages over resolution for 4x5..

However, the drum scanner still deliver low light performance that nothing can surpass it, if your slides having tons of shadows, v700 sees nothing there, nada, but the drum scanner can see something even your eyes won't witness over a projector.

However, there's a work around for v700 to compensate its very weak CCD sensor is by using Vuescan.

Vuescan is a must have type of software that every owner should grab one. It allows actual exposure control over v700/750 wayyyyyy before the A/D conversion taking place, which means it allows v700 has more dynamic range and allows it to see dark much easier.... a must be kind of software.

For 4x5 with Vuescan, v700 is more than enough if you know how to twitch the exposure control under Vuescan and no need go for drum.

my 2 cent.

[Laron]

zhengjdc: thanks for this post, i feel now much much better as i have already ordered a v700 for 4x5 scanning! Thanks for the tip for going vuescan. I would really need those dark tones...

[Richard Mahoney]

Hello everyone,

I'm looking to convert 4x5 to digital so I can use the large inkjet printers at school (and use photoshop as well) but my question is: Can a flatbed scanner give me high enough quality to print at 40x50? Drum scans are expensive, so I was hoping to cut down on cost, but my work is VERY texture and detailed orientated, so I don't want to lose that when I enlarge. The reason I made the digital-to-film switch was for enlargement purposes, but not sure the best way to go about it. Any advice would be great! Thanks.

Its is often said that flatbed scans are relatively inexpensive compared to drum scans. What is often forgotten is the amount of additional time required to make many flatbed scans half-way tolerable. Every drum scan I have ever received has been prepared ready for printing. Every flatbed scan I have ever made for myself has required an inordinate amount of post-processing.

There is also a critical difference between the `look' of a good drum scan and a flatbed scan. We often hear people on this forum saying that this only becomes noticeable at larger print sizes. In truth, the difference is noticeable in plates on a printed page, and even on relatively poor quality computer monitors.

Simply put -- you get what you pay for. If you are happy with a marked drop off in quality between your transparency and your print then make flatbed scans. If, on the other hand, you want to maintain the highest level of quality at each stage from the your film to your print, and if you have sufficient funds, then hire someone to drum scan your material.


Kind regards,

Richard

[Professional]

I think i will go with the drum scanner sooner or later if i can budget, this way i will never look back, i am sure i will always keep looking for highest level of quality and pixel peeping and printing larger prints of my film shots then i will curse my Epson scanner more and more day by day, so better get one drum scanner and enjoy the quality and no complains.

[zhengjdc]

zhengjdc: thanks for this post, i feel now much much better as i have already ordered a v700 for 4x5 scanning! Thanks for the tip for going vuescan. I would really need those dark tones...

the premise is that you MUST get doug's wet mounting kit for v700, as these flatbed scanner has absolutely NO focusing ability what not. Without wet mounting kit &Vuescan, v700 simply sucks.

Another thing you might need keep in mind is that, the time spent on wetmounting over v700 is more than drum scanner, overally I feel scanning a good scan on v700 is more time consuming than a drum scanner, maybe I am a perfectionist, who compulsively adjust the wetmounting height over v700, just to make myself *feel* right about it.

1st of all, you need spent 1 whole day for precise measuring the wet mounting kit height, it took me 20 trials.

Then you need to keep the film flat to the glass and this isn't easy. Drum scanner comes with special mounting station that easily can remove air bubbles but not with a piece of bare glass.

Without vuescan, v700 has NO ability to see the darks of your film, not with silverfast, nor epson scanning software... I found that Vuescan is the most amazing piece of software that directly controls the scanner hardware and it even allows you to save it into a camera RAW format.

Another thing you might keep in mind that a used drum scanner can be sell for just a little over $1000, if you found a working horse, it's worthing its money.

If you have really good 135 films, v700's resolution power isn't strong enough to catch some details made on my canon L lens, only drum scanners can see details at 4096dpi, where v700 seems to be struggling at 3500dpi and it's 6400dpi seems to be just market hyping.

[zhengjdc]

There is also a critical difference between the `look' of a good drum scan and a flatbed scan. We often hear people on this forum saying that this only becomes noticeable at larger print sizes. In truth, the difference is noticeable in plates on a printed page, and even on relatively poor quality computer monitors.


Richard

The "looking" difference is merely the diffraction limit of most flatbed scanners, that's why you should keep scanning lower than 3500dpi on v700 since over that limit, the lens begin to flare abit and the lens can't conform the 3 different light too well thus causing slight chromatic abbreviation around contrasty objects.

Drum scanner doesn't suffer such a problem simply due to the fact that it's a microscope lens with mechanical focusing gizmo+ a simple hole structured aperture with high sensitivity PMT tubes.

We expose longer on v700 for compensating the high S/N ratio of the CCD sensor, and lower the resolution for CA, and using wet mounting kits for its lacking of focusing ability.

[Karl Hudson]

Well I carry both if you are interested in a fully refurbished Heidelberg. It's not of much use for me to post anything on here because it always disappears right after I post it with no private message from the moderator as to why...same thing happened when I was offering cheap service on my U.S. Tour which worked out great for everyone involved, but those of you on here who might have needed my services in conjunction with an amazingly cheap offer wouldn't have known about it, since it too, was instantly deleted (twice)....you can find me on the Yahoo Scan Hi-End and the Yahoo Primescan Tango groups...I'm ducking out of here. Good luck with all your Howteks, Colorgetters, and other desktop scanners.
Karl Hudson

[Findingmyway4ever]

Everyone will have a different viewpoint, but this post by Don Hutton was enough for me to "know" that it is not worth using the cheap flatbeds for anything more than proofing:

"I have done a B&W comparison with 4x5 and 8x10 - drum scan of the 4x5 at 4000DPI on a Howtek 4500 and the 8x10 scanned on an Epson 4990 at 2400DPI (I believe that the V750 is maybe just slightly better). Actual resolution was not that different - however, the drum scan delivers far more microcontrast and overall a much better file - and that's on a 4x5 to 8x10 comparison. I've made 16x20 prints from scans of 8x10 negs on the Epson and then made the same 16x20 prints from a drum scan and there are very visible differences in the final prints - mostly related to microcontrast. In color, I would expect these differences to be even greater, especially from chromes.

Most people I have spoken to about the relative merits of consumer flatbed vs drum scans of large format film presume that the differences will be all about resolution - that's only a small part of it - microcontrast, dynamic range and lack of any noise are probably bigger factors to consider. If you have any doubts, I'd highly recommend that you spring for a drum scan from a reputable operator (like Lenny Eiger) and make up your own mind. I'd suggest it won't take long."

[Asher Kelman]

I have owned both, and currently still owning a v700 and another Howtek D4000 drum scanner.

For 4x5, the resolution is more than enough over v700, and with doug's wet mounting kit, the result is very crispy, a drum scanner doesn't bring any advantages over resolution for 4x5..

However, the drum scanner still deliver low light performance that nothing can surpass it, if your slides having tons of shadows, v700 sees nothing there, nada, but the drum scanner can see something even your eyes won't witness over a projector.

However, there's a work around for v700 to compensate its very weak CCD sensor is by using Vuescan.

Vuescan is a must have type of software that every owner should grab one. It allows actual exposure control over v700/750 wayyyyyy before the A/D conversion taking place, which means it allows v700 has more dynamic range and allows it to see dark much easier.... a must be kind of software.

For 4x5 with Vuescan, v700 is more than enough if you know how to twitch the exposure control under Vuescan and no need go for drum.

my 2 cent.

Does one get any advantage with the Epson 750 f one is going to use vuescan software anyway. Also, do you see any advantage in the Epson 10,000 XL Photo for 4x5 and 8x10

Thanks so much,

Asher

[engl]

Everyone will have a different viewpoint, but this post by Don Hutton was enough for me to "know" that it is not worth using the cheap flatbeds for anything more than proofing:


So how would you explain this "knowledge" to the many on this forum making beautiful prints from V700 scanners, including respected and very knowledgeable professionals? "Nice shot, but the quality is really just good enough for proofing?".

There are quality differences, but being worse than the best does not make something poor. Drum scanners are better, still properly sharpened Epson scans are very good for 4x5.

[Jake Purches]

I often have to drum scan photographs that have been poorly scanned on other machines, like Imacons. The problem is this: Drum scanners can see colour that would not register on a conventional scanner. If you want the same colour fidelity from your original then a good RGB 48 bit drum scan is the only way. Why? Because a) They are wet scanned with oil which means there is an optical connection of the transpareny to the drum. Hence only the grain is 'seen' and not the material the film is made of. b) Drum scanners use Photo multiplier tubes as sensors not CCDs. PMT tubes are billions of times more sensitive and are used for photon counting. c) The scanner only scans 1 pixel at a time thereby devoting all its resources to making on perfect pixel rather than an array of CCDs which are optically an appalling compromise. d) Drum scanners can easily scan up to and more than 8000 dpi, and this is real dpi not imagined or pretend. OK they are more expensive to do because the time and effort in mounting, scanning then cleaning up your original is labour intensive, but you get what you pay for. A drum scan even looks the business when reduced down to internet size, so its not just massive image files or sharpness, its COLOUR DYNAMIC RANGE that you get with a drum scan, that is so obviously missing in a CCD scanner no matter what type it is. And Flat bed scanners are always the worst of the worst. They are a false economy. Do fewer photos and get them drum scanned - PLEASE.

[pdmoylan]

In real terms, when I printed 20x24s and even a 24x30 from downsampled dpi 4800 scans using the V750 and compared them to drum scans of the same image, the loss of microdetails in the former is obvious even from a reasonable distance (8 feet). Up close, you still have very good resolution but the detail is shall we say "dirty". Subtlety of color is clearly improved with the drum. Many complimented the 750 prints but what they were seeing was the image. The impact is clearly improved with the drum scan. If you want something with maximum punch, the "wow" effect, go with drum scans. Not all drums scanners are created equal though. There is a comparative test connected with this forum. Check it out.

[SeanEsopenko]

I'm starting to feel as though I'm "outgrowing" my own V700. I wanted to confirm my thoughts that I wasn't getting as sharp of scans as I should so I bought an old LS-2000 dedicated film scanner for 35mm. I was right, the V700 was scanning without much detail. Plus I love the RGB led's in the LS-2000 for removing the orange mask. I noticed a large difference in the dynamic range when scanning colour negatives once that was tweaked :). I'd rather have 12-16 bits of pure image information, and not have to lose many of those bits to removing the orange mask via software.

http://www.seanesopenko.ca/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/scancomparison1.jpg

On the top is a 2700 dpi scan with the LS-2000 and the bottom is a scan with the V700. The epson looks like mud compared to the 13 year old LS-2000. I get 9 "megapixel" scans from 35mm film with the LS-2000 while with the V700 I have to frequently scale it down to about 1.5 "megapixels" and even then it looked like crap when posting an image to the web.

I started to notice something was up when scanning medium format film. I have some betterscanning.com holders on the way (because I can't justify the expense of an upgraded scanner ATM) but even wet mounted using Jim Kitchen's technique and suspended at the optimal focusing point (with pennies, tape & paper for spacers lol) my RB67 scans are hard pressed to beat my 12MP Canon 5D.

While my V700 scans look great on the monitor for 4x5 work I totally don't trust it for 20x24" prints (or larger) with the same sharpness I get when enlarged in the darkroom. No way. I think the 4x5 negatives are too small to get good, detailed prints from the V700.

Also I tried Vuescan's multi-exposure with my V700 but the stepper motor wasn't accurate enough to get sharp scans when mixing the two passes. It increased the dynamic range a bit but blurred the images. I'm putting together a colour darkroom because my 4x5 work is all fine-art oriented and I can't afford a digital workflow at the moment with a large inkjet printer and a good scanner. Maybe in a year or two but not now.

