Problem with screen cezanne ft5500

[olivier]

Hi everybody,

In a first time, sorry for my bad English. I hope you’ll understand what I try to explain...

The facts : a friend and I bought recently a Screen Cézanne FT 5500. For instance, to digitalize 6x6 film at 4000 dpi in the best optical quality, we have to digitalize the picture in two strips (± 1.3 inch each) then assembled in PS. Of course, we apply the same settings (magnification, color adjustment, sharpness…) on both strips.

The problem: the first strip (the first digitalized) is almost perfect (well defined grain, perfect focus). But the second one is always fuzzy.
We made a lot of test: we moved the film on the scanning bed, checked its flatness… nothing works. We always have the same problem : 1 good strip and one onother unusable (see an exemple on the attached crop picture).

Why? If you have any elements of response...

Thank you.

Oliver, from France.

[Peter De Smidt]

Oliver, I'm sorry to hear about your problem. You are scanning with the standard bed and hold down sheet? Assuming so, it seems like an autofocus problem. Here's a couple of things to try. First, if you make a scan area selection in Color Genius, make adjustments, and scan, you can simply left click in the selection area of the first scan and drag it to the other side of the negative. All of the settings will remain the same. I don't think that will help your problem, but it's a very fast way of scanning multiple strips. 2nd, have you tried scanning the whole frame at 4000 dpi in one go? It's true that the sensor limits resolution in one direction, but the stepper system can do better in the other direction. As a result, you can get better resolution that what sensor elements/length would suggest. I scan most of my 120 film at 4000spi in one go. If I think that I'd like to print super big, then I scan in two strips of 6000spi. Third, have you tried making a scan, letting it finish, closing CG, and then scanning the second strip? Fourth, in the server app, does it say that the second scan went normally, without any errors? Fifth, check out the autofocus settings. Is it set to autofocus before each scan? Finally, we have a Cezanne scanner tech, Tony, who helps out from time to time. You might try sending him a message. https://www.largeformatphotography.i...hp?48070-TC542

[olivier]

Hi Peter,
thank you for your help. Yes, it seems like an autofocus problem.

To answer you :

1 : We replace the old unflat standart bed (in acrylate?) with a glass bed of one Eversmart (perfectly flat) and we press the film with an antinewton glass.

2 : "you can simply left click in the selection area of the first scan and drag it to the other side of the negative". OK, we employ this method.

3 : "tried to scann the whole frame at 4000 dpi in one go?" No, we don't trie this way. We'll trie it.

4 : "closing CG, and then scanning the second strip". We made another preview (preview on the scanner and then on CG) before scanning the second strip. The result is quite perfect. But it's a very very long and boring process.

5 : "the server app, does it say that the second scan went normally, without any errors?" No message error.

Thank you again

Kind regrads