Full Contact sheets on Epson 3200?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dan M
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Dan M

Hello,
Has anyone had any success using a lightbox on top of an Epson 3200
scanner? I want to scan a full (or nearly full) contact sheet in one
pass, rather than three tediously positioned strips at a time.

I guess the lightbox throws off the scanner's calibration though,
because it takes forever to even being the preview, then bombs out on
the scan.

I can make it work with the scanner set in Reflective mode, but the
results aren't nearly as good, since the light then strikes the sheet
from both sides.

Thanks!
 
Dan M said:
Hello,
Has anyone had any success using a lightbox on top of an Epson 3200
scanner? I want to scan a full (or nearly full) contact sheet in one
pass, rather than three tediously positioned strips at a time.

I guess the lightbox throws off the scanner's calibration though,
because it takes forever to even being the preview, then bombs out on
the scan.

I can make it work with the scanner set in Reflective mode, but the
results aren't nearly as good, since the light then strikes the sheet
from both sides.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Not with slides or negatives.

If you have the 3200 Photo model the maximum transparency size is 4" X 9".
If you have the 3200 Pro model, it does not has a transparency scanning
ability.
 
I guess the lightbox throws off the scanner's calibration though,
Yes. You would at least have to make a black mask with a correct
calibration notch and make sure nothing gets in between the light source and
scanner glass in this calibration area. Even after doing that, I am not
sure that it will work. For one thing, Epson has been crippling their
software to only allow it to scan as large as the area of the original light
lid's light source when in film scanning mode. Not sure if this applies to
the 3200, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

Doug
 
Thanks Doug -- You're right. In transparency mode, the scanner only
allows the default transparency top cutout size. That's really
annoying.

Reflective mode with a lightbox over the 35mm sheet of negatives scans
the full page, but the qualty is nowhere near usable.

Anyone know if the Canon 9950 can scan a full sheet w/o taking out the
individual strips of negatives? I have over a thousand sheets I'd like
to scan.

Or maybe some has other scanner recommendations within this price
range. I use a film scanner for high quality 35mm quality scans, but I
would like a flatbed that can also make excellent 2 1/4 negative /
slide scans.

p.s. It's not just the Epson software that gives this result -- it does
the same thing under Vuescan, so I guess it's in the firmware.

Thanks,

Dan

For one thing, Epson has been crippling their
 
Dan said:
Thanks Doug -- You're right. In transparency mode, the scanner only
allows the default transparency top cutout size. That's really
annoying.

Reflective mode with a lightbox over the 35mm sheet of negatives scans
the full page, but the qualty is nowhere near usable.

Anyone know if the Canon 9950 can scan a full sheet w/o taking out the
individual strips of negatives? I have over a thousand sheets I'd like
to scan.

Or maybe some has other scanner recommendations within this price
range. I use a film scanner for high quality 35mm quality scans, but I
would like a flatbed that can also make excellent 2 1/4 negative /
slide scans.

p.s. It's not just the Epson software that gives this result -- it does
the same thing under Vuescan, so I guess it's in the firmware.

Thanks,

Dan
Click to expand...

Hi Dan...

You have me just a little confused.... though not an unusual thing for me :)

Not sure exactly what it is you're hoping to do. You surely can
scan the size of the lid light (4 x 9), (no larger) but you said high
quality 35mm scans.

So... if you do that at 3200, and even at 8 bit (24 bit) you'll end up
with file sizes of a bit over a gig! Dunno 'bout you, but I don't too
much want to deal with them - yikes! :)

And to futher muddy the waters, if what you're scanning is a haphazard
collection of 35mm strips, they're all going to be sufficiently
different that you'd surely want to tweak each at least a bit
differently before scanning, I think.

I respectfully think you're just gonna have to bite the bullet and do
'em one at a time - like me :)

Take care.

Ken
 
I have had success scanning 35mm negative strips using an Epson 2450.
I created a mask to cover the upper light box, with the calibration
strip at the top. The strips are in Print File preservers. I sandwich
the preserver page between two pieces of Plexiglas to flatten the
negatives. It is a two-pass operation, the first for the first three
strips and the second for the remainder. If I have gone beyond 36
exposures, a third scan is required. I then print the two sets of
three strips each together on a sheet of paper using Qimage, with an
additional short strip on the side for the third scan, if necessary.

This works for me, although it will not do 120 film strips, except one
at a time. Because of this, I may upgrade too the latest Epson
flatbed.

I hope this helps.

Charles Kinghorn
 
Thanks Charles.

I can't get the 3200 to do more than the default width of the
transparency top light. I was just looking for a quick, easy way to
make half-decent scans of a whole printfile sheet so I could pick
images to scan from those. I wasn't looking for stellar quality at this
stage.

So, I may check out the newer epson or even the canon. We do have one
of the older Epson scanners (1680, I think) with a giant tansparency
top that easily does a whole sheet at once and at decent enough quality
to allow editing / viewing of fairly large images onscreen. Guess I
could just do everything at work.

Thanks for your input.

Dan
 
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