[Brian Ellis]

It's hardly a surprise that a comparison of a dedicated 35mm film scanner with an Epson flatbed scanning 35mm film shows that the 35mm film scanner does a much better job. Nobody that I know of ever thought the Epson flatbeds were any good with 35mm except maybe for web postings. They're strictly for 4x5 and 8x10 film or maybe medium format if the prints are kept real small (I actually didn't like the prints from scans of my 6x7 negatives at any size but some people do). And 4x enlargements are the maximum for me with the 4990.

As long as you don't expect the Epson scanner to do something it was never intended to do (i.e. work well with 35mm), and as long as you recognize its limits (4x enlargements) it does an excellent job.

[Asher Kelman]

It's hardly a surprise that a comparison of a dedicated 35mm film scanner with an Epson flatbed scanning 35mm film shows that the 35mm film scanner does a much better job. Nobody that I know of ever thought the Epson flatbeds were any good with 35mm except maybe for web postings. They're strictly for 4x5 and 8x10 film or maybe medium format if the prints are kept real small (I actually didn't like the prints from scans of my 6x7 negatives at any size but some people do). And 4x enlargements are the maximum for me with the 4990.

As long as you don't expect the Epson scanner to do something it was never intended to do (i.e. work well with 35mm), and as long as you recognize its limits (4x enlargements) it does an excellent job.
Brian,

What's you experience with just printing an 8x10 V700 scan at 16x20 v. a drum scan?

Asher

[Leigh]

As long as you don't expect ... to do something it was never intended to do, and as long as you recognize its limits, it does an excellent job.
That's kinda true of any product, yes/no???

- Leigh

[edtog]

Here's a quick comparison I made on another forum

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=3553459&postcount=13

[Brian Ellis]

That's kinda true of any product, yes/no???

- Leigh

No. Some products don't do a very good job even when used within their limits.

[Brian Ellis]

Brian,

What's you experience with just printing an 8x10 V700 scan at 16x20 v. a drum scan?

Asher

I've never had a drum scan made from an 8x10 negative.

[SeanEsopenko]

Here's a quick comparison I made on another forum

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=3553459&postcount=13

That's about the same difference in sharpness I see when comparing a darkroom, silver print enlargement to a V700 scan of 4x5, even when wet mounted. I just wish there was somebody locally who offered $20 drum scanning :).

I believe Kandinsky is the Ansel Adams of my generation. I've so far, in person, heard two people describe their awe and wonder when first seeing an Ansel Adams print, wondering "how the hell did he do that?" I experienced that when I saw a Kandinsky print for the first time, around the same age when they saw their first Ansel Adams. I looked at my little Digital Rebel and thought "what the hell am I doing?" If somebody has the ambition to reach that level of work they can't do it with a flatbed scanner. They're going to need much more than that.


As long as you don't expect the Epson scanner to do something it was never intended to do (i.e. work well with 35mm), and as long as you recognize its limits (4x enlargements) it does an excellent job.

Going back to the original poster's question, he was asking if a V700 would suffice for 40x50" prints and I think the general consensus is that the OP may be disappointed seeing V700 scans enlarged to that size.

[Ed Kelsey]

The Epson V750 enables you to scan 4x5 @ 6500 ppi, which equates to 650 ppi at 10x enlargement.

That's twice the nominal 300 ppi that you print, so it should work OK.

I've found the scans to be excellent when viewed on-screen. I don't print in that size range.

- Leigh

Oh come on what's the use of scanning at 6500 dpi ? Even if you can do it and I don't think you can, all you're going to get is more grain past somewhere between 3200 and 4000 dpi

[SeanEsopenko]

Oh come on what's the use of scanning at 6500 dpi ? Even if you can do it and I don't think you can, all you're going to get is more grain past somewhere between 3200 and 4000 dpi

I agree, the V700 can't really resolve any more detail at 6500 dpi than it can at 2400 dpi. I'm even suspicious it's not properly resolving 2400 dpi scans because I should be seeing the grain aliasing I get at 2700 dpi from my LS-2000. There are some serious focus problems with the V700, even when I tweak the height with paper thin adjustment and wet mount the negatives.

It seems like one plausible use for a super high resolution scan is to help with grain aliasing. I see grain aliasing all the time from my LS-2000 but the V700 can't resolve the grain fine enough for aliasing to start showing up. So why bother scanning at 6500 dpi when there's no benefit to it?

[Asher Kelman]

Here's a quick comparison I made on another forum

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=3553459&postcount=13

Great comparison. Now have you compared that with an 8x10 enlarger making the enlargement? Or maybe someone has a link to such tests? I'm wondering about the relative cost of setting up for such great 16x20 or even 32x40 prints from 8x10 film

Asher

[engl]

Here's a quick comparison I made on another forum

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=3553459&postcount=13

Interesting, my V700 is not nearly as mushy at 1200DPI (which seems to be what the crop is).

[sanking]

Interesting, my V700 is not nearly as mushy at 1200DPI (which seems to be what the crop is).

I am also surprised that the crop from the Epson V700 scan looked so mushy. It should compare quite favorably with a dedicated film scanner up to 2000 dpi, or even an Imacon for that matter since resolution with the Imacon for 4X5 is limited to 2040 dpi.

In the past I tested the Epson V700 with a high resolution target. What I found was that when scanning at 2400 dpi the actual effective resolution of the V700 was about 2000 dpi, increasing to about 2300 dpi if the scan was made at 6400 dpi.

In my opinion16X20 prints of excellent quality are possible from a 4X5 scan of B&W film with the V700 if one takes care to get the most out of the machine (fluid mounting and determining the plane of best focus) and carries out good post-scan processing. Fluid mounting with the V700 does not give more resolution but it gives a lot more micro-contrast. Good post scan processing is, IMHO, even more important then the quality of the scan, within limits of course.

Returning to the original question of the OP, for a print 40X50" in size (assuming optimum image quality is desired) one needs a higher quality scan than the V700 can provide.. You can get it with a professional flatbed like the Cezanne or Eversmart, or a drum scanner like the Howtek.

Sandy King

[Asher Kelman]

In the past I tested the Epson V700 with a high resolution target. What I found was that when scanning at 2400 dpi the actual effective resolution of the V700 was about 2000 dpi, increasing to about 2300 dpi if the scan was made at 6400 dpi.


What about the 10000XL scanner. That adds focus to 2400 optical scanning!

Asher

[Peter De Smidt]

The 10000XL can do larger originals, right? Other than that, if you place the negative at the correct height with a V700 or V750, would auto focus really be an advantage?

[Asher Kelman]

The 10000XL can do larger originals, right? Other than that, if you place the negative at the correct height with a V700 or V750, would auto focus really be an advantage?
I wonder whether Epson has a better stepper motor in their professional big scanner. but I don't know. From what I've read, getting exact focus with a V700 series is a pain. However, once it was done, repeating would be easy. My needs are for 4x5 and 8x10. It's also much less expensive than the 10000XL.

Maybe someone has actual experience.

Asher

[Brian Vuillemenot]

Here's a quick comparison I made on another forum

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=3553459&postcount=13

That's odd- the scans I get from my 4990 look a lot better than that. I've compared prints made from them to those of the same image drum scanned from 4X5 at a 16X20 print and can barely see a difference. There's probably a big difference between different Epson flatbeds, with some of the same model being a lot better than others.

[tangyimail]

How many people still use drum scan these days? In my part of the world it's getting almost impossible to find a lab that offers such service......

[RMiksell]

I love my Howtek 4500. It's a bit of work to get a good scan but the results are worth it. Here's an example taken on Velvia 100F when I was visiting England a little over a year ago: http://miksellfamily.zenfolio.com/p226859804/h474E7608

50" prints shouldn't be an issue with a drum scan. I haven't really played around with a profession level flatbed scanner so I can't speak to the quality of those.

If anyone is interested in getting some drum scans send me a message and we can work something out. I'm in the St Louis area.

[vinny]

How many people still use drum scan these days? In my part of the world it's getting almost impossible to find a lab that offers such service......

Yes. I do. I also have a v700 which doesn't do a great job with chromes. Getting an accurate scan that's also full of detail is much easier on my drum scanner. Consumer scanners have gotten better, few drum scanners are still being manufactured/serviced, lack of film shooters in the commercial world, and people have lowered their standards.

[Lenny Eiger]

I drum scan - for most of my clients. There are a lot of drum scanning services out there. I wouldn't take my film to a "Lab" to be scanned. I would send it to a scanner operator, someone who focuses on scanning (and quality vs volume).

Drum scans can be pretty spectacular... they are some work to accomplish, to be sure. One wants to edit very carefully before spending the extra money... no one can scan everything (unless you have your own scanner).

Lenny

[Don Dudenbostel]

Send your 4x5 sheet to me and i will scan it with my digital MF, i don't know but that MF file maybe better than my V750 scanning, and it may be enough to print up to 40x50 you want, just i can't be sure DSLR or digital scanning can be better than a real scanner even flatbed, but i will not talk about a drum scanners, but in the future i will try to do a test if my digital MF can beat Nikon coolscan 9000, but i don't have that Nikon 9000 and can't find it anywhere here.

I've used my Hasselblad digital system to copy 8x10 negs with excellent results. You need to adjust curves some but the final result is excellent.

All flat beds are not created equal. I sold my Fuji Lanovia Quattro anticipating a major cross country move. The Fuji was very large and heave, 150 pounds. I purchased an Epson V750 as a low cost alternative understanding it would not match the quality of the Fuji. The Fuji was the ultimate and came very close to drum scanning. The Epson is fine within limits but not on the level of the Fuji.

I also own an Imacon 848 and find it close to the Fuji in quality. The Imacon / Hasselblad scanners are a real pleasure to use.

[RMiksell]

I drum scan - for most of my clients. There are a lot of drum scanning services out there. I wouldn't take my film to a "Lab" to be scanned. I would send it to a scanner operator, someone who focuses on scanning (and quality vs volume).

Drum scans can be pretty spectacular... they are some work to accomplish, to be sure. One wants to edit very carefully before spending the extra money... no one can scan everything (unless you have your own scanner).

Lenny

Even having a scanner it'd be difficult to scan every negative and transparency, at least while I still have little ones at home.

[vinny]

Even having a scanner it'd be difficult to scan every negative and transparency, at least while I still have little ones at home.

True that. The scanner surely isn't going to get worn out in my house. Hell, if I get a full day to process film, I'm feeling lucky.

[invisibleflash]

What this thread needs is a direct compare with images done on a flatbed vs drum scan.

[Otto Seaman]

Of course a carefully made Epson scan can be printed large and, if everything is done using best practices, you'll get good results. Probably better than average for the size you'll be working at.

The only thing is that a similarly well-crafted print that starts from a good drum scan will be better. How much? The only way to know for sure is to make a test run. It depends on the texture, the print media, the original film, and most importantly, the skill of the artist.

If all you can afford are Epson 700 scans then get the most out of them. I've seen plenty of mucked up drum scans too, it's better to have excellent skills and modest equipment than the versa.

I've also seen drum scans from some vendors that are worse than my Epson scans....

That said, getting a scan from Lenny is a bargain, he knows what he's doing and you should at least try one so then you'll know the difference. I mainly use an Epson but I also rarely print larger than 11x17. Even at that size the drum scan will show more tones and less noise but I can't afford or justify drum scanning everything.

[Lenny Eiger]

What this thread needs is a direct compare with images done on a flatbed vs drum scan.


This has been done many times.
Here's one example....

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?99304-Lenny-comes-through-again&p=983528&viewfull=1#post983528



P.S. I sympathize with those that can't get to do enough work because of other responsibilities... it seems like I have been doing everything else.....

Lenny

[Evanjoe610]

Hi Lenny,

Been following this thread for awhile and I'm also on another thread on the Rangefinder Forum. I 'm seeing some fantastic scans coming off a Scanview Scanmate SM11000 scanner.

Who still makes drum scanners at the point that ARE AFFORDABLE still? Any particular used drum scanner that is truly a desktop model that has spare part supplies and
support that you are aware of?

I turned down several complete Hell drum scanners that is more in line with a prepress shop. And they were for FREE!

