scanning options for slide archival...

[Raphael Bustin]

Also, unless you have
Photoshop CS, you will probably find you can't edit 16-bit / channel
images without downstepping to 8 bits/channel - which makes scanning at
16 bits rather redundant IMHO.

For what it's worth, Paint Shop Pro X and Photoshop 7
can open and do tonal corrections on 16-bit TIF files.
Heck, even FastStone can do that.

My take is that if you're very careful in the scanner driver --
and if you know that the scanner driver is working in 16 bits --
you can save/import 8 bit files with impunity.

These days I scan in 16 bits and then down-covert to
8 bits in Photoshop, just to be safe. I don't think of 120
Mbytes as a "big" image file. You can still get maybe
30 or 35 of these on a DVD.

I wouldn't bother though, for very old slides. Taking
35mm to 120 megabytes is pretty anal, any way you
cut it. (So I'm basically agreeing with you, BTW.)


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com

 

[Randy Howard]

Surfer! wrote

My suggestion to you is that your originals are the archive material,
not the scans of them.

Except we're dealing with 40+ year old material, which is
already suffering fairly badly, especially the Ektachromes which
are variable, but generally poor to horrible. The automatic
"fade correction" on the Canon actually does a decent job of
turning those pink fade jobs back into color, to varying degrees
of success depending on the slide. They just won't last as is.


Reading articles like
http://www.familyreserve.com/preservation.html
my experience here isn't atypical at all.

I won't throw them away, but I expect them to not age further
with grace. :-(

I would approach this by scanning at a lesser
depth, but making sure that I can easily find the original for each scan
so I can go back to it. I find it much easier to judge a slide by
viewing it's scan on the screen than by squinting at the slide - I don't
have a projector or viewer.

Well, that's what the light table and loupe is for, but yeah.
Even the "preview" off the scanning software is pretty good for
that much in this case, as I don't have 4 or 5 of the same shot
with varying exposures to compare as you might with more
carefully shot slides of a static subject.

If you use an Nikon LS5000 with the SF-200
or SF-210 batch feeder, and scan at 2000 dpi you should get each box of
40 (or so) slides scanned in an hour.

When I say "box" I mean a box the size of a case of printer
paper. :-(

Since as you say a lot of the
originals are pretty gash, I personally can't see the point in doing all
the scanning at max resolution & colour depth.

If I could automate the process, it wouldn't bother me. Space
is cheap.

Also, unless you have
Photoshop CS, you will probably find you can't edit 16-bit / channel
images without downstepping to 8 bits/channel - which makes scanning at
16 bits rather redundant IMHO.

I have CS2, so that isn't a problem.

The slide feeders are not something you can just walk away from - you
have to keep an eye on them in case they jam. However, given the
problems you are having with doing more than a few on the trot it will
be a great improvement.

Well, I have read some articles specifically about the 210
jamming, and a couple home-brew modifications to make them feed
more reliably. For the price Nikon charges, you'd think they
would have had a rev out to fix it on their own by now. I'm
wondering if there are any competing brands that have solved
this problem or might do better with Kodachrome.

 

[Randy Howard]

Raphael Bustin wrote

I've scanned quite a few Kodachromes on my LS-8000.

Be aware that there were several different Kodachrome
formulations over the years.

The earlier versions of dICE were known to be problematic
on Kodachrome, but the newest Nikons come with a version
of dICE that allegedly fixes that.

Very good to hear, thank you.

 

[Surfer!]

Raphael Bustin wrote


Very good to hear, thank you.

I've scanned some 1980's Kodachrome with & without dICE and some images
were OK, others clearly had problems.

 

[Scott W]

My suggestion to you is that your originals are the archive material,
not the scans of them. I would approach this by scanning at a lesser
depth, but making sure that I can easily find the original for each scan
so I can go back to it. I find it much easier to judge a slide by
viewing it's scan on the screen than by squinting at the slide - I don't
have a projector or viewer. If you use an Nikon LS5000 with the SF-200
or SF-210 batch feeder, and scan at 2000 dpi you should get each box of
40 (or so) slides scanned in an hour. Since as you say a lot of the
originals are pretty gash, I personally can't see the point in doing all
the scanning at max resolution & colour depth. Also, unless you have
Photoshop CS, you will probably find you can't edit 16-bit / channel
images without downstepping to 8 bits/channel - which makes scanning at
16 bits rather redundant IMHO.

