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"Michael D. Berger" <> writes:

> What would be your recommendations for a good quality
> flatbed scanner?

For what purpose? Flat art? Text? Bound pages of text? Receipts?
Negatives? These have rather different requirements.

--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

"Michael D. Berger" <> writes:

> On Wed, 21 Dec 2011 11:41:57 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
>
>> "Michael D. Berger" <> writes:
>>
>>> What would be your recommendations for a good quality flatbed scanner?
>>
>> For what purpose? Flat art? Text? Bound pages of text? Receipts?
>> Negatives? These have rather different requirements.
>
> Mostly old photographs, both monochrome and color, maybe some
> negatives, and checks for deposit. I already have a Nikon
> Coolscan 5000ED for 35mm. Detail, sharpness, and quality
> are required -- and besides that, I am somewhat technically
> knowledgeable and obsessive-compulsive.
>
> Please let me know if you need any additional information.

Okay, so you need full photo/artwork quality. Really, darned near
any mainstream flatbed works; paper is a very limited medium, it turns out.

I'm using an Epson V700 (to go along with my Coolscan 5000ED), but
that's overkill -- I had to go that high to get full-page transparency
scanners, for contact sheets of old negatives and things.

--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

On Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:05:49 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet <dd->
wrote:

>I'm using an Epson V700 (to go along with my Coolscan 5000ED), but
>that's overkill -- I had to go that high to get full-page transparency
>scanners, for contact sheets of old negatives and things.

A bit OT, but I'm wondering how you do contact sheets of negs on the
V700. I'm unable to get good exposure and color in the images. ( I
think the film base probably skews the black point, which wrecks the
gamma.)

I also use the V700, and mostly use VueScan as the SW.

Wally

Wally <> writes:

> On Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:05:49 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet <dd->
> wrote:
>
>>I'm using an Epson V700 (to go along with my Coolscan 5000ED), but
>>that's overkill -- I had to go that high to get full-page transparency
>>scanners, for contact sheets of old negatives and things.
>
> A bit OT, but I'm wondering how you do contact sheets of negs on the
> V700. I'm unable to get good exposure and color in the images. ( I
> think the film base probably skews the black point, which wrecks the
> gamma.)

B&W is easy; I do generally scan in high-bit-depth and adjust the black
and white points.

Color can be done several ways, but I get the best results by using
scanning as transparency and inverting in photoshop later. Also, I
wouldn't attempt to judge final color balance from the contact sheet
.

> I also use the V700, and mostly use VueScan as the SW.

I've been playing with VueScan to drive my Coolscan 5000 on Windows 7.
Sigh.

--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd-; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

On Thu, 22 Dec 2011 09:25:41 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet <dd->
wrote:


>I've been playing with VueScan to drive my Coolscan 5000 on Windows 7.
>Sigh.

Me too, works great. Why the sigh?

Wally

On Thu, 22 Dec 2011 09:25:41 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
> Wally <> writes:
>
>> On Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:05:49 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet <dd->
>> wrote:
>>
>>>I'm using an Epson V700 (to go along with my Coolscan 5000ED), but
>>>that's overkill -- I had to go that high to get full-page transparency
>>>scanners, for contact sheets of old negatives and things.
>>
>> A bit OT, but I'm wondering how you do contact sheets of negs on the
>> V700. I'm unable to get good exposure and color in the images. ( I
>> think the film base probably skews the black point, which wrecks the
>> gamma.)
>
> B&W is easy; I do generally scan in high-bit-depth and adjust the black
> and white points.

I also have a V700, which I bought to do black and white neg scans, which
it does very well. I like to use the "calibrated" scan mode, so that I
can get a better sense of how I did with my exposures. Then I tweak the
black and white points and what-not in Lightroom.

> Color can be done several ways, but I get the best results by using
> scanning as transparency and inverting in photoshop later. Also, I
> wouldn't attempt to judge final color balance from the contact sheet
> .