I'm currently using 3 different film scanners for my personal scans. I have a Canon FS4000US film scanner for all 35mm work. An Imacon Precision II and a Creo/Scitex Eversmart Pro II with a recently acquired Oil Mounting Station. These scanners are spread out among my G4 MMD either with SCSI or UBS connection. In the case of the Imacon & Cre/Scitex I have several Brand New RatoFRS1X adapters. All of these scanners could go with the installed SCSI connection. However to utilize the newest possible software, its better to go with the Ratoc.

I like the results I'm seeing off the SM11000, as it is the only drum scanner that I KNOW of that has 11,000 dpi. Very good tonal range and smooth transition from 3/4 tone to end pooint, the hardest area to achieve.

[LF_rookie_to_be]

It's my understanding that no drum scanners are being made any more completely new. ICG in England, Aztek in USA and maybe still Dainippon Screen in Japan still offer a few models for sale as "new", but the presence of G4 Macs (discontinued in 2003!) with those models may mean these are "highly refurbished" models, as opposed to "refurbished", also on offer from the former two. They probably have a lot of spare parts to re-build a used scanner they can offer service for. Or still have brand new in stock sitting for over a decade, who knows. If anyone really does know for fact, please correct me.

If you have the room and can organize transport, I'd go back to offers for Hell scanners, or perhaps Crosfield/Fujifilm. If you don't have enough footprint, but a high enough ceiling, look for ICG and Heidelberg (Tango/Primescan). If you're limited with space, desktop drum scanner is your only choice (Aztek/Howtek, Celsis 240, Optronics, Scanmate, Screen DTS-1030ai), but do get one you can personally test, and preferably transport yourself.

[Lenny Eiger]

Hi Lenny,
Been following this thread for awhile and I'm also on another thread on the Rangefinder Forum. I 'm seeing some fantastic scans coming off a Scanview Scanmate SM11000 scanner.
Who still makes drum scanners at the point that ARE AFFORDABLE still? Any particular used drum scanner that is truly a desktop model that has spare part supplies and support that you are aware of?
I like the results I'm seeing off the SM11000, as it is the only drum scanner that I KNOW of that has 11,000 dpi. Very good tonal range and smooth transition from 3/4 tone to end pooint, the hardest area to achieve.

Aztek still makes brand new scanners if you want them. (I honestly don't know what ICG does.) However, brand new and inexpensive don't really go together...

There are plenty of used Azteks/Howteks out there and I think they are the best bang for the buck. They still support the 4500, 7500, 8000 and Premier models. They have plenty of spare parts.

The Premier is the best in that group, altho the 8000's are very close. I have seen some excellent scans off of a Scanmate 11,000. The person was using Color Quartet and that looked just plain awful as a software platform.

Be careful about the numbers. The real number, optical resolution is never listed. 8,000's and Premiers have an optical resolution of about 7400ppi/spi/dpi. That's very close to the 8,000 that they max out at. Despite the fact that a Scanmate 11,000 can generate 11,000 pixels (so can the Tango) it doesn't mean it can resolve at that level. In fact, the level is likely at about 4,000, given that the units are based on a 6 micron engine. (There are approximately 4,000 6 micron slices in an inch.) Premier's have a stepper motor that can do 18,000 individual steps, they could have given you 18,000 ppi/spi/dpi. However, they chose not to, so that the resolution (number of pixels) and the actual optical resolution were in step.

Hope this helps.


Lenny

[Otto Seaman]

Trust in Lenny.

Some of the old drums that used to be quite expensive, like the Hieldeberg Tango, were designed to do more quantity than quality...

[Tyler Boley]

actually at my friend Walker's place called "Latitude" in Chicago you can indeed rent time on a drum scanner.. Everyone in Chicago should know about that place.
Tyler

[LF_rookie_to_be]

Lenny, I'd be interested to know which computers Aztek offers with these brand new scanners. Are these all still SCSI units? How does one use a SCSI device with a modern Windows 7/8 PC or OS X 10.7/8 Mac without resorting to FRS1X or similar adapters?

[Nathan Potter]

I recently posted a V750 scanned 4X5 image of the Chateau Lake Louise and Mt. Victoria take from across the valley using a TK45 with a 500 mm Nikon T ED lens. Camera and lens were mounted using multiple bean bags on a robust picnic table for ultimate stability on a zero wind day. Inspection of the 4X5 chrome shows that that the window shades are actually clearly visible in the chateau windows. The original chrome is pictured again below. For a fuller view go to the Flickr site.

The next post shows a 10X enlargement of the Chateau from the 4X5 Epson scanned chrome. It was wet scanned at 2400DPI. If you make a print of the Chateau you'll get an idea of what to expect from a 40 X 50 inch print from an Epson scan. OK for distance viewing but for critical close view really inadequate from my point of view. For posters, OK; for fine art, it's junk. The 10X enlargement is also on my Flickr site.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7391/8728774257_f5d97e753e_c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/argiolus/8728774257/)
45MN-34H)crop1,2[t1 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/argiolus/8728774257/) by hypolimnas (http://www.flickr.com/people/argiolus/), on Flickr

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Nathan Potter]

Below is the 10X enlargement (40 X 50 inch size) referred to in the previous post.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7288/8731533693_7d7f4e2853_c.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/argiolus/8731533693/)
45MN-34-H)crop1,2[t1M2 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/argiolus/8731533693/) by hypolimnas (http://www.flickr.com/people/argiolus/), on Flickr

Better visibility on my Flickr site.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Bodyslam]

Lenny, I'd be interested to know which computers Aztek offers with these brand new scanners. Are these all still SCSI units? How does one use a SCSI device with a modern Windows 7/8 PC or OS X 10.7/8 Mac without resorting to FRS1X or similar adapters?
Most of this information is easily available on Aztek's site. The software that they make and sell, Digital Photo Lab, runs on Windows. They have recommended Windows 7 Pro 32 bit as the best version. There isn't any problem finding that OS or computers that will run it. Of course they will configure a computer and sell it to you, if that's your wish, including the Adaptec SCSI card that they have found to be most reliable, or you can put one together yourself.

They also have some dongles for sale for those who would prefer to run Trident on a Mac for the Howteks. There was never a version of that for the Premier. It only runs on OS9, meaning you're limited to G4's or earlier. Actually the G3 is more than enough computer for this job. Running a drum scanner is not actually a computer-intensive task.

The only OSX software made for the Howtek scanners is Silverfast. It's not their latest version; they stopped developing it for the Howteks at version 6.6, and it doesn't support the Premier nor the Howtek 8000. You should be able to get a G5 working with a SCSI card and running this software pretty easily.

There are partisans for each of these software solutions here on the forums--use the search function if you want to read the opinions of people successfully using them.

[Evanjoe610]

Lenny,

Thank You for the update Information on Aztek support of the 4500, 7500, 8000 and Premier models. I used to operate a Crosfield drum scanner and a Hell scanner. I also operated a med-range Optronics ColorGetter Scanner with post Color correction using the Kodak Prophecy system!

Worked the entire gamut of Scitex based scanners up to thE IQSmart 3. I had at one point (3) Scitex scanners with just one remaining, the Eversmart Pro II on a Ratoc FRS1X ADAPTER.

I would rather can in OSX r Windows & instead of OS9.22 as I find it ancient and too many steps to move my images up to OSX platform.

I will look around for a used or refurbished scanner among the mentioned scanners you listed as the 4500, 7500, 8000 and Premier models.
I saw many scans that came off a ScanMate SM11000 that was fantastic, mostly likely the PMT. Smooth transition within the 3/4 tone to the end point.

Of course I have to make some room in my little home office if I buy into a Howtek drum scanner..

[Jim Andrada]

I picked up his quote from Jdmoylan a few pages back

Many complimented the 750 prints but what they were seeing was the image.

Duhhh - isn't the image the point of all this? Isn't it more important than pixel peeping, Dmax, grain or the absence thereof, etc etc? I certainly hope so. If one of my images evokes the desired reaction I count it a great success.

[sanking]

I don't understand any of this.

Who is Jdmoylan and why should it matter what he/she thinks.

To me the image and print are separate things. The image exists in a digital context or as a possibility of a negative, the print is a physical object. One could make the case that the point is about the image or the print.

Sandy

[pdmoylan]

So how many PHDs does it take to ruin a thread. One from Louisiana. Stick to Spanish at least you are fluent.

[pdmoylan]

Not to further liven the debate, but some of my best scans were from a sigma flatbed. Nice 20x24 prints almost equal to the Aztec.

PDM

[sanking]

So how many PHDs does it take to ruin a thread. One from Louisiana. Stick to Spanish at least you are fluent.


So you are jdmoylan?

What is up with the personal comments about my educational background and place of origin? I expect people on this forum to evaluate my comments by my knowledge of photography, not on my place of origin, or on how many ways I could tell a person to go stick their head up their arse in Spanish, or in French or in English.

Sandy

[amoebahyda]

I am very satisfied with my Hasselblad Flextight X1 scanner ...

100847

[invisibleflash]

I am very satisfied with my Hasselblad Flextight X1 scanner ...

100847


It is beautiful! I'd like to get one, but the lotto is not cooperating.

Have you done any tests to compare the scans with the flatbed Epson scanners?

[Regular Rod]

I am very satisfied with my Hasselblad Flextight X1 scanner ...

100847

How do you scan large format with it? I looked at the Hasselblad website and it only listed 4x5 and then only at 2040 dpi resolution...?

RR

[amoebahyda]

How do you scan large format with it? I looked at the Hasselblad website and it only listed 4x5 and then only at 2040 dpi resolution...?

RR

Largest format that Flextight X1 can handle is 5x7 but I am only using 4x5 film only ...

[Fotoman Professional]

You may want to give this a try. If you're shooting chromes the process is easy. If you shoot negative you may want to try to place an unexposed, but processed, piece of film down (film base color) to determine your white balance first. Shoot in RAW toward the right without clipping and adjust accordingly in LR, PS, etc.....

http://petapixel.com/2012/12/23/why-you-should-digitize-your-film-using-a-camera-instead-of-a-scanner/
http://petapixel.com/2012/12/24/how-to-scan-your-film-using-a-digital-camera-and-macro-lens/

[Lenny Eiger]

You may want to give this a try.

This is foolishness. I'm sorry, but these people don't know anything. Their image that was drum scanned doesn't compare to a 5D - that tells you enough there. It's garbage... Digital camera scans can be useful for pre visualizing, but they won't compare to a medium level scan.

Lenny

[Light Guru]

This is foolishness. I'm sorry, but these people don't know anything. Their image that was drum scanned doesn't compare to a 5D - that tells you enough there. It's garbage... Digital camera scans can be useful for pre visualizing, but they won't compare to a medium level scan.

I've seen you pick fun at that article more then once. If you really want to prove then wrong then why not write a detailed article about it. Simply saying they are foolish says nothing to educate others to your opinion. Saying their drum scan does not compare to other also does nothing if you don't show examples to back up your point.

The examples they show in the article are going to look vary convincing if people don't have experience with a good drum scan, if you want to say their examples are wrong then why not back it up with examples of your own.

Also keep I'm mind that there is nothing wrong with suggesting that there is a a third option other then drum scan or flatbed scan that definitely beats quality if a flatbed scan and is also a much cheeper then sending a large format negative out to be drum scanned if you already have a DSLR.

[AtlantaTerry]

I have owned both, and currently still owning a v700 and another Howtek D4000 drum scanner.

However, there's a work around for v700 to compensate its very weak CCD sensor is by using Vuescan.

Vuescan is a must have type of software that every owner should grab one. It allows actual exposure control over v700/750 wayyyyyy before the A/D conversion taking place, which means it allows v700 has more dynamic range and allows it to see dark much easier.... a must be kind of software.

For 4x5 with Vuescan, v700 is more than enough if you know how to twitch the exposure control under Vuescan and no need go for drum.

Does that "see in the dark" capability of Vuescan also work for thin black & white negatives?