There are cheap programs that handle 16 bits/color, I use Photoshop
Elements 3.

Having said that I have not seen many scans that have more shadow
detail at 16/color then 8 / color. This is pretty easy to test, do a
scan at both 8 and 16 bits/color and see if there is more shadow detail
in the 16 bits/color version compared to the 8.

As for 2000 ppi scanning, I see very few slides that benift from
scanning higher then this, here again it is easy to test.

To my way of thinging it is better to scan all the slides at lower
resolution and bit depth then to just scan a few at full resolution and
bit depth. Of course for those few slides that matter the most and
show enough detail to matter it is easy to scan at full resolution.

As for thinking of the slides as the archive material, I generally
don't like this since slides tend to go down hill with time. The fact
that these are old slide makes this not as much an issue but still the
slides will be in worse condition 10 years from now then they are now.

Scott

 

[degrub]

Rafe,

IIRC, Only the LS9000 got the change - slightly different wavelength led
source and some changes to the ASF libraries.

regards,

 

[Roger]

I'm trying to do the "archive the old family photos" deal, and I
have a boatload (almost literally) of slides my parents took
before we were born and after I want to scan in.

I am curious what sort of options to use *before* I start, I
don't want to discover after days of scanning that I need to go
back and redo some of them, if you know what I mean. These
aren't going to be used for large blow-ups (apart from a few
"winners") but mainly for use in viewing on a monitor or TV. A
few may be printed out, but any that look that good will be
scanned at max quality settings probably.

First off, what DPI to use for 35mm slides? I can choose up to
4800dpi (which takes forever), and optionally 48-bit color mode
on my Canon 9950 flatbed scanner. Is 1200 dpi sufficient for
the bulk of them, or should 2400 be a minimum?

It basically comes down to "what ever you are satisfied with".

Take a look at http://www.rogerhalstead.com/scanning.htm which covers
a number of options, as well as selecting storage and naming
conventions.

Also, should you use the unsharp mask option built in to the
scanning software, or do any of that later on in PS after
cropping/sizing, etc.?

If it doesn't need sharpening, why bother?
IOW keep it simple and use what ever options suit your purpose.

As this are "old family photos" you probably aren't going to want to
due much culling.

There are a lot of "it just depends" in there and hopefully the
link will help. It's a pretty good size read but does cover a lot of
ground.

Good Luck,

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

 

[Randy Howard]

Roger wrote
(in article <[email protected]>):

[big snip, but appreciated...]

There are a lot of "it just depends" in there and hopefully the
link will help. It's a pretty good size read but does cover a lot of
ground.

Good Luck,

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)

Thanks for all your input, I especially liked the web link you
posted.

I just finally got around to trying out VueScan 8.3.42. wow.
It's maybe 15X faster overall than the crap software from
Canon/Arcsoft. That's the case even with multi-sampling turned
on, although I haven't seen much of a difference in image
quality. With multi-sample set to 2, a full 48-bit color,
4800dpi scan, plus a 6% over buffer on the crop size (so tray
alignment doesn't become an issue) it takes right at 2.5 minutes
per slide. A significant part of that (maybe 15%) seems to be
adding the watermark (for the demo version only) at the end.

Scanning the same slide, with same options (simulating the
over-size crop with a manual crop), The ScanGear CS from Canon
takes 10 minutes. Add to that the significant amount of manual
labor and time required to save the images and get the file
format correct (workaround the bugs in Scangear).

Plus, VueScan does autosaves, handles the file formats
correctly, and doesn't run out of memory on multi-slide scans.
The image quality is as good or better. I haven't looked at how
it can handle color repair for faded Ektachromes yet, which is
one area the Canon package does a decent job on. Worst case,
I'll fall back to the other software for those if I have to.

Another nice feature is you can have it automatically save a
lower-resolution jpg (thumbnail) in addition to the tiff all in
an automatic process. Very nice.

I think I've solved most of the issues (apart from slide
deterioration which I can't cure) with this alone. I'll just
scan at max quality, max res, and archive them all, it will take
a fraction of the time I had previously expected using this
approach.

