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Thread: 8x10 with a V700, Vuescan can't scan above 1600 DPI

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  1. #1

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    8x10 with a V700, Vuescan can't scan above 1600 DPI

    Hi,

    Just developed my first 8x10 B&W shots (one of the cat, another of a chair haha) and I'm experimenting with Vuescan 8.6.38 on a Mac Pro 1,1 with OSX 10.6.4 and 12GB ram. Scanner is an Epson V700.

    I'm using the "film area guide" on the glass bed as my betterscanning mounting station thing only works for 4x5. Because the film was peeling up from the heat of the scan, I am scoth taping the edges down so that it stays reasonably flat (meanwhile I'm looking for suggestions on who can get me AN glass that I can just lay on top of the film).

    So, the major issue I am running into is that I can't get a scan over 1.2GB in size. No matter if I select 1600 or 3200 DPI, I get 12700 x 15700 dimensions, and the file size is 1.2GB. 3200 DPI takes like 2+ hours, however. I'm scanning 48bit RGB so that I have the most info to work with for photoshop.

    As I understand it, the V700 in this mode will only scan 800 dpi, 1600, 3200, etc and the other in-between resolutions (2400, etc) are interpolated. Otherwise, I would use 2400, as the endless arguments that abound seem to say that 2400 is about all this scanner can do anyhow.

    I would like to be able to make a really large scan and then reduce down, which if course I can do now, but I'm a little disappointed, if only because my Nikon 9000 can do just about as good from a 6x7...

    Is this a vuescan thing? I have a silverfast license from my OSX 10.4 days (3 weeks ago), but I'm not sure I have the binary (which probably means I'd have to upgrade my license and pay them in order to access any binary at all), and I like vuescan better anyhow from a "lock exposure and film base color" perspective.

    Is this a known thing, or am I doing something wrong?

    (Haha I haven't even fired up the Nikon 9000 yet since the 10.6 upgrade. One frustration at a time...)

    Thanks for any help/ideas

  2. #2

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    Re: 8x10 with a V700, Vuescan can't scan above 1600 DPI

    That's correct.

    The higher ppi scans are only made with film 5x7 or smaller. 8x10 film is outside the sweet spot of the scanner.

    Look at the owner's manual. The V700 and V750 have two different scanning areas.
    When I grow up, I want to be a photographer.

    http://www.walterpcalahan.com/Photography/index.html

  3. #3

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    Re: 8x10 with a V700, Vuescan can't scan above 1600 DPI

    Just a practical question, at the point you need a scan larger than 1.2 gigs, why wouldn't you go and get a drum scan? Working on and printing such a large file is a large investment in time (just dust-busting it!) so why not go the extra step and expense to get a truly great scan?

  4. #4

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    Re: 8x10 with a V700, Vuescan can't scan above 1600 DPI

    Walter,

    Thanks for the confirmation. I think I'm pretty lucky as I was just checking at 100% and the scan is quite sharp! So at least it seems to be focusing on the glass (or right above) as it's supposed to.

    Frank,

    Well, this Epson is $500, and the scan was $500/(however many scans I've ever made with it since I bought it + 1). Drum scans are ridiculously expensive I think that if I ever feel that anything I do is even remotely good enough for a drum scan, then I'll definitely get one. I think it's more of a general down feeling when you find the limits of what you have (well, resolution-wise, anyhow). Just making sure I'm not making an easy-to-fix mistake. The biggest I can print is 24x36 (or thereabouts), so maybe it wouldn't even make a difference, I don't know.

    The output still looks pretty awesome, though. The transition from in focus to out of focus is really nice in 8x10.

    Thanks

  5. #5

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    Re: 8x10 with a V700, Vuescan can't scan above 1600 DPI

    Mark, how sharp is sharp? I've been studying the resolution performance of a new V750 and find it drops from about 50 to 25 lp/mm from best focus above the glass to on the glass. I just point this out, but it may be that around 1200 SPI may still be OK for what you're doing. That point of best focus reportedly varies between different machines. For reference, my machine focus point is about 2.4 mm above the glass. Another scanner well tested was 3.9 mm above the glass. But visually, for me, there's quite an improvement in scanning at the focus of the scanner.

    Nate Potter, Austin TX.

  6. #6

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    Re: 8x10 with a V700, Vuescan can't scan above 1600 DPI

    Dear Nathan,

    Unfortunately I cannot speak to the Epson 700, but my best focus for the 750 happens to approximate 3mm above the scanner's flatbed glass surface, where I hang my 8X10 wet mount negatives upside down, emulsion side to the glass, and where I raise the negative into its proper position by using the film guide, and two thin rag board surface strips placed along the longside edges of the film guide. The glass ress comfortably on top of the surface strips, and if I need to square the negative better, it is just a matter of correcting the glass position on top of the strips.

    I go larger that 1200 spi with the current Epson scanner software...

    jim k

  7. #7

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    Re: 8x10 with a V700, Vuescan can't scan above 1600 DPI

    This is an interesting thread to me. I get very sharp 8x10 scans with a V750 at 2400 dpi. Are you all saying that if I drop back to 1600 I will get better results?