[Peter De Smidt]

I've invested almost 2 years of time in developing a dslr scanner, and I'm not offended by Lenny's opinion in the least. Numerous very experienced photographers have used Lenny's service, and I haven't heard one that wasn't thrilled with the results. That's enough for me. Lenny can produce outstanding scans, and he has nothing to prove in that regard. The question is how good dslr scanners can be? I don't know the answer to that. I'm confident that they can resolve significantly more detail than an Epson flatbed, but beyond that it's an open question. For instance, how well does the stitching deal with image geometry, as most are optimized for sticthing images taken from a single point, with the system tilted around the entrance pupil of the lens. How tedious will stitching be? How accurate are the colors? Can lenses cover a full frame sensor without obvious quality fall-off at the corners? How repeatable are the automated xy stages? How much of a pain is it to align the system, especially if you're using your dslr for other purposes? At 1:1 magnification, we're dealing with a couple thousandths of an inch depth-of-field, and I'm saying that not just from theory but from experience.

The Petapixel articles are interesting, but they aren't definitive by any means. For instance, the author says "and set the aperture to f8 and the exposure time to around 1/125. Most lenses have their sharpest aperture at around f8 and we do want the sharpest possible image, don’t we?" Except at 1:1 setting f8 on the lens gives an effect aperture of f16, hardly the sharpest setting for a good 1:1 lens, as diffraction will be taking a toll. I use my Rodagon D at F4 on the lens, the best setting determined by empirical tests, which gives an effective F8. That kind of misunderstanding isn't very reassuring.

And Lenny's thoughts about the drum scanner sample are right on. There was obviously a problem with the drum scan. It's not representative of what can be done on a good machine by a good operator. It's just like Aztek's comparison they had on their site a couple of years ago showing an Epson flatbed scan: those of us with experience with those scanners knew that they were more capable than the example shown.

[Light Guru]

I've invested almost 2 years of time in developing a dslr scanner, and I'm not offended by Lenny's opinion in the least. Numerous very experienced photographers have used Lenny's service, and I haven't heard one that wasn't thrilled with the results. That's enough for me. Lenny can produce outstanding scans, and he has nothing to prove in that regard. The question is how good dslr scanners can be? I don't know the answer to that. I'm confident that they can resolve significantly more detail than an Epson flatbed, but beyond that it's an open question. For instance, how well does the stitching deal with image geometry, as most are optimized for sticthing images taken from a single point, with the system tilted around the entrance pupil of the lens. How tedious will stitching be? How accurate are the colors? Can lenses cover a full frame sensor without obvious quality fall-off at the corners? How repeatable are the automated xy stages? How much of a pain is it to align the system, especially if you're using your dslr for other purposes? At 1:1 magnification, we're dealing with a couple thousandths of an inch depth-of-field, and I'm saying that not just from theory but from experience.

The Petapixel articles are interesting, but they aren't definitive by any means. For instance, the author says "and set the aperture to f8 and the exposure time to around 1/125. Most lenses have their sharpest aperture at around f8 and we do want the sharpest possible image, don’t we?" Except at 1:1 setting f8 on the lens gives an effect aperture of f16, hardly the sharpest setting for a good 1:1 lens, as diffraction will be taking a toll. I use my Rodagon D at F4 on the lens, the best setting determined by empirical tests, which gives an effective F8. That kind of misunderstanding isn't very reassuring.

And Lenny's thoughts about the drum scanner sample are right on. There was obviously a problem with the drum scan. It's not representative of what can be done on a good machine by a good operator. It's just like Aztek's comparison they had on their site a couple of years ago showing an Epson flatbed scan: those of us with experience with those scanners knew that they were more capable than the example shown.

I don't think anyone is offended by Lenny's opinion, I know I'm not. My point was that he just shoots others down when they post that article from petipixel and does not provide anything to help show and explain that to others. Just saying drum scans are better does not help most new people on here are not going to have any experience with drum scans so your going to need need to explain why and the best way to do that is with example images.

The petipixel article does a good job at showing via example that DSLR Digitization can be a good option, and certainly can give just as good if not better results then a flatbed scanner. I'm not saying its the best option but it is still a good option.

[AtlantaTerry]

What about the 10000XL scanner. That adds focus to 2400 optical scanning! Asher

Right now (September 11, 2013) there is an Epson 10000XL on eBay. The current bid is $325.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Epson-Expression-10000XL-Photo-Flatbed-Scanner-/221277830962

[Peter De Smidt]

When I get my dslr scanner optimized to my satisfaction, I'll be happy to show comparison scans on various systems, including drum scanners. But that'll take time. In particular, we are only in the early stages of optimizing stitching.

So far, I haven't gotten to the point where I'd use one of the dslr scans over a scan on my Cezanne, let alone one on Lenny's drum scanner.

[Lenny Eiger]

Zak,
Believe it or not, I'm getting better. There was a time when Peter had to pull me aside and remind me to go easy. Tiredness combined with hitting my pet peeves can certainly drive me to be dismissive.

The first time I got annoyed was when I heard all about Gigapixel. He got his large neg and then scanned it on a flatbed. Not a terrible scanner, but not a great one either. Why half-bake it? He suggested he had more pixels than anyone. There were some impressive things about it, mostly that he had an incredible lens, but let's just say that he was very good at marketing (in the bad sense).

We've had Luminous telling us all sorts of very inaccurate things over the years. I won't even go there anymore. Every scan vs digital comparison had serious flaws, sometimes comparing consumer-level scanners against to the top digital backs.

I've been going on to Photo.net lately, to see about a few more scanning clients, and I am constantly stunned when someone asks a question and they get answers that are totally wrong. Some folks love Rodinal, I can't imagine using it myself, but we can all agree it isn't the finest of fine-grained developers. Lately there have been some very strange ideas about the zone system presented, even one guy who try to explain it in the exact opposite of how it works.. Having taught college for many years, I am sensitive to people teaching other people things that are totally wrong. This is to be separated from opinion, of course.

Now we have Petapixel. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to go thru and pick apart their argument. I'm working a little too hard these days. But its specious. It's simply not supportable and frankly, they should know better. Peter brought up a lot of the issues but one of the most basic is that the technology is different. It's PMT vs CCD, and with today's technology (not necessarily tomorrow's) the PMT will win every time. Having re-read my words, they were harsh, but I didn't use any expletives, and I think they were well-deserved.

That said, there are a bunch of folks trying to build their own contraptions of every sort and type. Some of them have summarily impressed me with their knowledge. One of them is likely to come up with a few very good ideas and help everyone out. I think its great.

Hope this clears some of it up,

Lenny

[Ed Bray]

I have a V750 flatbed and a Scanview 11000 drum scanner. If I was totally honest at the moment I would get better scans from the Epson flatbed with my 5x7 negatives, and the simple answer for this at the moment is I do not fully know what I am doing with the drum scanner at this time, it will take time and experience and require work to get the best out of the 11000, but I have no doubt that in time this will come.

I have now managed to wet mount my 5x7 negatives to the drum without any air bubbles, so am pleased with the progress so far. In 3 weeks time I have to go into hospital for an operation, and provided I survive then I should have a long period of recuperation at home which I will dedicate to getting the best out of the drum scanner.

What is possible from a good drum scan (nicked fron APUG). (http://www.dpug.org/forums/f24/3-gb-drum-scan-samples-8x10-portra-160-neg-3374/)

[Light Guru]

Lenny I don't think your earlier response was real harsh it just lacks explanation or examples to explain your point of view.

I would love to see a digitization comparison between your drum scan, a v750 flatbed and a DSLR capture. I fully understand that there is probably not one person who has all three digitization methods available to them. Perhaps we could get people to combine their resources to put together such a comparison. One person could digitize a negative on the equipment they have available and then mail the negative to the next person.

Once this was all done and compiled when ever somebody posts and asked question again the comparison can just be posted and that new thread.

[Peter De Smidt]

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/scan-comparison/
http://static.timparkin.co.uk/static/scanner_comparison_1/index.psp?code=fullpicture
http://www.timparkin.co.uk/2008/08/scanner-comparison-epson-vs-imacon-vs-howtek/
http://www.clarkvision.com/articles/drum.vs.flatbed-scanners/

[Lenny Eiger]

Unfortunately, I consider all of these comparisons to be flawed. The clarkvision scans are questionable scans of strange images. They were done in 2001, on a Tango. That means that they likely didn't know how to set the aperture correctly, which was figured out much later. Was auto sharpening applied? Was the scanner in good condition - we don't know. It's also a scanner that is, half as sharp as a Premier. Some operators really know how to get everything out of a Tango, and this difference can end up being very small. However, how many times have you seen a comparison and the flatbed scanner is outlined exactly (or the digital camera) but they just indicate "drum scanner" for the other side? They don't bother to tell you. This means they put all their effort into getting the best scan they could out of the flatbed, but what did they do on the drum - oh, they gave it to someone else. Who, what kind of scanner, when was it serviced, what settings were used, etc.? In the case of a recent comparison by Luminous we discovered that the scanner used was severely out of whack.

Tim's pages wouldn't load properly today (it could be me) and the largeformat comparison, despite a lot of good effort, is not very good at all. It doesn't distinguish properly between anything. There is too much post-processing, and it isn't applied evenly. The one from DPUG that Ed Bray pointed to is a good example from Castor, but it only shows the drum scan...

After my initial tests with the 750, I was so disappointed with it that I simply got rid of it. The only thing I can't do is scan something that can't be bent (I have friends that can), and for everything else, why would I start with something so blurry as an Epson - if I had another choice?

I generally don't publish because its impossible to know what one is looking at, especially when its on the web. On occasion I get one of my clients to publish their results, recently, Greg O'Hanlon put up his very fine image of the Vietnam War Memorial, printed at 8 feet, from a 6x17 chrome.

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?105730-8-Foot-Print-from-617-Film-Scan&highlight=vietnam

Was that chrome perfect? No. Smooth and grainless? No.

Every piece of film is different. How does one know what kind of detail is possible without looking at the actual film? If I have never shot anything that looked remotely like the clarkvision image, which I haven't, how could that be a guide for me? How much smoothing of the grain is required for the image? Is there a lot of sky or a lot of water? How was the film developed, exposure for color? Not to mention how well is the drum scanner tuned. These are all questions that would have to be answered in a real comparison.I think it is an impossible task, certainly without the funding to do it properly.

I think there is only one choice for people that are interested in knowing what's possible (or not). One should take a piece of film, that they shot, preferably an image they love and know well, and get it scanned one both scanner types and look at the difference, print it out with their best PhotoShop techniques, their printer tuned, etc. Then there is something that actually makes sense to the actual situation...

I am sorry for this long-winded post. I probably could have said this in three sentences, but I worked very late last night and this is what happens to me...

Lenny

[Peter De Smidt]

Lenny, I agree. Running a meaningful test is no small matter!

[Fotoman Professional]

My post was to the initiator who asked drum or flatbed. My answer would always be drum. However the initiator is a student, on budget, his output is an ink jet, appeared to be leaning away from drum scans and may be interested in a cool little project of his own. Not everyone has the money to buy expensive equipment and not everyone has the money to have the highest quality scans done. For that reason a creative workaround was suggested. It may not work for him but it's an option he's explored. He may learn allot about the process along the way which means it's not absurd.

[RMiksell]

Lenny, on the subject of aperture selection, is there an advantage to setting the scanner aperture selection to say 25 microns and scanning at 4000 dpi or does this just result in a larger file size with smoother grain but no real improvement in image detail? I guess the it could also depend completely on the image and film in question as well. I could experiment with some negatives, just haven't yet. It'd be interesting to hear a professional's take on it.

Thanks,

Ryan

[Lenny Eiger]

The goal of aperture setting is to match the size of grain clumps in the image. If you set the size too small, you sample the grain 1 1/2 - 2 times. This results in something called grain anti-aliasing. It is usually slightly off kilter and the effect is to add much more graininess to the image. File size is not involved.