 

[Don]

You have to understand, I was handed boxes and boxes of slides,
that had no sorting or filtering applied to them since they came
back from Kodak 40 years ago. Just stacks of slides, and most
of them shot hand-held, on cameras nowhere near the quality of
modern film cameras.

Oh boy! You do have your work cut out for you!

What is the actual time per slide for
one of the dedicated Nikon slide scanners with the auto-feed
trays, when done at max resolution and color depth? I'm rapidly
coming to the conclusion it may be worth buying yet another
scanner.

My scanner (LS-50) doesn't have a tray but if you turn everything off
a slide takes about a minute. A lot depends on other factors like the
computer, hard disk speed, amount of memory, etc.

One thing though, I've seen messages from people complaining that you
still have to keep an eye on the tray because slides tend to jam.
Especially the paper mounted Kodak ones. :-(

One tip I saw was to stack them all up and then apply pressure to the
stack in order to flatten them somewhat. Also, rubbing the edges with
the back of your nail seems to improve things too. I know... Not
exactly something you want to do for every slide... :-/

Storage isn't the issue. I have plenty of that, and it's cheap
to get more. The problem is time. It would take me months,
working 12 hours a day to make it through all of these on this
scanner at max quality.

That's true. It's very time consuming. And when the scanning is done,
there's cropping, editing, converting to JPG and finally burning to
DVDs for distribution to friends and family.

If I could batch scan properly, but I'd be on board with your
idea completely. The problem is, this software is crap, and I
can't do more than three frames at a time in a sequence without
it crashing or giving me runtime errors about running out of
memory. Nevermind that I've watched it carefully during
execution, and it never goes above 1.5GB of RAM in process size,
and I have 4GB installed. Also, I have to manually name each
slide, and fight it over the 'fallback to jpg' problem I
described earlier. Also, about 10% of the time it will write a
zero byte file by mistake and I have to constantly check the
files after saving them to make sure they actually showed up,
and in the proper tiff format. I could go with jpg at 100% to
save some time, but I suspect something is badly wrong there as
well, as it takes a file that is 20MB in tiff and makes a 24kb
jpg out of it. Puhleeze.

That sounds like a nightmare. NikonScan that comes with Nikon scanners
is quite straightforward and solid. It will automatically number the
scans incrementally.

My other project for today is to try using VueScan instead and
compare the results.

I'm not exactly a fan of VueScan, to put it mildly... It's just
too buggy and unreliable. If you think Canon software is bad, just
browse the group for amateur VueScan bugs! But, trying is free. If you
do go with it find a version that (pretends to) work and stick with
it! Don't upgrade automatically but let others debug it for you first.

Another sign of my lack of scanner knowledge, but the marketing
claims on this scanner are "4800x9600dpi". ??? The highest
setting available I can find is 4800. And it crashes trying to
do more than 3 of those at a time. Still, I have no idea where
the 9600 is supposed to come in, or is that some marketing BS
for interpolation of the data?

Yes, often times interpolation is used to mislead people into thinking
a scanner is more capable than it really is. (That's equivalent to the
so-called "digital zoom" nonsense one sees with digicams.) The thing
with scanners is that vertical and horizontal resolutions are arrived
at in different ways due to the physical process of scanning and this
goes both for flatbeds and film scanners. The actually scanning
element is an array of cells. The number of cells per inch is the
horizontal resolutions. This array then travels across the film/pic
(or they travel above/underneath the array). Either way, that's done
using a stepper motor which moves a discrete amount each time it
receives a signal. That's the vertical resolution. Those two combined
indicate the actually physical resolution of the scanner. Anything
above that is "science fiction". If you do want to interpolate that
too is better done in a dedicated editor rather than the "quick and
dirty" scanner software.

True, but I was mostly referring to how blue the sky was back
then compared to today. Even Los Angeles, back in 1962, had a
blue, not gray smog sky. More generally, every outdoor location
seemed to have a MUCH better looking atmosphere than what we
'enjoy' today.

You're absolutely right. On a totally different tangent (since we're
reminiscing) that's like the way fruit and veg taste these days. I
remember, for example, that tomatoes used to be really sweet. But I
read somewhere as we get older our taste buds tend to go so I thought,
oh well, I must just be getting old.

