Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/11/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Dave, <Truth is scanning has a substantial learning curve. It's like any other aspect of photography. Takes practice> I agree with your sentiment. I had no idea how much more difficult film seems to be compared with scanning B&W prints, although some of the problems that I had seemed to be down to software. I replaced an el-cheapo Primax scanner with a Canon D2400UF flat-bed. Getting good scans from prints was easy. However, film scans were all very soft, irrespective of format or whether they were mounted. I think the problem was due to some sort of clash between the primax and canon TWAIN drivers - I did uninstall the Primax from the system (Windows 98) but it still appeared in the <file><import> menu. Since the PC was in a bit of a state anyway, I decided to bite the bullet. I reformatted the hard disk and rebuilt the OS, taking the opportunity to install all of the latest updates for 98 at the same time (good job I have a broadband link otherwise I would be downloading until doomsday). To do this and reinstall data and applications took about eleven hours. I now have an image backup of the system on CD-ROM, so if the disk or OS goes pear-shaped again I can rebuild in a couple of hours. You live and learn... Now everything is fine. MF film scans are nice and crisp, 35mm scans from film strips are pretty good and scans from mounted slides vary between OK and soft, depending on the slide mount. I've been advised by expert scanners like Nathan that I am at the limit of what can be achieved with a flat-bed. So Father Christmas has bought me a shiny new Minolta Dimage III 35mm film scanner. However,she won't let me use it until at least 26/12/02 :-( Only 50 days to go, not that I'm counting! < I'm having a large print made today. For trannie shooters digital sure makes it easy to make prints. Locally there are half dozen labs that can print a scanned image on Fuji Crystal Archive paper. It's relatively inexpensive. > As it happens, I have scanned a couple of MF trannies for printing. My local store has a gizmo that links to Kodak via an ISDN link. You download the files and they print them out on colour photo paper. Finally, nice shot - I like the perspective. Whereabouts in France was this http://www.lightcurves.com/gallery1/image3.htm. taken? Regards Mark Pope Swindon Wilts, UK http://www.monomagic.co.uk http://www.leica-gallery.net/mark-pope - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html