If you set the aperture too high you undersample and the effect is blurriness, or lack of sharpness. There are usually two apertures that will work best, if you have 3 micron steps, one if you have 6. What's interesting is that one aperture will appear slightly sharper and the other smoother. However, when you look at the smoother one, you can see that very small details are articulated. It's a matter of how much smoothing you want.

It's sharp to begin with, so a small amount of sharpening can be applied after the scan (radius of .2). Another factor that can toss a monkey wrench into the process is that many LCD screens add a little sharpness to their displays. On many scanners you can select a small section, perhaps an 1/8 of an inch or so, and blow it up to full size. If you do this and look at different aperture settings, you can see the result of these effects...

I scan most b&w film and color transparencies at 10 or 13 microns. Color negatives go at 16 or 19, unless it's Ektar, which is down at 13. This varies with development and exposure, if color... I look at most film, blowing it up to see the smallest section I can, and compare the different apertures. With a little experience it becomes pretty easy to choose...

Be aware that the settings I am referencing are for the Howtek and Aztek series of scanners and the specific numbers might vary considerably.

I hope this answers your question,


Lenny

[sanking]

Take a look at Bruce Watson's comment in an old thread.

http://www.largeformatphotography.info/forum/showthread.php?20817-Sharpness-and-resolution-Drum-scan-compared-to-enlarger

The title is a bit misleading because eventually he gets to talking about the relationship between aperture and sharpness.

Sandy

[tgtaylor]

Quoted from the Bruce Watson post linked to above:

And we haven't talked about that big variable -- film grain or dye clouds (depending on the film, and for simplicity I'm going to call it all grain). The detail in the film is carried in the grain, and in the spaces between grain. We see it as the way it attenuates light that is shown through it. That sad thing is, the size of the grain is a variable, and the amount of variance is quite large.

What this means to scanning is just this. A scanner uses a fixed aperture to measure film that has a more or less random grain size (at least it's random to the scanner). If your aperture is 6 microns and the spot you are measuring is "thin" then you might be measuring several small grains at once. If on the other hand you are measuring a spot that is "dense" then you might be looking at a grain that is huge compared to the spot size.

And this is why it doesn't matter nearly as much as you'd think. And this is why you can't see the fluctuations in optical resolution of the scanner. It's much smaller than other variations that are going on at the same time.

Scanning is nothing more and nothing less than an approximation of the original film. In the case of drum scanning, a very, very good approximation, but an approximation none-the-less. Remember that, and you'll be fine.


Thomas

[Lenny Eiger]

One of the things that Bruce alludes to here deserves a little more discussion as the question comes up often. There is a huge difference between optical resolution and the number of pixels a scanner and its software can generate. Just because a scanner can generate 11,000 or 12,000 pixels doesn't mean it can optically resolve that much. The number of pixels it generates related to the stepper motor it uses.

Those of us older folks remember when those large schoolroom clocks changed from rotating around the full circle in a smooth fashion to stepping through each second tick on the clock face. That's a stepper motor. They apparently went insane with that technology. Aztek's Premier, the scanner I use, can do 18,000 steps for a single rotation of the drum. Tango's and ICG's can apparently do 11,000 or 12,000 (and maybe some others). That's the limit of how many samples the scanner can take, and how many pixels it can generate. This is very different from the aperture its using to take the sample.

Of course, how many line pairs you can resolve depends on the entire system. It has to do with the accuracy of all of the elements, as well as how close you can get to matching as much of the grain as possible. Generally speaking, when you see a scanner that can resolve to as little as 6 microns, you are looking at at max of about 4000-4200 ppi of optical resolution. (You may want to note that 4000 x 6 microns = 24,000 microns, which is close to an inch at 25,400. 8 x 3 is also 24.) When you see scanners that are set up to handle apertures at 3 microns you have a scanner that can theoretically resolve to 8,000. However, the ICG, as Bruce notes, resolves to around 6,000 and the Premier is about 7,400. Maybe its the ceramic bearings, or the precise angle of the paper disc with the holes in it, who knows. Scanners are a mix of amazing technology and low tech. Either one is great.

Aztek made the decision to limit its ppi results to 8,000 - vs delivering 18,000 pixels - because that's the maximum of what they could optically resolve. They figured they would rather give you 8,000 great pixels vs 18,000 ok, or "interpolated" ones. You can always interpolate in PhotoShop if you need to.

I hope this helps,

Lenny

[sanking]

The size of the aperture does limit the actual resolution in pixels per inch. Here are approximate figures.

3 microns = 8000 ppi
6 microns = 4000 ppi
13 microns = 2000 ppi
25 microns = 1000 ppi

These are the maximum possible resolutions in ppi for the aperture. If you scan at 25 microns to minimize grain the maximum effective resolution will be only about 1000 ppi/dpi, regardless of how you set the resolution. So you can scan with an aperture of 25 microns at 4000 dpi, but anything beyond 1000 dpi is scanner software interpolation.

Sandy

[Lenny Eiger]

The size of the aperture does limit the actual resolution in pixels per inch. Here are approximate figures.

3 microns = 8000 ppi
6 microns = 4000 ppi
13 microns = 2000 ppi
25 microns = 1000 ppi

These are the maximum possible resolutions in ppi for the aperture. If you scan at 25 microns to minimize grain the maximum effective resolution will be only about 1000 ppi/dpi, regardless of how you set the resolution. So you can scan with an aperture of 25 microns at 4000 dpi, but anything beyond 1000 dpi is scanner software interpolation.

Sandy

I strongly disagree with this. This is simply not correct in real life. There is some small benefit to scanning with the micron setting and the ppi matching. However, it is very small.

I understand the math. The reason 25 microns matches up to 1000 ppi is because there are close to 25,000 microns in a single inch. However, almost no film can be scanned at 3 microns, except for the military stuff and possibly some of the better aerial film. I don't even scan anything at 6 microns.

We have all agreed that an Epson can do in the neighborhood of 2000 ppi. In your example, if I scan a 4x5 at 13 microns then it should match the quality of an Epson scan. In real life, they are as far apart as night and day. This math is not the whole picture. Resolution is not based directly on the micron setting like this. It is based on matching the micron setting to the size of the grain clumps, and the overall quality of the scanner.

Lenny

[sanking]

Perhaps someone who understands the mechanics of this this will comment but I am fairly certain that my remarks regarding the theoretical limits of resolution based on aperture are correct. Resolution is not the whole story, but it is certainly part of the story, and unlike many aspects of image quality that are subjective, it is fairly objective and can be easily tested.

I did not say anything about the final image quality of an Epson scan compared to a drum scanner. That is a totally pointless issue because final print quality is highly subjective and in the eye of the beholder.

Sandy

[Lenny Eiger]

Sandy,

I am someone who runs a scanner every day. I do understand the mechanics of it. I will say that it is not obvious and it took me a long time to understand what I was looking at. I'm often scanning at 13 microns. I'm limited to doing this because of the grain size of most film. I am sorry but you can't tell me that the max resolution I can get out of my scanner (because of the qualities of film) is 2000. It's just not reasonable. I did about 100 scans with a target for Tim Parkin last year. I'm sure he has some reference to the numbers in his chart and he could tell you if you don't want to take my word for it.

At 2000 you could just use a 750, or a digital camera and it would be just as good as a drum scan. And it isn't.

This is from one for my recent clients:
"I finally got a chance to sit down with the scans today and look them over. In short, they are fantastic. I know I sent you flawed negatives, but you've given me the best opportunity to work with them. Much appreciated. The quality of the local contrast in particular is mind boggling after working with mush flatbed scans for so long."

There is a difference. And it wouldn't be there if what you suggest is true.

Lenny

[sanking]

Lenny,

I am sure you do a good job with drum scanning, and you are entitled to your opinions about digital versus scanned film, drum scanner versus anything else, your professional expertise, etc.

However, the issue is not about image quality, but the absolute limits of resolution. That is fixed by the math, not by your opinion or my opinion. And the facts will not change no matter how much or how long you pontificate about your expertise.

Sandy

[Lenny Eiger]

Sandy,

I agree with you that the results are based upon the realities of newtonian physics and not opinion. However, based on observation, it must be at least one level more complex than simply matching up the micron settings with the optical resolution.

The only reason you get pontification from me is that you start out a post with "Perhaps someone who understands..." It implies that I don't understand and my knee-jerk reaction is to establish my credibility because I feel like I'm being questioned, which is different from being disagreed with, which I welcome.

I don't imagine I am right all the time. I don't imagine I know it all. However, I haven't met anyone else who did, either, including the guy who designed a lot of the Mr. Lippincott himself. FWIW, I respect your extensive knowledge and am always happy to hear your input.

Lenny

[sanking]

"The only reason you get pontification from me is that you start out a post with "Perhaps someone who understands..." It implies that I don't understand and my knee-jerk reaction is to establish my credibility because I feel like I'm being questioned, which is different from being disagreed with, which I welcome."

You are being way too defensive because my comment was not meant to question your credibility. I really hope that someone who understands the relationship between aperture size and effective resolution in ppi will comment and help explain the issue.

Again, I don't want to get involved in any more discussions about image quality between film and digital, and/or drum scanners versus flatbeds. I use all of this stuff and each technology has its pros and cons IMHO.

But think of it this way. We can argue about image quality from a digital camera and compare results with film of different size. But we can not argue about the absolute limit to resolution that is determined by the number of pixel points on a sensor. A Nikon D800 has sensor that is 35.9 x 24mm in size with 7,360 × 4,912 pixel points (36.3 MP effective). The math sets the absolute limit of resolution at about 100 lines per mm, though in practice one would be hard pressed to get even 90% of this limit. But you will never get more. All sampling devices have an absolute limit beyond which "more" is not possible.

Sandy

[JBelthoff]

The size of the aperture does limit the actual resolution in pixels per inch. Here are approximate figures.

3 microns = 8000 ppi
6 microns = 4000 ppi
13 microns = 2000 ppi
25 microns = 1000 ppi

These are the maximum possible resolutions in ppi for the aperture. If you scan at 25 microns to minimize grain the maximum effective resolution will be only about 1000 ppi/dpi, regardless of how you set the resolution. So you can scan with an aperture of 25 microns at 4000 dpi, but anything beyond 1000 dpi is scanner software interpolation.

Sandy

I'm not sure that last part would be correct. While the math is correct, there is no interpolation from the scanner. That is assuming we are talking about an Howtek/Aztek type.

By setting the aperture larger than the dpi you are allowing more light to influence the photomultiplier tube and not limiting resolution. The optical resolution of a 4000dpi scan set to 13 um is still 4000dpi however each individual pixel is influenced by more than its equivalent pixel information found on the the original. (I'm not sure I'm saying that right). This would be where the softening comes from.

Although I could be wrong....

[sanking]

There is a really interesting article that treats in part the issue of aperture versus resolution in drum scanning.

http://cool.conservation-us.org/coolaic/sg/emg/library/pdf/vitale/2009-10-vitale-filmgrain_resolution_v24.pdf

Read the entire article but for the focus of this discussion, the relationship of aperture and resolution, I quote from one of the relevant sections of the article.

"Art of Drum Scanning -- No Film Grain with Higher Digital Image Resolution Often, a drum scanner operator will choose a pixel pitch (ppi) that is much smaller than the aperture. An example: the operator selects a 12 um aperture (113 um2 round) because it is known to eliminated film grain for the film being scanned, and then scans the image at 4000 ppi pixel pitch, which has an equivalent pixel size of 6.3 um, smaller than the aperture size.

The aperture size is 12 um, but the pixel size is 6.3 um; all detail between 6.3 um and 12 um is lost, but the image file has a large number of pixels based on the 4000 ppi pixel pitch. The PMT sees uniformly mixed light through the 12 um aperture, from the region of the film corresponding to the pixel pitch selected (4000 ppi). The light is measured and converted to digital values, and then applied to each of the 6.3 um pixels (each pixel has 40 um2 area).