And then I grew a pot of cherry tomatoes on my window sill just for a
lark. More for decoration than anything else.They flowered and the
fruit appeared. I popped one into my mouth and "Wow!"! Nothing wrong
with my taste buds, that's for sure!

The commercially produced fruit and veg we get these days in an
average supermarket has been bred for shelf life (low sugar content),
resistance to handling (thick skin), etc. Everything and anything
except the taste. Heck, the taste probably doesn't even enter into it
so no wonder they taste so bad!

The good old days, eh? ;-)

Don.

 

[Don]

My suggestion to you is that your originals are the archive material,
not the scans of them.

The trouble is film deteriorates continuously. Digital data does not.

So even though one should archive the originals, of course, no matter
what you do they will continue to degrade until they eventually
disintegrate. And there is no way to copy the image losslessly.

Assuming you keep refreshing your digital *media* the digital *data*
on them will stay the same because each copy is lossless.

Don.

 

[Don]

By the way, I have a question about dedicated slide scanners. I
have read that Nikon scanners have problems with color accuracy
on Kodachrome slides. Is that correct? Is there a way around
it? The majority of the slides I have to deal with are
kodachrome. I'd hate to spend $1500 for a Coolscan 5000 w/slide
feeder only to find out it won't handle them.

There's a special "Kodachrome" mode in NikonScan which improves things
quite a bit, but you will still have to do some work.

The problem is there is no one Kodachrome. It changed continuously
over time so the "Kodachrome" mode is an attempt at "one size fits
all". This works better with some vintages and not so well with
others.

For example, I have some Kodachromes spanning a very short period of
time (basically the 1980s) and still the difference between them is
night and day. The last Kodachrome I scanned was KRU (Kodachrome 64
Professional) from 1988 and it scanned like a dream! Just fantastic!
By contrast, some KCs earlier on in the decade (1982, 1983) were a
total nightmare! Heavy blue cast, very dense.

Also, ICE doesn't work with KCs although there are reports that top of
the line Nikons (specifically the 9000) use different IR LED and
manage to apply ICE to KCs quite well.

But even ICE on other Nikon models may work with some KC slides. The
key is how much silver is left in the image i.e. on overexposed images
ICE will work quite well because the silver has been all washed out in
development. On normally exposed to underexposed it just doesn't work.

But that's also a case of personal preference. Most of these artifacts
are only visible at high magnification so may not really be bothersome
e.g. once the resolution is reduced and the image is converted to JPG.

Don.

 

[Ken Weitzel]

Oh boy! You do have your work cut out for you!




My scanner (LS-50) doesn't have a tray but if you turn everything off
a slide takes about a minute. A lot depends on other factors like the
computer, hard disk speed, amount of memory, etc.

One thing though, I've seen messages from people complaining that you
still have to keep an eye on the tray because slides tend to jam.
Especially the paper mounted Kodak ones. :-(

One tip I saw was to stack them all up and then apply pressure to the
stack in order to flatten them somewhat. Also, rubbing the edges with
the back of your nail seems to improve things too. I know... Not
exactly something you want to do for every slide... :-/




That's true. It's very time consuming. And when the scanning is done,
there's cropping, editing, converting to JPG and finally burning to
DVDs for distribution to friends and family.




That sounds like a nightmare. NikonScan that comes with Nikon scanners
is quite straightforward and solid. It will automatically number the
scans incrementally.




I'm not exactly a fan of VueScan, to put it mildly... It's just
too buggy and unreliable. If you think Canon software is bad, just
browse the group for amateur VueScan bugs! But, trying is free. If you
do go with it find a version that (pretends to) work and stick with
it! Don't upgrade automatically but let others debug it for you first.




Yes, often times interpolation is used to mislead people into thinking
a scanner is more capable than it really is. (That's equivalent to the
so-called "digital zoom" nonsense one sees with digicams.) The thing
with scanners is that vertical and horizontal resolutions are arrived
at in different ways due to the physical process of scanning and this
goes both for flatbeds and film scanners. The actually scanning
element is an array of cells. The number of cells per inch is the
horizontal resolutions. This array then travels across the film/pic
(or they travel above/underneath the array). Either way, that's done
using a stepper motor which moves a discrete amount each time it
receives a signal. That's the vertical resolution. Those two combined
indicate the actually physical resolution of the scanner. Anything
above that is "science fiction". If you do want to interpolate that
too is better done in a dedicated editor rather than the "quick and
dirty" scanner software.




