More advanced scanner for 4x5 than Epson flatbed?

[Jim Andrada]

I've used Kami on my Epson 750 - worked very nicely. Since switching to the IQsmart I haven't bothered. It seldom takes more than a few minutes to spot the photo in Photoshop. I once timed the wet mounting process for the Epson at 23 seconds so it's easy to do - just haven't seen a huge need with the IQsmart - the AN glass takes care of Newton's rings.

I thought about a drum scanner, but the workflow wasn't to my liking so I got the flatbed. More than satisfied with it. It's much better than the Epson. I scan with no sharpening.

[interneg]

In all the comparison scans I've made between my Howtek's and anything else, there's no comparison. The expensive high end flat beds pale in comparison. The Hell's are limited by their large minimum aperture. The Epson's, well, you'd have to have a really mis-aligned Howtek to get to their level. The Flextight's flare like crazy and don't really hold the film flat from edge to edge.

I've found a great deal less difference than you have - but it may be because I've been avoiding using the manufacturers software for inversion etc & doing the mask removal etc in Photoshop - which is qualitatively drastically better than Flexcolor for example - Flexcolor can induce all sorts of weird flaws. What I've found is that if well maintained & clean, most of the CCD scanners/ Flextights are quite close to each other in terms of delivering an adequate representation of a negative - and that the usual boilerplate about the Flextight holders is because they can give the impression of needing three hands to load them properly. If you find the Aztek/ Howtek does what you want, great, however I think the Heidelberg results are a little cleaner, but perhaps not enough to justify the weight & cost difference. That you can run the Aztek/ Howteks etc under newer operating systems is also one of the bigger attractions, along with the lack of limitations imposed by 32 bit file formats. The operator is always the greatest source of variance in high end scanning in my experience...

[Pere Casals]

I scan with no sharpening.

You never know, you only disable the sharpening in the user level software, but high end scanners also should have a very smart sharpening inside firmware,

this is detected when you scan a medium that has blur of around the pixel level redius and the digital image is better than the original, having the "user sharpening" disabled

This comes from the digital minilab era, frontiers, noritsus, etc were very good in every image enhancing aspect, being the by default automated sharpening a key feature.

[interneg]

You never know, you only disable the sharpening in the user level software, but high end scanners also should have a very smart sharpening inside firmware,

this is detected when you scan a medium that has blur of around the pixel level redius and the digital image is better than the original, having the "user sharpening" disabled

This comes from the digital minilab era, frontiers, noritsus, etc were very good in every image enhancing aspect, being the by default automated sharpening a key feature.

Digital minilabs are a lot newer than the fundamentals of high end CCD & drum scanners. Once again you are confusing very different design principles and practices.

A 1536x2048px CCD with a Bayer array & anti-aliasing filter is rather different from 3x CCD or 3x PMT in the fundamental sharpness it delivers, especially when most of its use was for outputting files for 4x6" prints at 300ppi.

[Pere Casals]

Digital minilabs are a lot newer than the fundamentals of high end CCD & drum scanners. Once again you are confusing very different design principles and practices.

Interneg, I'm not confused. Fuji Frontier digital minilab is from 1996, many scanners predated the frontier, of course, but digital minilabs changed the industry: most CN emulsions were re-engineered to deliver optimal scans after embedded adaptive sharpening, which became a sort of industrial standard.

In particular Scitex was formerly the Dayton Operations division of Kodak, and I can tell you that at Kodak they mastered adaptive embedded sharpening. If fact Kodak/Fuji CN emulsions were re-engineered to perfrom optimally in the sensor discretization + adaptive_sharpening chain.

[interneg]

Interneg, I'm not confused. Fuji Frontier digital minilab is from 1996, many scanners predated the frontier, of course, but digital minilabs changed the industry: most CN emulsions were re-engineered to deliver optimal scans and adaptive embedded sharpening became an industrial standard.

In particular Scitex was formerly the Dayton Operations division of Kodak, and I can tell you that at Kodak they mastered adaptive embedded sharpening. If fact Kodak/Fuji CN emulsions were re-engineered to perfrom optimally in the sensor discretization + adaptive_sharpening chain.

Show us the patents then.

Main difference was the top coats, sharpness enhancement in the emulsions was a long running project far pre-dating scanning needs. I know you are desperate for a solution that 'proves' high end scanners are reliant on magic software, but they aren't.

[bob carnie]

Possibly the product line from these folks:

https://dtculturalheritage.com/



I agree with this. Include a well-regulated diffuse light source and a system of glass and glassless film holders. I expect that it would cost a few thousand dollars to do it with adequate alignment precision and durable construction, and taking into account how small the production run is likely to be. But I hope someone will take a chance on this concept.

This is the system I have done my limited testing with.

[Pere Casals]

This is the system I have done my limited testing with.

Of course it's an amazing system for documentation.

The XF IQ4 150MP has to yield impressive results, we may guess a practical yield of 60 to 80Mpix effective with available MF lenses, in a single shot. Still a 4x5 negative can be 400MPix effectively worth if the shot is technically perfect, so we may have to take several shots and stitching if wanting all IQ possible.

[bob carnie]

Of course it's an amazing system for documentation.

The XF IQ4 150MP has to yield impressive results, we may guess a practical yield of 60 to 80Mpix effective with available MF lenses, in a single shot. Still a 4x5 negative can be 400MPix effectively worth if the shot is technically perfect, so we may have to take several shots and stitching if wanting all IQ possible.

I made super size prints from both this system and my Eversmart and was duly impressed with the quality.

[Pere Casals]

I made super size prints from both this system and my Eversmart and was duly impressed with the quality.

Bob, a master like you makes quality prints with anything, what counts is the printer, this was true with the enlargers and it remains with digital/hybrid. You may have problems when somebody else "edited" the image before.