The large aperture size (12 um) corresponds to a resolution of 2117 ppi, but the pixel pitch is 4000 ppi. Each of the 6.3- um pixel’s is seeing light from an area about 3 times larger (113 ÷ 40 = 2.8) than the pixels. The greater pixel population created by the denser pixel pitch has had the grain removed by the larger aperture size. This creates a digital image file that will make a large print with no grain. The downside is the image resolution is sacrificed in favor removing film grain. In the language of a flatbed scanner operator: the image has empty pixels."

I am not surprised that nice prints can be made from drum scans using a large aperture that results in only 1000 ppi of actual resolution. But the point is, the grain is very smooth and this allows substantial enlargement without too much apparent degradation of the image. The absence of grain/noise is one of the main reasons the image files from digital cameras can be rezzed up so much and still look good.

Sandy

[JBelthoff]

Sandy,

Considering your argument in terms of a 35mm verses a 6x7 negative of the same scene, the 35mm being shot at F8 and the 6x7 being shot at F5.6. Your argument theorizes that the 6x7 negative and the 35mm negative would have roughly the same resolution. I'm not sure, in those circumstances, the position withstands conventional scrutiny.

How does a drum scanner deal with light differently than a regular camera? When I open up my camera lens by a stop do I lose half of my resolution?

While technically the math says one thing, I'm not sure photons have taken the same math class....

[sanking]

Sandy,

Considering your argument in terms of a 35mm verses a 6x7 negative of the same scene, the 35mm being shot at F8 and the 6x7 being shot at F5.6. Your argument theorizes that the 6x7 negative and the 35mm negative would have roughly the same resolution. I'm not sure, in those circumstances, the position withstands conventional scrutiny.

How does a drum scanner deal with light differently than a regular camera? When I open up my camera lens by a stop do I lose half of my resolution?

While technically the math says one thing, I'm not sure photons have taken the same math class....


John,

I don't believe that my argument about aperture versus resolution has anything at all to do with theorizing about how much information can be held by a 6X7 negative versus a 35mm negative.
You alluded to the reason for the reduced resolution that results from using a larger aperture when you wrote:

"By setting the aperture larger than the dpi you are allowing more light to influence the photomultiplier tube and not limiting resolution. The optical resolution of a 4000dpi scan set to 13 um is still 4000dpi however each individual pixel is influenced by more than its equivalent pixel information found on the the original. (I'm not sure I'm saying that right). This would be where the softening comes from."

You may not be saying it right, but the same theory is there. When you scan at 4000 ppi there are a finite number of square pixel points per inch, 4000. If the size of the sample allowed by the aperture fits in the pixel, as it would with a 6 micro aperture, then you would have 4000 discrete samples per inch. However, if the size of the sample is twice as large as the size of the pixel then the sample spreads over two pixels, which effectively reduces its resolution by one-half. You still have 4000 pixels but now you only have 2000 discrete samples, or 2000 ppi. If the size of the sample is four times as large, as it would be with a 25 micron aperture, the sample would spread over four pixels, resulting in only one-quarter of the discrete samples, and the resolution becomes 1000 ppi.

Consider the implications of your position that sample size determined by the aperture does not affect resolution. If that were true, then we should be able to use any size aperture, up to 25 microns or 50 microns, and get the same resolution as we get with a 3 or 6 micron aperture. Does that concept make any sense to you?

Sandy

[JBelthoff]

Sandy,

I'm not sure my position is that resolution is reduced. It's more the image itself becomes a bit softer. Like opening an aperture on a camera. Of course that's not an excellent comparison however the general principles apply.

If the scanner sees 4000dpi, there would be no "scanner software interpolation" even when you double the aperture opening.

Or, in short, opening the aperture does not decrease resolution per se and certainly not by a factor of 2! Nor does it cause any scanner software interpolation per se.

Push a scanner passed it's optical resolution and software interpolation would be required.

But this is an excellent learning argument. I'm glad there are people such as yourself here to learn from.

[Peter De Smidt]

If the scanner sees 4000dpi, there would be no "scanner software interpolation" even when you double the aperture opening.



Wouldn't it amount to hardware interpolation, as the number of samples on the image side doesn't match the number of samples on the object, i.e. the film, side? Isn't the end result likely to be very similar to software interpolation?

[JBelthoff]

Peter,

That may be semantics. But I would say no. There would be no "hardware interpolation". The scanner sees what it sees. By opening the aperture, you are simply showing the scanner something slightly different. The scanner will, theoretically, record what it sees.

Is that hardware interpolation? I'm not sure I understand that term.... But my understanding of interpolation is adding or appending something to the original.

So no.... Maybe yes....?

[Peter De Smidt]

Consider two adjacent spots on the negative, one dark, and one light. In the case where the sampling of the scanner sensor matches the number of samples on the film, the scanner would produce a file with a dark spot and a light spot next to each other, as they are on the film. But if you then increase the aperture such that the scanner sees both spots at the same time, while keeping the sampling done by the sensor the same, then the scanner would produce two gray spots. Is that right?

Note that I"m not in any way denigrating the results gotten with a drum scanner. I'm only trying to understand the issues involved.

[JBelthoff]

Peter,


then the scanner would produce two gray spots.

Well, yes but not 50% gray. It would be grayer than black or grayer than white but there is also multiple colors being recorded as well and various intensities of those primary colors.

However there are other factors at work like nyquist and aliasing that all factor into why you would want to change the aperture in the first place.

I liken it to a Guitar Amp. There are a lot of solid state guitar amps that sound fantastic. Some of them have digital audio processing that can mimic a Marshall Stack, which is a tube amplifier. However, because you never get a chance to hear a Solid state amp and a Marshall side by side your ear adjusts. The moment you do an A/B comparison, then you hear the difference!!!!!!

Well maybe that's not a great comparison but hopefully you get the point.

[Lenny Eiger]

I think our minds would love to break this down in a clean mathematical way. We like to resolve things. For me, the math that I learned (aperture size matches resolution) fails in real world tests. I've analyzed and analyzed, wracked my brain against these issues for years and it just doesn't add up.

I don't get half the sharpness going from a 6 micron aperture to a 13. I might get half going from the 13 to 25 microns. That would be more reasonable (an effect of under sampling). When I look at what happens at 3 or 6, the image sort of shreds itself with oversampling effects, the higher rez is not even possible unless the film allows it.

I think therefore that resolution is NOT related to aperture size in any kind of real way. I understand that this is going directly against the conventional wisdom on this topic. If a majority of the grains are at 10 microns and we scan at 10 microns, then we will have as much resolution as the film has. If we don't match the grains properly, regardless of what the scanner is capable of, the effects of not matching grains size (under or over sampling) will destroy whatever extra resolution we could have gotten.

This means that the resolution of a drum scanner - that can adjust its settings with as few microns as possible, that is properly tuned, and properly set to a piece of film - is dependent on the film. If you are actually resolving down to the film grain and its sharp then the film resolution is what you get.

Lenny

[Corran]

You know light photons don't necessarily follow Newtonian math right guys? I don't think a quantum physicist has taken a crack at diffraction limits, etc., but that would be interesting. Too bad Richard Feynman is not with us anymore.

[JBelthoff]

I don't think a quantum physicist has taken a crack at diffraction limits

Over at CERN they do it all the time. ;)

But you are right - 1um, or 1 micron, or 1 Micrometre is roughly 0.000039 inches. Multiply that by 6.3 and you get an 0.0002457 inch opening. How many photons will fit through there at the same time?

[sanking]

I think our minds would love to break this down in a clean mathematical way. We like to resolve things. For me, the math that I learned (aperture size matches resolution) fails in real world tests. I've analyzed and analyzed, wracked my brain against these issues for years and it just doesn't add up.

Lenny

That may be, but your real world tests do not prove that the math is wrong. It is far more likely that, for whatever reason, your analysis to this point has not found the cause for the discrepancy between your personal observations and the universal "wisdom" that resolution is limited by aperture size.

One possible reason for the discrepancy between your real world tests and the "wisdom" is that the great majority of media that people would choose to have scanned falls within a fairly narrow range in terms of effective resolution so that this becomes the limiting factor in scanning, not the hardware or software itself. Another factor is that you may not understand how to test resolution, and/or don't have a proper high resolution target, or that you are confusing resolution with sharpness. You have stated yourself in the past that you don't have a high resolution target that can be used with a drum scanner.

I have a high resolution target that I have used to test resolution with my drum scanner. The target itself is on Tmax-100 film and was contact printed from a chrome on glass high resolution target of 225 lpm. I lost some of the resolution in the process of exposing and printing the target so that on film it is about 160 lpm (roughly 3 micron aperture or 8000 ppi), but still about twice as much resolution as I need to test my drum scanner which is limited to 6 micron aperture, or about 4000 ppi (80 lpm). I scanned the target at 6 microns, 13 microns and 25 microns and the results clearly show that resolution and aperture size follow each other pretty much as the "wisdom" suggests.

That said, I agree with you about the importance of proper imaging of film grain. The ability to tame grain is one of the most important characteristics of drum scanners.

Sandy

[Tyler Boley]

Sandy, I suppose we're getting way OT here, but it's interesting. May I ask if you left the scan PPI at 4000 with each of those aperture setting tests? Because the next interesting question is how to make pixels beyond that required for a specific aperture.. hardware oversampling, various up res methods, printer driver scaling, etc..
Tyler

[sanking]

Tyler,

Yes, for that test the resolution was set to 4000 ppi for the three apertures.

Those tests were not made to verify the relationship of aperture relative to resolution, but to observe how grain was imaged at the three apertures. The difference in resolution was simply an observation that I was able to make after the fact. With a proper target the difference was very easy to verify so there is no question in my mind about the validity of the observation.

In terms of absolute scan quality with 5X7" B&W negatives I don't see any difference scanning at 13 microns at 2000 ppi up sized to 4000 dpi compared to scans at 13 microns at 4000 dpi. And that makes perfect sense because with the 13 micron aperture the limit to real resolution is 2000 ppi, as per the math and mechanics of drum scanning. And it takes a lot less time to scan this size at 2000 ppi and then up size than to scan at 4000 ppi.

Sandy

[Struan Gray]

I have never so much as touched a drum scanner, so take my words with a grain of salt. I do, FWIW, have quite a bit of experience of digitising the world in a raster pattern and presenting the results as an image. This is how I see what I think are the issues here.

First, it will only confuse you to compare the aperture of a lens with the aperture of a drum scanner. They are related, but the lens aperture being set in the optical centre of a lens makes an enormous difference to how it affects image parameters.

Drum scanners are conceptually simple. In ideal terms they put a little circle in front of the film, average everything that can be seen within the circle, and record that average as the value of a pixel. They then move on to the next pixel.

The first complication is that the next pixel can be any distance away, including a distance which is less than the diameter of the aperture circle. A scan which has a pixel spacing larger than the aperture is called 'undersampled', a scan which has a pixel spacing smaller than the aperture is called 'oversampled'.

Undersampling is usually bad. It's quick, but it misses things - finely resolved detail beween the samples will simply not be recorded. I think Tim Parkin has an article about how rowan berries disappear in some digital files, not even appearing as a reddish blush in the averaged pixel values. This is classic undersampling.

Oversampling is usually good. It takes more time and storage, but it captures everything there is to capture. If you don't need the extra samples, you can always use them for noise reduction before downsampling to the size you do need. Oversampling also avoids aliasing, provided you oversample enough.

Aliasing is now a familiar topic in digital imaging, but the easily-understood examples come from regular patterns digitised with a regular grid. The phenomena carry over to situations where you have irregular patterns (or none at all) or irregular samples, but they become less intuitive. In principle though, you see the same effects, haloing and arbitrary sharpening of edges, and long-wave variations in colour or intensity.

