Drum Scanning recommendation

[Ari]

There is or was a lab in Providence named Colorlab. I used them a lot when I lived down there, they were trustworthy. Never know if a lab is still around. From Google: Colorlab Practical Imaging. 1 Silver Spring St, Providence, RI 02904. (401) 272-4550.
Worth a phone call, still can't tell if they are still opened.

Tom, have a read through the first few replies in this thread; it made me laugh.

[Pere Casals]

Using this thread.

I want to try and print some of my images.
And I want to get the best out of them.
I, myself have an Epson V800, but in my search to get the most out of it I was considering to Drum scan for once.
Would you reccommend it? To see the difference?

First, take a x40 magnifier and inspect the finest detail in the negative, then equally enlarge the V800 scan (4000dpi) in the monitor and see if something is lost.

Second, many 8x10" drum scanning is offered only at 2000dpi, being 4000dpi quite expensive if available. A 8x10" Color 4000dpi scan at 8 bits per channel exceeds 4Gb (usual) maximum file size, and if using (necessary) 16bits/channels then it would be 10GBytes.

If you are to drum scan at 2000 dpi, the epson scanned at 4000 and later downsampled to 2000 should be equal.

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The larger the format the lower benefit from a drum scan over a V800 one. In 35mm you may find a great difference if the shot is very sharp, but for 8x10 size benefit will be very, very scarce.

In my experience some 4x5" shots may take some advantage from a drum scan at 4000dpi, in special for very dark/underexposed Velvia/Provia, but an Epson V800 + 810 format is a powerful combination delivering an insane amount of image quality, the V resolves 40lp/mm on film, and at that frequency 8x10 LF lenses provide very scarce contrast anyway, being practically many times in a contrast extintion situation.



With the EPSON, scan 4000dpi a 8x10" BW negative, 16 bits per channel, take all histogram and do a good Ps processing, with mild sharpening, then downsample (use "bicubic, ideal for reductions") to 2000dpi, compare that with a drum scan after matching images with curve edition. IMHO You will get the same, but do your own test and please post your findings, just you will have to spend some bucks in a single 8x10 scan, it would be a good investment for you to know from first hand.

Many side by side comparisons of Epson vs Drum in scanning service webs are missleading.

Do your own side by side !!!

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BW, color negative or slides?

If you scan 8x10 Velvia slides then you should upgrade your Silverfast to SE Plus version, that includes Multi-Exposure for dense slides.

If having to recover detail from very unexposed Velvia slides then the drum is the best solution.

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Regarding color, the V800 it is perfectly IT8 calibrated and accurate. Some drum vs epson comparisons have edited colors in the drum sample that are not what the film has.