You're absolutely right. On a totally different tangent (since we're
reminiscing) that's like the way fruit and veg taste these days. I
remember, for example, that tomatoes used to be really sweet. But I
read somewhere as we get older our taste buds tend to go so I thought,
oh well, I must just be getting old.

And then I grew a pot of cherry tomatoes on my window sill just for a
lark. More for decoration than anything else.They flowered and the
fruit appeared. I popped one into my mouth and "Wow!"! Nothing wrong
with my taste buds, that's for sure!

The commercially produced fruit and veg we get these days in an
average supermarket has been bred for shelf life (low sugar content),
resistance to handling (thick skin), etc. Everything and anything
except the taste. Heck, the taste probably doesn't even enter into it
so no wonder they taste so bad!

The good old days, eh? ;-)

Hi...

Do you remember your Mother or Grandmothers pot roast, compared
to what we can get these days?

Ah well, fishing season opens here next weekend so I'm off to
the lake with the grandkids for the weekends and school summer
vacation. We will catch pickerel (walleye), and fried up for
shore lunches it WILL taste just like it always did

For topic, we will also take lots and lots of pictures, and
perhaps later in life they'll have to scan them

Ken

 

[Randy Howard]

Don wrote

Oh boy! You do have your work cut out for you!

So I am learning. I should have just sent my father a weblink
to the bhphoto page for a Nikon dedicated slide scanner and told
him my flatbed wouldn't cut it.

My scanner (LS-50) doesn't have a tray but if you turn everything off
a slide takes about a minute. A lot depends on other factors like the
computer, hard disk speed, amount of memory, etc.
Nice.

One thing though, I've seen messages from people complaining that you
still have to keep an eye on the tray because slides tend to jam.
Especially the paper mounted Kodak ones. :-(

Yes, I've seen reports of homemade modifications to the feeder
to bevel the "slide pusher" so it won't jam on thick slides.
All of my own stuff is in plastic mounts, which reportedly work
better.

One tip I saw was to stack them all up and then apply pressure to the
stack in order to flatten them somewhat. Also, rubbing the edges with
the back of your nail seems to improve things too. I know... Not
exactly something you want to do for every slide... :-/
Bleh.


That's true. It's very time consuming. And when the scanning is done,
there's cropping, editing, converting to JPG and finally burning to
DVDs for distribution to friends and family.

Thanks for reminding me.

[snipped long list of problems with Canon scan software]

That sounds like a nightmare. NikonScan that comes with Nikon scanners
is quite straightforward and solid. It will automatically number the
scans incrementally.

Yes, VueScan does this too, plus doing thumbnails automatically
as well if desired.

I'm not exactly a fan of VueScan, to put it mildly... It's just
too buggy and unreliable.

Well, I've tripped over a few things, but mostly the interface
is just haphazard. It seems to work once you figure out all the
weirdness, like menu options coming and going based upon other
ones, and in one case an option disappearing (although still
documented) after grabbing the last update off the website
(otherwise he won't answer email questions).

If you think Canon software is bad, just
browse the group for amateur VueScan bugs!

What is an amateur bug? But yes, it's not great, but it's a
huge step up from the Canon software. Plus, a nasty blue cast I
was getting on some of the slides vanishes when rescanning with
VueScan. It's looking like one of the few options available to
me at this point unless I buy yet another scanner.

And on to a totally different tangent...

And then I grew a pot of cherry tomatoes on my window sill just for a
lark. More for decoration than anything else.They flowered and the
fruit appeared. I popped one into my mouth and "Wow!"! Nothing wrong
with my taste buds, that's for sure!

The commercially produced fruit and veg we get these days in an
average supermarket has been bred for shelf life (low sugar content),
resistance to handling (thick skin), etc. Everything and anything
except the taste. Heck, the taste probably doesn't even enter into it
so no wonder they taste so bad!

Indeed. There is basically nothing in a grocery store today
(especially one in the United States) that is good for you.
"Fresh fruit and vegetables" aren't, prepackaged foods are all
coated in high fructose corn syrup so you'll buy more, and it's
all stuffed with growth hormones and other stuff you don't need.
Now, before you decide I'm a tree hugger or something, I'm the
farthest thing from from that you might imagine, but it is what
it is. Packaged food is just garbage today. If you want
something good, grow it yourself. If you want good meat,
poultry, fish, catch it/shoot it yourself.