Film grain is random, but not entirely uncorrelated. You don't often see two grains of the same colour next to each other. There are few long-range correlations: if you move a large distance across the film you are equally likely to land on a cyan grain as a magenta or yellow one. This means that the long-wave variations in colour that can crop up in digital SLR pictures of repetitive patterns do not usually occur. However, the short-wave variations can still happen, and that is what is given the name grain aliasing. It can be as simple as edge-enhancement so that the grains become more prominent, but it can also change the grain pattern altogether, increasing the apparent grain size by a factor or two or three.

How do the aperture and sample spacing interact in an drum scanner? Lets say we are scanning an edge transition from black to white which takes place over a few tens of nanometers - i.e. the transition is considerably smaller than any conceivable resolution of the system. If you undersample, the most likely result is that one pixel will be white and the next will be black. Your image will look infinitely sharp across the transition, but along the line of the edge there will be hideous jaggies, even if the occasional pixel lands right on the edge and comes out grey. If you oversample, you will see a smooth transition from white to black, whose width is roughly the size of the aperture. This grey blurred edge will run smoothly through the image in the direction perpendicular to the transition.

In principle, the oversampled image can be sharpened. Two small features which have been blurred together by the aperture cannot be seperated again, but an edge can be located with a precision greater than the aperture size - in the example above, it is where the grey has a value of 50%. This may seem like magic, but it is a consequence of the fact that the aperture has hard, sharp edges. It may have a width which is several microns or tens of microns, but its edges are sharper than that and can be used as descriminators to find some kinds of image detail - you look for where they cross the edge and are first recorded. If you used an aperture which was graded, or apodised, you would loose this ability (but you would also largely avoid aliasing).

Aliasing of an edge is (usually) subtle, although it's clear enough if you take line scans of the intensity through the edge and look for overshoots and ringing. Aliasing of grain is less subtle, but in practice is complicated by the fact that scanners, and cameras, operating in conditions where aliasing is likely to occur are also often operating close to their intrinsic resolution limits, and at length scales where diffraction starts to cause additional effects, particularly on resolution.

There are two clear cut cases. The first would be Sandy's test, in which the detail is safely smaller than the aperture size and pixel spacing. In that case you should see a monotonic increase in resolution as the aperture decreases, until it becomes so small that diffraction becomes significant. Note that diffraction cannot be ignored in a drum scanner, because the same diffraction phenomena which spread light out behind the aperture, also allow it to 'see' light from parts of the film which are not directly in front of it. Unless the illumination spot is tightly confined to the aperture width (and eventually, diffraction prevents that too), small apertures have practical sizes which are greater than their physical width.

The second clear cut case is when the grain is large. Still within the range of apertures available to the scan operator, but larger than typical film. A good film to demonstrate with is Kodachrome 200, which has a large, sharp-edged grain. Here, if you keep the sample spacing equal to the aperture size you should see clear grain aliasing effects as the aperture is reduced. With large apertures you get a smoothed, grainless image. Small apertures give a detailed image of the grain itself. Intermediate apertures can produce all sorts of effects, but its not uncommon to see 'grain' which is larger than the correct grain size seen at small apertures. I have seen these effects on my Nikon 5000 scanner, where you have no control over the aperture size, but can play with the pixel pitch.

The 'right' way to scan is to oversample the actual scan, and then downsample afterwards if you do not need the extra pixels. The downsampling needs to be done after (or along with) band limiting, which in the digital realm can be done without introducing much aliasing. This is best done with an aperture which is smaller than the grain, but even if they are exactly matched in size, oversampling will help to avoid aliasing. Note though, that the grain *is* the image, and if you want to squelch grain and retain detail which is of a similar size, you are never going to be artifact free.

All of this can be wrapped up in a relatively simple linear mathematics. I leave this as an exercise for the student :-P

[jb7]

THank you Struan- Beautifully presented-

[JBelthoff]

Tyler,

Yes, for that test the resolution was set to 4000 ppi for the three apertures.

Those tests were not made to verify the relationship of aperture relative to resolution, but to observe how grain was imaged at the three apertures. The difference in resolution was simply an observation that I was able to make after the fact. With a proper target the difference was very easy to verify so there is no question in my mind about the validity of the observation.

In terms of absolute scan quality with 5X7" B&W negatives I don't see any difference scanning at 13 microns at 2000 ppi up sized to 4000 dpi compared to scans at 13 microns at 4000 dpi. And that makes perfect sense because with the 13 micron aperture the limit to real resolution is 2000 ppi, as per the math and mechanics of drum scanning. And it takes a lot less time to scan this size at 2000 ppi and then up size than to scan at 4000 ppi.

Sandy

Sandy,

I would be curious to know what scanner/software combination you used to perform your test. I just performed a similar test using medium format Pan F Plus and although I think I am now more inclined to agree with your comments regarding resolution/sharpness, I have to strongly disagree with this "I don't see any difference scanning at 13 microns at 2000 ppi up sized to 4000 dpi compared to scans at 13 microns at 4000 dpi".

I ran 3 scans of the same area using Aztek DPL Software and a Howtek 4500. The 3 scans were set to 4000dpi/13um, 4000dpi/6um & 2000dpi/13um and then I up-rezed the 2000dpi scan in photoshop to 4000dpi using bicubic smoother and I am seeing a vast difference between the uprezed and the 4000dpi/13um. These were all raw scans applying no histogram or curves and using generic BW setting in the CMS.

Although I can't determine actual resolution from this test, you can see there is quite a difference between the 4000/13um and upsized 2000/13um. I have uploaded my results here: 30MB ZipFile (http://www.bwphotographer.com/aperture-test/ApertureTest.zip).

So in my humble opinion I'm still not sure that setting the aperture to 13um on a 4000 dpi scan "halves" the resolution assuming you are using the above hardware/software setup. With that said I am starting to understand what you are saying and I certainly misunderstood the sharpness/resolution as you stated.

Perhaps, if I get adventurous I will obtain an actual resolution target and perform these again. But certainly there is more going on here then exact math.

[sanking]

Sandy,

I would be curious to know what scanner/software combination you used to perform your test. I just performed a similar test using medium format Pan F Plus and although I think I am now more inclined to agree with your comments regarding resolution/sharpness, I have to strongly disagree with this "I don't see any difference scanning at 13 microns at 2000 ppi up sized to 4000 dpi compared to scans at 13 microns at 4000 dpi".

I ran 3 scans of the same area using Aztek DPL Software and a Howtek 4500. The 3 scans were set to 4000dpi/13um, 4000dpi/6um & 2000dpi/13um and then I up-rezed the 2000dpi scan in photoshop to 4000dpi using bicubic smoother and I am seeing a vast difference between the uprezed and the 4000dpi/13um. These were all raw scans applying no histogram or curves and using generic BW setting in the CMS.

Although I can't determine actual resolution from this test, you can see there is quite a difference between the 4000/13um and upsized 2000/13um. I have uploaded my results here: 30MB ZipFile (http://www.bwphotographer.com/aperture-test/ApertureTest.zip).

So in my humble opinion I'm still not sure that setting the aperture to 13um on a 4000 dpi scan "halves" the resolution assuming you are using the above hardware/software setup. With that said I am starting to understand what you are saying and I certainly misunderstood the sharpness/resolution as you stated.

Perhaps, if I get adventurous I will obtain an actual resolution target and perform these again. But certainly there is more going on here then exact math.

I am using a Howtek D4000 with Silverfast. As I believe was mentioned, the film was TMax 100 that was contact printed from a high resolution chrome on glass target.

Thank you for your tests. When we combine good testing with good methodology the result will be interesting and may reveal something to us that was not clear before. I looked at your tests carefully but quite honestly don't see much difference between the sample at 4000ppi/13um and the 2000ppp/13um sample rezzed up. They both look pretty good to me and while there appear to be some nuanced difference in contrast it is not apparent to me that the former has more resolution than the latter, though that may be the case. The use of a proper resolution target would clear that up pretty quickly.

Sandy

[Tyler Boley]

I have done the same tests, but only to print and see the differences on paper, it then becomes further complicated with sharpening- what is the optimal amount to reveal the differences, would it be different for each aperture setting? Some USM will be necessary. I've done all these tests and reviewed with prints. It's still hard to come to definitive conclusions. I don't have tests films with targets including known resolutions, to approach this with real knowledge. Seems like most of what each of us here are describing is anecdotal, and our impressions of our tests, etc. Of course that's fine, in some ways all the really matters. But definitive statements without exact and measured tests and results are a bit lacking. I'd also add, again, that there are many ways to add pixels, beyond a native res scan, and each of those may yield different conclusions, throw USM methods on top of that and things get less definitive again.
One reason this interests me beyond my own results for my own printing is that we have all kinds of wild resolution claims made for some prestigious scanners that are essentially making up pixels with hardware oversampling, and getting some reality there would be good.
Additionally, upressing continues to be a less than decisive process..
Tyler

[bob carnie]

I have just finished comparing two scanners, I have made 30 x40 glossy prints at 400ppi from each scanner from three different originals.

This testing as Tyler mentions can be very complicated with all types of variables. FWIW for my purposes I have seen what I need to see, but boy o boy could the test be fudged in favour in either direction.
The hard part for me was to be unbiased and keep the comparisons fair.

[JBelthoff]

Well I think that's the real test... The final printed image!

There are certainly many steps from film to print and each has its effects.

I still see a vast difference between 2000/13um up-rezed and 4000/13um. Especially at more than 100%...

[sanking]

Well I think that's the real test... The final printed image!

There are certainly many steps from film to print and each has its effects.

I still see a vast difference between 2000/13um up-rezed and 4000/13um. Especially at more than 100%...

Just curious, there is a lot of color in the files I downloaded. I assume you made the scan in RGB? With my scanner and software I get a much cleaner scan of B&W negatives in grayscale with Green than with RGB.

I converted the 4000/13um scan and the 2000/13um scan to grayscale, the rezzed up the smaller one in increments in PS using Bicubic best for enlargement. Quite frankly I don't see much difference at all in resolution between the two samples when I look at them at 271% in PS, though the original 4000/13um sample seems a bit smoother at that huge magnification.

Sandy

[onnect17]

Sandy,
The green channel should be a lot cleaner than the red or blue, specially using negatives with any brown or yellow stain because it acts as a filter. Also:
- the light source in the scanner has a higher component in that part of the spectrum.
- the scanner filters the red, the blue and the rest is considered green.
- the response of the PMTs should be higher in the area of the spectrum.
At the end, as a result, the amount of noise (i.e. signal-to-noise-rate, or SNR) is much lower in the green channel.

Regarding the resolution sampling at 4000 or 2000 I would be very careful with the comparison if you introduce any interpolation, specially with PS.

Also remember that the 13um aperture is just a mask in front of the PMTs so when you are scanning at 4000 you are in fact projecting the area equivalent to 2x2 pixels on the PMT window. To make the things a little more complicated, the shape of the aperture mask is probably circular (not square like it should) so the overlapping pixel area is less than 50%, probably close to 30%. That could give you no more than 3000 dpi optical, best case scenario, because of the aliasing effect.

From the practical point of view, printing at 40" wide in color, I prefer to save the space for the rendering and use 2000 dpi in the scanner for anything above 4" wide in negatives and 180dpi in the Epson. I'm sure the accuracy of the colors is improved too.

[Professional]

Again, where i can get a good drum scanner, say Howtek 4500 or any drum scanner that can scan up to 8x10?

I still hold on my V750, but everyday or every time i read about flatbed vs. drum scanners it made me boiling from inside to get a drum scanner, for me i can print at any size if i have the photos at high resolution, anywhere from 8x10" up to 40x50", i have 3 prints from my DSLR done at 40x50 and they look fine or decent for me, i didn't test my H4D-60 yet but this will be my king for quality prints, but i want to put my LF on top for printing.

If you know any place where i can find good working drum scanner up to 8x10 please let me know.

[sanking]

Again, where i can get a good drum scanner, say Howtek 4500 or any drum scanner that can scan up to 8x10?

I still hold on my V750, but everyday or every time i read about flatbed vs. drum scanners it made me boiling from inside to get a drum scanner, for me i can print at any size if i have the photos at high resolution, anywhere from 8x10" up to 40x50", i have 3 prints from my DSLR done at 40x50 and they look fine or decent for me, i didn't test my H4D-60 yet but this will be my king for quality prints, but i want to put my LF on top for printing.