I spent months trying to get a similar "calibrated" method to work for
colour negatives, and have concluded that I have failed (with the tools
that I have). The problem I found is that the red, green and blue layers
all have their own sensitivity, and Lightroom doesn't have a way to
adjust the "black" and "white" points of the three independently. Well,
I haven't found it. Using a colour chart makes the non-linear film
response very obvious: use a white-balance dropper on one end of the grey
gradation gives everything one colour hue, and at the other end the
opposite.

What does work very nicely for me, though, is the "auto" mode in the
Epson scanner software. Buggy, ugly and user-unfriendly as it is, there
is some very decent functionality in there. Mostly I find it gets the
colour balance pretty close, and in the cases where it isn't, the fact
that I'm using a non-calabrated scan mode allows me to tweak the white
and black points of the separate curves a little. I figure that the
scanner software has the advantage of adjusting for the between-frame
bulk orange of the film base. The individual frame scans don't have that
border.

>> I also use the V700, and mostly use VueScan as the SW.
>
> I've been playing with VueScan to drive my Coolscan 5000 on Windows 7.
> Sigh.

Haven't tried VueScan, and although many people say great things about
it, I've also heard that it doesn't automatically pick the frames from
the film strips, so you have to mask each one by hand? With the Epson
software I just load up four strips and walk away for half an hour or so.

Cheers,

--
Andrew

On 27 Dec 2011 02:36:43 GMT, Andrew Reilly <areilly---@bigpond.net.au>
wrote:

>On Thu, 22 Dec 2011 09:25:41 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
>> Wally <> writes:
>>
>>> On Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:05:49 -0600, David Dyer-Bennet <dd->
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>I'm using an Epson V700 (to go along with my Coolscan 5000ED), but
>>>>that's overkill -- I had to go that high to get full-page transparency
>>>>scanners, for contact sheets of old negatives and things.
>>>
>>> A bit OT, but I'm wondering how you do contact sheets of negs on the
>>> V700. I'm unable to get good exposure and color in the images. ( I
>>> think the film base probably skews the black point, which wrecks the
>>> gamma.)
>>
>> B&W is easy; I do generally scan in high-bit-depth and adjust the black
>> and white points.
>
>I also have a V700, which I bought to do black and white neg scans, which
>it does very well. I like to use the "calibrated" scan mode, so that I
>can get a better sense of how I did with my exposures. Then I tweak the
>black and white points and what-not in Lightroom.
>
>> Color can be done several ways, but I get the best results by using
>> scanning as transparency and inverting in photoshop later. Also, I
>> wouldn't attempt to judge final color balance from the contact sheet
>> .
>
>I spent months trying to get a similar "calibrated" method to work for
>colour negatives, and have concluded that I have failed (with the tools
>that I have). The problem I found is that the red, green and blue layers
>all have their own sensitivity, and Lightroom doesn't have a way to
>adjust the "black" and "white" points of the three independently. Well,
>I haven't found it. Using a colour chart makes the non-linear film
>response very obvious: use a white-balance dropper on one end of the grey
>gradation gives everything one colour hue, and at the other end the
>opposite.
>
>What does work very nicely for me, though, is the "auto" mode in the
>Epson scanner software. Buggy, ugly and user-unfriendly as it is, there
>is some very decent functionality in there. Mostly I find it gets the
>colour balance pretty close, and in the cases where it isn't, the fact
>that I'm using a non-calabrated scan mode allows me to tweak the white
>and black points of the separate curves a little. I figure that the
>scanner software has the advantage of adjusting for the between-frame
>bulk orange of the film base. The individual frame scans don't have that
>border.
>
>>> I also use the V700, and mostly use VueScan as the SW.
>>
>> I've been playing with VueScan to drive my Coolscan 5000 on Windows 7.
>> Sigh.
>
>Haven't tried VueScan, and although many people say great things about
>it, I've also heard that it doesn't automatically pick the frames from
>the film strips, so you have to mask each one by hand? With the Epson
>software I just load up four strips and walk away for half an hour or so.

I have to hand-adjust each pic anyway, so there would not be much
advantage to automating the scanning for me.

..... unless there was a way to preset the gamma for the scans.

Wally