re: filmscanners: Kodak Color Input Targets

[Alan Womack <arwbackup@worldnet.att.net>]

A few things to think about in the project of scans.

What is your goal?  Color accuracy of the current state of the slide or good 
looking scans that may not reflect the original scene.

The main disadvantage with the ScanWit is the exposure is fixed, vuescan does 
not very the capture time at the CCD since the firmware does not allow this.  
On slides it's mostly a moot point unless they are underexposed.  On negatives 
it makes it harder to remove the orange mask.

Ed had noted the Scanwits are not necessarily the most linear of film 
scanners...

You will have to buy a profiling package such as monaco ezcolor or wiziwig to 
be able to make profiles from those Q60 slides and then convert the images one 
at a time in photoshop (could use a batch action)

Also Kodachrome is a denser slide generally, which can drop shadows too low for 
many scanners to distinguish properly.

ICE would be nice for getting rid of scratches dust, which gets you into higher 
prices and the scanwit 2740s.

You might pick out a few of the more difficult images and see if you can beg a 
few sample scans from different scanners to see what differences you might get, 
although operators make a HUGE difference..:)

alan

 >>  I have a Scanwit 2720s, with which I am well pleased. It's
 >>  much the best budget scanner, by all accounts.

 >>  However, even with Ed Hamrick's Vuescan (a nearly essential
 >>  $40 accessory for most scanners) you can exert only limited
 >>  control over its initial output. You'll get its own
 >>  automatic exposure setting whatever you do. You can save the
 >>  'raw' scanner data, and play with it afterwards, but there's
 >>  little or nothing you can do to control the content of that
 >>  raw file. You can't expose for the shadows specifically, or
 >>  the highlights, for example. Vuescan allows you to extract
 >>  the best from the raw data, once you've got it.

 >>  So if you're into subtleties like accurate calibration, you
 >>  may need to spend more money than you would on the Scanwit,
 >>  to get more control over the scanner.