Re: filmscanners: Another Mission Completed

[Hersch Nitikman <hersch@silcom.com>]

I have a scanner with Digital Ice, and no longer use the NikonScan 
software. Ever since version 7.0 came along, VueScan does as good a job of 
dust and debris removal as DI. It tends to be flaky on occasion, probably 
due to file corruption (not unique to VueScan) but overall it does quite 
well, and if you haven't tried it, and learned its idiosyncracies, you 
should be fine, at least in that area. Also, the 'Heavy' clean mode does 
try, with some success to remove sky grain. And, for an archiving mission, 
the ROC mode does help with restoring original colors on faded originals.
Hersch
At 12:54 PM 05/11/2001 +0100, you wrote:
>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