 

[Randy Howard]

Don wrote

There's a special "Kodachrome" mode in NikonScan which improves things
quite a bit, but you will still have to do some work.

The problem is there is no one Kodachrome. It changed continuously
over time so the "Kodachrome" mode is an attempt at "one size fits
all". This works better with some vintages and not so well with
others.

Sounds like in some cases Photoshop will be the shortest path.

Also, ICE doesn't work with KCs although there are reports that top of
the line Nikons (specifically the 9000) use different IR LED and
manage to apply ICE to KCs quite well.

But even ICE on other Nikon models may work with some KC slides. The
key is how much silver is left in the image i.e. on overexposed images
ICE will work quite well because the silver has been all washed out in
development. On normally exposed to underexposed it just doesn't work.

Hmm. I had just about decided that the FARE (Canon's name for
ICE??) just didn't work well, but this sheds some light on it.
It's basically not worth turning on, and it saves time scanning.
I'm guessing what you wrote above explains why.

But that's also a case of personal preference. Most of these artifacts
are only visible at high magnification so may not really be bothersome
e.g. once the resolution is reduced and the image is converted to JPG.

True enough. Anything they want to blow up and print will have
to be hand-massaged anyway.

 

[Don]

Hi...

Hi Ken,

Do you remember your Mother or Grandmothers pot roast, compared
to what we can get these days?

I'm a vegetarian, but I know what you mean! The bottom line is, often
times it's not us "old fogies" complaining and belly-aching but things
really *were* better in the good old days. Well, at least some things!

Ah well, fishing season opens here next weekend so I'm off to
the lake with the grandkids for the weekends and school summer
vacation. We will catch pickerel (walleye), and fried up for
shore lunches it WILL taste just like it always did

As a veggie my choice is a health food store or a farmer's market and
then - you're right - things do taste the way they should!

For topic, we will also take lots and lots of pictures, and
perhaps later in life they'll have to scan them

I dunno... The kids today, eh? First they invent the fire, then the
wheel... What's the world coming to! ;o)

To get back off topic ;-) apparently in our heads (at least according
to research) we are all still about 19! I for one can sure vouch for
it and don't feel my chronological age which is more than double that.

Anyway, enjoy our great outdoors! I'm looking forward to my little
(push) bike trips:
GPS? Check! Digicam? Check! Off I go...

Don.

 

[Don]

So I am learning. I should have just sent my father a weblink
to the bhphoto page for a Nikon dedicated slide scanner and told
him my flatbed wouldn't cut it.

LOL! Very good!

Well, I've tripped over a few things, but mostly the interface
is just haphazard. It seems to work once you figure out all the
weirdness, like menu options coming and going based upon other
ones, and in one case an option disappearing (although still
documented) after grabbing the last update off the website
(otherwise he won't answer email questions).

The VueScan's alleged interface is a whole subject in its own
right (it also causes a lot of problems because the display often
doesn't correspond to actual settings, etc).

But I was referring to structural problems. The program is pretty bad
with really fundamental and elementary bugs. Many bugs also never seem
to go away but keep reappearing, etc. It just gives an impression of a
house of cards just waiting to fall over.

Nonetheless, there are some dedicated VueScan users here and if you do
decide to use it they will able to help you navigate the many bugs.

What is an amateur bug?

For example, when a program in version *8* (!) starts producing 0-byte
files or 1x1 pixel scans or a "ghost" scan with two partial images
side-by-side, etc. Real amateur stuff.

But yes, it's not great, but it's a
huge step up from the Canon software. Plus, a nasty blue cast I
was getting on some of the slides vanishes when rescanning with
VueScan.

You can do that in any scanning software by setting the gray point.

But this has nothing to do with actual scanning. The data you get from
the scanner is the same. If anything, VueScan (due to all the bugs)
often corrupts this data and then tries to mask it by doing all the
"editing". So, at first blush (a cursory glance) that may look
"better" even though in reality (after closer examination) it's
actually really much worse.

Anyway, that goes back to what I wrote earlier. Such editing is better
left for dedicated editing software and post-processing.