If you know any place where i can find good working drum scanner up to 8x10 please let me know.


I have not dealt with them personally but this company has a good reputation. http://www.genesis-equipment.com

They sell refurbished drum scanners, and also high end flatbeds. But this equipment is heavy and shipping to the U. A. E. is going to cost an arm and a leg. Not a problem of course if you have a lot of arms and legs.

Sandy

[Professional]

I have not dealt with them personally but this company has a good reputation. http://www.genesis-equipment.com

They sell refurbished drum scanners, and also high end flatbeds. But this equipment is heavy and shipping to the U. A. E. is going to cost an arm and a leg. Not a problem of course if you have a lot of arms and legs.

Sandy

Great, thank you very much!

Well, as long if it is very expensive itself without the shipping then it will be not big deal with shipping then, if i don't have enough arms and legs then i still have my wife's arms/legs, if not enough then my kids are also available :D

Are you Sandy King of Pyrocat?

[JBelthoff]

Just curious, there is a lot of color in the files I downloaded. I assume you made the scan in RGB? With my scanner and software I get a much cleaner scan of B&W negatives in grayscale with Green than with RGB.

I converted the 4000/13um scan and the 2000/13um scan to grayscale, the rezzed up the smaller one in increments in PS using Bicubic best for enlargement. Quite frankly I don't see much difference at all in resolution between the two samples when I look at them at 271% in PS, though the original 4000/13um sample seems a bit smoother at that huge magnification.

Sandy

Sandy,

Yes they were scanned RGB and the negs have a slight purple cast to them. That's probably the reason for the pink in the files.

I normally use the channel mixer to even that out and then convert to gray scale in PS.

But when I view zoomed in I see a whole lot of fuzzy pixels in the uprez file and sharp very discreet individual pixels in the raw scan. However, I'm not sure I can print large enough for it to make any difference. I did notice that the up-rezzed had a slightly better local contrast which is certainly something to think about going forward.

I may download Silverfast and re-do the scans to see. I use Silverfast for the v750 and normally use gray scale for B&W negs on that machine. One of the things that I use to do on the v750 was to scan at 6400 and then reduce the size in PS and it would improve resolution. It use to take forever to work with a file that big but it did improve things.

[sanking]

Great, thank you very much!

Well, as long if it is very expensive itself without the shipping then it will be not big deal with shipping then, if i don't have enough arms and legs then i still have my wife's arms/legs, if not enough then my kids are also available :D

Are you Sandy King of Pyrocat?


Yes, I am the Sandy King of Pyrocat. http://www.pyrocat-hd.com/

Good luck with your search for a good scanner.

Sandy

[Professional]

Yes, I am the Sandy King of Pyrocat. http://www.pyrocat-hd.com/

Good luck with your search for a good scanner.

Sandy

Its ok, i may or may not get a drum scanner, it will not be the end of the world, i will keep using my flatbed scanner anyway.

Great, i am looking for to have that Pyrocat-HD developer, i bought all the raw chemicals but i am not sure if i will end up with same as your formula, or if i have the right correct chemicals to do, as i can buy a powdered package of this developer but i can't be sure if it is same formula of yours.

[sanking]

Sandy,

Yes they were scanned RGB and the negs have a slight purple cast to them. That's probably the reason for the pink in the files.

I normally use the channel mixer to even that out and then convert to gray scale in PS.

But when I view zoomed in I see a whole lot of fuzzy pixels in the uprez file and sharp very discreet individual pixels in the raw scan. However, I'm not sure I can print large enough for it to make any difference. I did notice that the up-rezzed had a slightly better local contrast which is certainly something to think about going forward.

I may download Silverfast and re-do the scans to see. I use Silverfast for the v750 and normally use gray scale for B&W negs on that machine. One of the things that I use to do on the v750 was to scan at 6400 and then reduce the size in PS and it would improve resolution. It use to take forever to work with a file that big but it did improve things.

John,

My remarks about getting the same resolution at 4000/13um and and 2000/13um and up sizing were meant only to apply to the specific circumstances I mentioned of scanning 5X7 B&W negatives. I agree with Armando that we have to be very careful in making any comparisons that involve interpolation. Basically, 2000 ppi of effective resolution is more than enough for me with 5X7 negatives. That allows me to print 20X28" with a file size of 500 dpi, way more than I need.

When scanning medium format negatives I have found the film grain does pretty much limit resolution, as Lenny suggested. With a fine grain film like Acros or Tmax-100 I scan at 4000 ppi/6um and the resulting scan has fine grain and huge detail (assuming the negative was focused and exposed for fine detail). With TMY on the other hand, 4000 ppi/6um simply gives too much grain.

Of course, grain size is related to the CI to which you develop film. For a smoother grain look with high speed films it is probably best to use a very low CI, say about .40-45.

With the Epson V700/V750 I agree that your method of scanning at 6400 ppi and then down sizing to the real effective resolution of that scanner, which is about 2000 ppi, definitely gives a cleaner scan as the noise is averaged out over more pixels.

Sandy

[sanking]

I may download Silverfast and re-do the scans to see. I use Silverfast for the v750 and normally use gray scale for B&W negs on that machine. One of the things that I use to do on the v750 was to scan at 6400 and then reduce the size in PS and it would improve resolution. It use to take forever to work with a file that big but it did improve things.

Are you not using DPL? I assume that with that software you could just lose the Red and Blue channels?

Sandy

[Lenny Eiger]

I have not dealt with them personally but this company has a good reputation. http://www.genesis-equipment.com

They sell refurbished drum scanners, and also high end flatbeds. But this equipment is heavy and shipping to the U. A. E. is going to cost an arm and a leg. Not a problem of course if you have a lot of arms and legs.

I have, I purchased my first 4500 from them. They were not even the least bit competent. I won't bother with the details but they had no idea what they were doing, or what they were looking at. It cost me a lot extra when I had to get a mounting station, good drums, etc.

If I were in your place, I would buy something directly from Aztek, even tho' you would pay more. Then you would know if it was tuned up or not, they would help you make sure it was ok when it arrived. I don't think they keep anything in stock these days but they might...

There are a couple of good places to get a scanner. The first is right here, in the 'for sale' section. People tend to treat everyone here very well, they get embarrassed publicly if they don't. The other good resource is the Scan High end forum, which is an email list at yahoogroups. There are many top pros there and they are always buying and selling stuff. A Howtek 4500 was offered in June for $2400, with everything included. Another possibility is DPUG.org but the Scan High End list is generally the best. There are plenty of offerings on EBay... of course.

The last time I purchased a scanner, I had the seller ship it directly to Aztek for a maintenance checkup. The deal was that if Aztek said it was a broken down piece of junk I would ship it back to him. It represented gamble in the sense that I might be out for the shipping cost but I was willing to go that far with his assurances. In fact, it was fine and the few minor issues were all handled with some tuning. It wasn't that inexpensive, but at least I had the comfort of knowing that when I made a lousy scan it wasn't the scanner - it was me.

There is one other thing I might mention and that is musician's shipping cases. We've all seen those giant blue Anvil cases up on a stage and it turns out they are not that expensive. You can give them the dimensions of the scanner and they will custom-cut the foam for you. I am sure there are others, but you can try anvilcase.com. This type is much better than the normal scanner shipping cases. When it arrives, it makes a nice table for the scanner... If i was shipping all the way to the UAE I'd want one of these...

good luck,

Lenny

[Daniel Stone]

FYI,
Aztek DOES NOT "deal" in used machines anymore. Nor do they sell "refurbished" machines anymore. Used to, not any longer.
Now they just sell brand-new machines. Too much liability and not enough demand(essentially) to do the refurbs.
They WILL, however, service customer-supplied machines(in particular Howtek and Aztek units).

They serviced my DPL8000(which is for sale now, btw) last year, cost me $2500 + tax for a complete tune-up.
I'm going to build a wooden crate w/ 1/2" baltic ply and 1"x3" wood so when a new owner picks it up(I'm not interested in shipping it), it'll be able to ride in the back of a pickup truck if needed.

-Dan

[sanking]

They serviced my DPL8000(which is for sale now, btw) last year, cost me $2500 + tax for a complete tune-up.
I'm going to build a wooden crate w/ 1/2" baltic ply and 1"x3" wood so when a new owner picks it up(I'm not interested in shipping it), it'll be able to ride in the back of a pickup truck if needed.

-Dan

Dan,

Keep the crate small enough so that it will fit in the back of a mid-size SUV or mini-van. It may not be smart to limit the market to owners of pickup trucks!! Not that I have anything bad to say about owners of pickup trucks. I owned one once.

Darn, just as I was writing this I saw a report on CNBC's Fast Money that the market for pickup trucks is expected to increase a lot as the market continues to improve!!

Sandy

[JBelthoff]

Are you not using DPL? I assume that with that software you could just lose the Red and Blue channels?

Sandy

Sandy, I am using DPL. And for whatever reason I find it better to scan on RGB and then convert in photoshop. Occasionally I go the gray route and after waiting an hour find that I don't like the scan as much as the RGB scans.

I do have to fight the urge to just simply do the same thing over and over. Because when you fall into that rut you miss the chance to do something so totally stupid wrong that for whatever reason turns out to be a true masterpiece. :-)

[Lenny Eiger]

Sandy, I am using DPL. And for whatever reason I find it better to scan on RGB and then convert in photoshop. Occasionally I go the gray route and after waiting an hour find that I don't like the scan as much as the RGB scans.

I do have to fight the urge to just simply do the same thing over and over. Because when you fall into that rut you miss the chance to do something so totally stupid wrong that for whatever reason turns out to be a true masterpiece. :-)

DPL doesn't do that... It does a conversion based on the same numbers PhotoShop uses.... and uses too much of the red channel.

Lenny

[Lenny Eiger]

I have, I purchased my first 4500 from them. They were not even the least bit competent. I won't bother with the details but they had no idea what they were doing, or what they were looking at. It cost me a lot extra when I had to get a mounting station, good drums, etc.

I have just read another post in a different forum from someone at Genesis. My initial response was based on an event probably in 2003 or 2004. It's true, it was a bad experience, but its quite possible that they have expanded their division and have changed. Upon reviewing how long ago this was I would suggest that people get their info about this place from a more current perspective. 10 years is a long time...

Lenny

[bob carnie]

Good Post Lenny - 10 years ago is a long time as you point out.

I have just read another post in a different forum from someone at Genesis. My initial response was based on an event probably in 2003 or 2004. It's true, it was a bad experience, but its quite possible that they have expanded their division and have changed. Upon reviewing how long ago this was I would suggest that people get their info about this place from a more current perspective. 10 years is a long time...

Lenny

[sanking]

Good Post Lenny - 10 years ago is a long time as you point out.

Yes, 10 years is a long time ago. Wish I were as smart as I thought I was in 2003!!

Sandy

[onnect17]

Hey Sandy,
Knowing you, I think your brain (even in 2013 :) ) is more than fine, way better than mine. More important, I would say modesty is one of your best attributes, sort of scarce around here.

[bob carnie]

Sandy's has had a brain clone with Sam Wang recently to keep him up to speed.


Hey Sandy,
Knowing you, I think your brain (even in 2013 :) ) is more than fine, way better than mine. More important, I would say modesty is one of your best attributes, sort of scarce around here.

[sanking]

Sandy's has had a brain clone with Sam Wang recently to keep him up to speed.

Bob,

OK, I have the brain upgrade. I will be happy to give you some of my modesty DNA when you need it!!

Sandy

[bob carnie]

Well you would have to find the DNA somewhere else if that is the goal.

Could you try Monty McCutchen... not only is he modest , he is a fine looking Texan and maybe some of that will rub off on me.


Bob,

OK, I have the brain upgrade. I will be happy to give you some of my modesty DNA when you need it!!

Sandy