    Edit: So, 1600 is not a default option in Epson scan; you have to type it in. I just did a quick test with MF film. I did one scan at 2400 and another at 1600. I then downsized the 2400 image in PS to the size of the 1600. The 1600 is sharper at 100 percent than the downsized 2400 on screen, but I'm not sure what this means in terms of printing. If I sent the 2400 out for printing at 16x20 would it actually be less sharp than the 1600?

  8. #8

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    Re: 8x10 with a V700, Vuescan can't scan above 1600 DPI

    Hi John,

    I don't know what everyone else is saying, but what I'm saying is that no matter what I set the resolution at above 1600 ppi, the resulting file is 1600 ppi if you divide the resolution by the number of inches it actually scanned (~8" in one case, ~10" in the other). Maybe it does some internal interpolating or something, especially since as I understand it, 2400 is an interpolated resolution anyhow... so, it either interpolates up form 1600, or interpolates down from 3200. Not sure which yours is doing.

    If Epson scan gives you more pixels (whether or not they actually hold more information or not is another argument), then maybe it's a "feature" of Vuescan not to output more than 1600ppi.


    Quote Originally Posted by John NYC View Post
    This is an interesting thread to me. I get very sharp 8x10 scans with a V750 at 2400 dpi. Are you all saying that if I drop back to 1600 I will get better results?

    Edit: So, 1600 is not a default option in Epson scan; you have to type it in. I just did a quick test with MF film. I did one scan at 2400 and another at 1600. I then downsized the 2400 image in PS to the size of the 1600. The 1600 is sharper at 100 percent than the downsized 2400 on screen, but I'm not sure what this means in terms of printing. If I sent the 2400 out for printing at 16x20 would it actually be less sharp than the 1600?

  9. #9

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    Re: 8x10 with a V700, Vuescan can't scan above 1600 DPI

    Quote Originally Posted by Mark Hodos View Post
    Hi John,

    I don't know what everyone else is saying, but what I'm saying is that no matter what I set the resolution at above 1600 ppi, the resulting file is 1600 ppi if you divide the resolution by the number of inches it actually scanned (~8" in one case, ~10" in the other). Maybe it does some internal interpolating or something, especially since as I understand it, 2400 is an interpolated resolution anyhow... so, it either interpolates up form 1600, or interpolates down from 3200. Not sure which yours is doing.

    If Epson scan gives you more pixels (whether or not they actually hold more information or not is another argument), then maybe it's a "feature" of Vuescan not to output more than 1600ppi.
    Nope using Epson Scan on my V750, I get way more pixels at 2400 than I do at 1600. When I scan 8x10 at 2400, I get a HUGE file.

    What is bothering me is are the extra pixels worth anything in terms of resolution when going to the printer? When I downsized the 2400 file to be the same size at the 1600 file, the 1600 file was sharper.

    It gets even weirder. When I used PS to "upsample" the 1600 file to 2400 (and a respectively larger number of pixels per side) it was STILL sharper than the scan that was originally done at 2400.

    EDIT: I just did a bunch of googling and found on flickr that Tim Parkin (who also posts here sometimes) found that 1600 the breakpoint for the V750. I tend to trust that guy as he does an amazing amount of research into his interests (plus we both do software, which makes me immediately like him ;-).

    This has actually been a great thread in that I am going to save TONS of hard disk space by switching to 1600 instead of 2400 scans.

  10. #10

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    Re: 8x10 with a V700, Vuescan can't scan above 1600 DPI

    Quote Originally Posted by John NYC View Post
    Nope using Epson Scan on my V750, I get way more pixels at 2400 than I do at 1600. When I scan 8x10 at 2400, I get a HUGE file.

    What is bothering me is are the extra pixels worth anything in terms of resolution when going to the printer? When I downsized the 2400 file to be the same size at the 1600 file, the 1600 file was sharper.

    It gets even weirder. When I used PS to "upsample" the 1600 file to 2400 (and a respectively larger number of pixels per side) it was STILL sharper than the scan that was originally done at 2400.

    EDIT: I just did a bunch of googling and found on flickr that Tim Parkin (who also posts here sometimes) found that 1600 the breakpoint for the V750. I tend to trust that guy as he does an amazing amount of research into his interests (plus we both do software, which makes me immediately like him ;-).

    This has actually been a great thread in that I am going to save TONS of hard disk space by switching to 1600 instead of 2400 scans.
    Yeah, I think that basically from your experiments, PS upscales from 1600 to 2400 better than Epson scan does, since the 1600 is sharper. Which would make sense with my experiments in that when I tell Vuescan to give me optically 1600 or optically 3200, but don't interpolate, I get 1600.

    Interesting. Wow a thread that's actually solved something! ... for two people at the same time!

    I'm in software too -- this sort of thing doesn't happen that often

    I've seen some of your scans in other threads, and they are pretty sharp. Are you wet mounting or raising the negative off the glass at all? I'm not into wet-mounting (tiny nyc apartment as it is), but i could be convinced to start shimming a little if I'm feeling masochistic.

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