Still, like I say, there are some people who swear by VueScan. As well
as many others who swear at it! ;o)

It's looking like one of the few options available to
me at this point unless I buy yet another scanner.

There's also SilverFast but it's *very* pricey! It does even more
things "automatically" and does them pretty well but you also have to
buy a separate version for each scanner! :-/ I haven't really examined
it in a lot of detail because its approach (auto-everything) is quite
the opposite of what I was after. Anyway, you can also download a
trial version from http://www.silverfast.com/.

Don.

 

[Don]

Sounds like in some cases Photoshop will be the shortest path.

Yes, that would definitely be my choice.

Hmm. I had just about decided that the FARE (Canon's name for
ICE??) just didn't work well, but this sheds some light on it.
It's basically not worth turning on, and it saves time scanning.
I'm guessing what you wrote above explains why.

FARE uses a different method because there's no hardware underpinning.
In other words, ICE algorithm works based on the infrared (IR) scan.
FARE has only the actual scan to work with although (if memory serves)
it also uses a scan "at an angle" to try and figure out where the dust
and scratches are. Conceptually, I believe, it's sort of between ICE
and the Polaroid plug-in mentioned earlier. But I'll let someone else
with definitive information fill in the details.

True enough. Anything they want to blow up and print will have
to be hand-massaged anyway.

Exactly. The best is to try it out. The problem is you can't really do
that without buying the darn thing. Maybe if you can arrange to loan a
Nikon for a few days you could get a better idea. But the problem
there is scanning has a really steep learning curve and it may take a
while (months!) to really get to grips with all the ins and outs. :-(

Don.

 

[Randy Howard]

Don wrote

FARE uses a different method because there's no hardware underpinning.
In other words, ICE algorithm works based on the infrared (IR) scan.
FARE has only the actual scan to work with although (if memory serves)
it also uses a scan "at an angle" to try and figure out where the dust
and scratches are. Conceptually, I believe, it's sort of between ICE
and the Polaroid plug-in mentioned earlier. But I'll let someone else
with definitive information fill in the details.

Are you sure about that? It was my understanding that FARE
works via infrared as well. In fact, you can see it come in as
one of the passes when noise reduction is turned on and you are
using VueScan.

I found this description, which may mean that earlier versions
of FARE did not, but supposedly FARE "level 3" does, which is in
the 9950F:

"The 9950F features FARE Level 3: the ultimate in automatic film
retouching technology to restore film images to their original
pristine condition. Original transparencies are scanned with a
second infra-red light pass, which accurately and precisely
locates imperfections such as dust and scratches on the film
surface. Advanced image processing builds up a map of these
image imperfections, which is then used by intelligent software
to correct the scanned image. The results are compelling and
save hours of manual retouching. FARE Level 3 also reverses the
effects of film aging by resaturating faded colours in old
photographs, and a grain correction function limits the grain
effect in fast (high ASA) film. A Backlight Correction function
adjusts the gamma only of the discrete areas of an image that
are heavily backlit, thereby increasing brightness where
necessary without washing out the entire image"

Exactly. The best is to try it out. The problem is you can't really do
that without buying the darn thing. Maybe if you can arrange to loan a
Nikon for a few days you could get a better idea. But the problem
there is scanning has a really steep learning curve and it may take a
while (months!) to really get to grips with all the ins and outs. :-(

Nothing is ever cheap in this business.

 

[Randy Howard]

Don wrote

LOL! Very good!

I was mostly joking, because I don't think he has the patience
to do them all. Perhaps that really means he wouldn't be stupid
enough to spend this much time like I am.

The VueScan's alleged interface is a whole subject in its own
right (it also causes a lot of problems because the display often
doesn't correspond to actual settings, etc).

But I was referring to structural problems. The program is pretty bad
with really fundamental and elementary bugs. Many bugs also never seem
to go away but keep reappearing, etc. It just gives an impression of a
house of cards just waiting to fall over.

Perhaps so, but I don't have a lot of options at this point.
Factoring in all of those issues, it's still better than the
Canon slopware. Suffice it to say I won't be buying any
products dependent upon Canon software in the future.

Nonetheless, there are some dedicated VueScan users here and if you do
decide to use it they will able to help you navigate the many bugs.

