V750- Epson scan

[Mark_Se]

Today I tried scanning a 4x5" negative with "epson scan" software.
With ICE turned on it took 35 minutes! Is that normal?
I`m using a macbook pro 2.16ghz intel core 2 with 3gb ram.

[francois.jonquet]

Hi mark
it depend of the resolution
at what dpi did you scan it
tiff or jpeg
regards
francois

[Mark_Se]

2000dpi tiff

[memorris]

The computer is pretty low power for huge scans like that. If you are planning to make 30" prints you are obviously looking for high quality scans ut the Epson scanning s/w cannot make high quality scans. If you are going to work with very high quality you need SilverFast. I have used the Epson s/w and found it to be very poor quality and few option. SilverFast will do a much better job and will probably allow you to reduce the scan time.

I normally scan 4X5 at 1200dpi and have the multi-scan option turned on. Each scan takes about 5 min. I have a 4 Core Mac Pro with 8GB RAM which helps quite a bit.

[Mark_Se]

I have used the Epson s/w and found it to be very poor quality...

what do you mean with "very poor quality"- sharpness, color, noise?

I also tried vuescan and silverfast, but when scanning negative film i get better colors using epson scan software.

[memorris]

I found the Epson s/w to be slow, limited in features and the images it produced were lower contrast without as much control as with SF. I can not fully specify what I saw because it has been some time. I tried the Epson s/w because it was simpler than SF but was never pleased with any scan from a negative and I spent a lot of time fighting with it. SF takes a bit more work to get a good quality scan, but it is well worth the effort. I mostly B&W but prefer the control with the color film offer by SF also.

[Bob McCarthy]

Today I tried scanning a 4x5" negative with "epson scan" software.
With ICE turned on it took 35 minutes! Is that normal?
I`m using a macbook pro 2.16ghz intel core 2 with 3gb ram.

Try it w/o ICE, a real time consumer and not needed if you work to keep your negatives and scanner platen clean.

I found vuescan to be very capable, I thought it was a better "quality of image" choice than Epson scan and not as obtuse nor as expensive as Silverfast.

bob

[rdenney]

Try it w/o ICE, a real time consumer and not needed if you work to keep your negatives and scanner platen clean.

I found vuescan to be very capable, I thought it was a better "quality of image" choice than Epson scan and not as obtuse nor as expensive as Silverfast.

bob

What he said. ICE really, really slows down the Epson scanner. Also, never use ICE with black and white negatives--the ICE algorithm is confused by the grain.

Rick "who agrees with Bob's software assessment" Denney

[Nathan Potter]

Perhaps your results are about right with ICE. ICE has about a 3X increase in scan time. I'm scanning now and scan time without ICE, 2400SPI, 24 bit, 2 trannies in the Epson holder; scan time of a linearized curve is about 12 minutes using Epson scan. I'm using an old Mac G4 with 1.5 GB of RAM. Dump ICE and work to keep your images clean, then spot using Photoshop Healing tool.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[Brian Ellis]

2000dpi tiff

Too big a file, too little RAM, no need for ICE if you're using Photoshop or Elements and don't have a huge number of files to scan. Unless your negatives are really filthy you probably can spot out dust in Photoshop or Elements much faster than the additional time it took to scan using ICE. You were scanning color film, right - not b&w?