book recommendations on scanning?

[stradibarrius]

Can someone recommend a good "how to" book on scanning film on a flatbed scanner? I am looking for something that gives detail and explanation but does not overwhelm me with a lot of techno babble, formulas.

[Frank Petronio]

I don't think such a book exists, a pity. Perhaps a market for an author?

[EOTS]

Which scan software are you using and what would you except from such a book?

There's a book on Silverfast: http://www.amazon.com/SilverFast-Official-Guide-Taz-Tally/dp/0782141978
Here's a generic one: http://www.amazon.com/Scanning-Negatives-Slides-Digitizing-Photographic/dp/193395230X/ref=pd_sim_b_1
And another: http://www.amazon.com/Real-World-Scanning-Halftones-3rd/dp/0321241320

Best regards,

[sully75]

I wish someone would just write some half decent software for scanning.

[papac]

I have "Scanning Negatives and Slides by Sascha Steinhoff" in my shelf, have read it and I think it was crap. Didn´t get anything out of it. I´m rather new to scanning so my hope was to learn something. Guess Google are the best way to learn as long as you have some feeling of whats true and whats not.

[mdm]

The vuescan bible, availabe on kindle. I dont have it though.

[Jim Andrada]

I have the Real World Scanning book and quite like it

I agree about the assessment of the Steinhoff book. +1 for the crap.

[stradibarrius]

I ordered a copy of the Real World Scanning. I hope it has some good information

[Kirk Gittings]

The Silverfast one is very basic and not worth the price IMO.

[Tony Evans]

I found rockynook's "Scanning negatives & slides", Sascha Steinhoff, to be pretty useful. Sorry Papac.

[papac]

I ordered a copy of the Real World Scanning. I hope it has some good information

Please, let us know what you think of it. I love reading good stuff.

[papac]

I found rockynook's "Scanning negatives & slides", Sascha Steinhoff, to be pretty useful. Sorry Papac.

Thats the good thing, we are all unike:)

[stradibarrius]

Tony, do you mind me asking how much experience you have scanning? This is a sincere question and not meant to be any kind of dig. I have a lot of experience scanning but my knowledge is still basic.

I found rockynook's "Scanning negatives & slides", Sascha Steinhoff, to be pretty useful. Sorry Papac.

[bob carnie]

A bit off topic but something I find invaluable for scanning is the digital color meter.. I use it as I would the info pallette in PS. this meter can not only tell you where to place your significant density for highlight and shadow , but it will also help you determine colour issues. I also have not found many good books on scanning I have a few but the DCM opened the floodgates so to speak for me .
This meter runs on your desktop and is independent of the scanner software, whichever one you use and will work with any program.
I use Macs and cannot tell you how to find it for PC

Applications- Utilities-Digital Colour Meter.

I set it up for LAB , but if you are not comfortable with that then a more clumsy RGB setting is possible.
I set the apeture so as to read about a two - five pixel reading.

hope this helps some

[Mark Stahlke]

There is a lot of good but basic information at http://www.scantips.com/.

[Tyler Boley]

The Silverfast one is very basic and not worth the price IMO.

There's a new one by Mark Segal maybe worth checking out... Hard to say how useful or may be for non silverfast users though.

[Tyler Boley]

Problem is every scanner and software has its own set of gotchas, making anything based on generalities pretty slim. There's a lot of good info in the back pages here-
http://www.hutchcolor.com/

[Tony Evans]

Strad,

Like you, I have lots of experience ( all formats, V700, BSH, Wet Scanning) but "knowledge" is a subjective parameter. Over the last 2 years I have attempted to read ( but often not understand) everything I can find about scanning negatives. I found Steinhoff to be useful in this respect.

[Lenny Eiger]

I have to say that I learned by going to someone's place, someone who knew how to scan very well, and paying for an hour of their time, or doing a few scans with them while I was allowed to watch. Of course, it helped if I had the same scanner I was trying to learn on.... however, the real key was trying to understand what they were after. it took me a while, but once I had the destination in my mind, I kept trying until I was able to reproduce the effect.

I don't think this can be written up in a book. There are plenty of youtube's out there (even one of mine) showing someone how to mount film on a drum. There are others that show liquid mounting on a flatbed.... That's the easy part. The harder part is looking at the different tones in a preview, and using the curves to separate them a little so they can be pulled out in a scan, and give the person the opportunity to adjust them individually in PhotoShop. It's best if you know what kind of print they want to make.

I have shown many people this, it is best done on one of their negs, right on the monitor. They see it happen right before their eyes and they know what to do... or at least what the goal is...

That's my 2cents...

Lenny