The claim of great support someone mentioned earlier isn't so
true. I sent in a simple question and got zero response from
the developer. But again, it's better than what I have now...

You can do that in any scanning software by setting the gray point.

Yes, but what I'm talking about it just the default settings on
a supposedly 'raw' scan. Plus, the preview image looks normal
with the Canon software, but 15-20 minutes later, you get a tiff
file with a nasty blue color cast that wasn't there in the
preview. Don't have that problem with vuescan.

But this has nothing to do with actual scanning. The data you get from
the scanner is the same.

That's just it. I don't see that happening. ScanGear is doing
something (funny) to the data on only some of the scans. Others
come out ok.

If anything, VueScan (due to all the bugs)
often corrupts this data and then tries to mask it by doing all the
"editing". So, at first blush (a cursory glance) that may look
"better" even though in reality (after closer examination) it's
actually really much worse.

I haven't had that happen yet, but I haven't exactly beaten it
to death yet either.

Anyway, that goes back to what I wrote earlier. Such editing is better
left for dedicated editing software and post-processing.

Fair enough.

Still, like I say, there are some people who swear by VueScan. As well
as many others who swear at it! ;o)

I know the feeling.

There's also SilverFast but it's *very* pricey! It does even more
things "automatically" and does them pretty well but you also have to
buy a separate version for each scanner! :-/ I haven't really examined
it in a lot of detail because its approach (auto-everything) is quite
the opposite of what I was after. Anyway, you can also download a
trial version from http://www.silverfast.com/.

According to their site, they don't support FARE on my scanner,
but that may not be a big deal. Anyway, it's downloading the
demo version now... thanks for the link.

 

[Roger]

Scott W wrote
(in article
<[email protected]>):

A few additional comments to supplement an earlier post.

These slides have apparently been handled a lot, a LOT of
problems with the slides as far as artifacts. Some was dust,
but it's more like the image have been scratched (but not long
scratches in most cases, almost like pinpricks) and you get a
lot of crap on some of these images. Perhaps it's just age
getting to them. I think they actually stored them in a closet
full of mothballs, you get a strong smell of that opening up
some of these boxes, which probably isn't good either.

This kind of damage is quite common for old slides and particularly
those that were handled a lot. Some physical cleaning can be done, but
it is tricky and I'll leave the methods to the instructions that come
with the cleaners and those who have spent more time at it than I.

Scratch removal done in post processing can be very tedious.
I had many boxes of slides come back from Kodak that had tiny spots on
them. The spots were either embedded in or part of the emulsion which
eliminated the possibility of cleaning them and IR cleaning did not
work. These were shots of a once-in-a-lifetime air show and each one
had to be retouched spot by spot.

The other thing is they're in those paper Kodak mounts, which
gives you badly rounded off corners, unlike the square, 90 deg
angle plastic mounts I use for slide work.

Rounded off corners are not nearly the problem as are the "belled"
edges, both the outside and the opening for the slide. As I mentioned
in http://www.rogerhalstead.com/scanning.htm I use the handle of a
kitchen knife (flat ware), or even the back of a thumbnail to smooth
these edges and that fixes a high percentage of them.

What ever works for the individual and equipment.
With the LS5000 ED and slide feeder there is little difference in
scanning time between full and reduced resolution as it's fast any
way.

I started on some of these right after I posted, and that's what
I've been doing, but based on the results I'm getting so far,
many of these aren't going to be worth scanning at full res. I
have boxes and boxes to sort through, of varying quality.

My project has run on for over 30,000 slides and negatives and beyond
two years now. OTOH I don't spend an hour or two every day working on
it either. I have not even approached the boxes and boxes old B&W
prints, but I'd guess there may be as many as several hundred pounds
of the things..

Makes sense.

Again, this depends on the equipment and individual.

The vast majority of the slides I scanned were shot with an Argus C-3
and are surprisingly sharp. Some later stuff was shot with an H2
Pentax and then all after that was done with a series of Nikons from
an F2 Photomic, F3, 8008S, and F4S. The last two are still on the
shelf as is the old Pentax (which still works)

Nearly all the negatives come from the Nikons.

Isn't that the truth?

Now if my dSLRs just had all the features of my F4S and the data back.
That thing could even be set to fire the shutter when an object passed
through the field of view at the focus point.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com