Re: filmscanners: Another Mission Completed

["Steve Greenbank" <steve@gccl.fsbusiness.co.uk>]

Congratulations to Lynn - how long did it take and how many images have you
archived ?

I am attempting a similar project and finding it difficult even to get
going.

When I bought my scanner I had already seen the results (even A3) that could
be had with a 3Mpixel digicam (which is technically 8 bit colour depth and
less than 0.75Mpixel Red Blue and 1.5Mpixel Green) and an Epson 1270. I
figured with a decent scanner 20Mpixel (full RGB 12bit colour) image A3
would be a breeze provided the original image was OK.

Oh dear, how wrong you can be.

After the initial shock of my first scan I decided that this noise was
normal and caused by grain, CCD noise and faults in the film and have been
struggling around these problems ever since. Some slides are relatively easy
others are near on impossible.

Obviously I don't want to print them all A3 but I do want to archive them to
CD at full scan resolution dust and other imperfections removed and colour
balanced. At a later date I would then like to get the best print possible,
from any image selected, with minimal fuss. I could accept that most images
will only ever be viewed on the screen or printed 6x4 and this would be
easy, but I am hoping to be able to print :

     most A3 minimum (roughly 4000dpi slide scan equates to 300dpi print)
     a  few bigger still (after all I have had good 20x30 Cibachromes)
     and for the odd photographic duffer that is special for other reasons -
anything will do!

Am I asking too much ?

To date I have only seen my own 4000dpi scans so I don't really know if
these are the facts of scanning life or if my machine is duff :

     There will be significant noise in all continous tones ?

     The scanned image at any comparable size will always appear terribly
soft compared to when projected unless significantly sharpened in software
which generally amplifies all the flaws ?

     High contrast  images (most slides) are a complete pain in the rear ?

    It will take forever just to figure out how to use the damn thing.

    There will always be dust (and I should have got a scanner with ICE so
don't bother to rub my nose in it, please)


Steve