Re: filmscanners: FW: New PolaColor Insight Color Slide profile for Sprintscan 4000 & 4000+

[Wire Moore <wirem@home.com>]

David, 

Thanks for contributing to the list.

I have certainly noticed the green haze and am pleased--as I'm sure other
users will be--to see the profile adjustments. However, the Color Slide2
profile is not an overall improvement, in my opinion. If you can give back
the shadow color, the profile may be an overall improvement.

I should comment that the shadow performance of the SS4000, even with the
green haze, significantly exceeds the LS-2000 I've been using, and looks
better (less noisy) than what I've seen (anecdotal) of the Nikon 4000 ED
too. The SS4000 controls grain in Extachrome and Provia chromes very well,
IMO also significantly exceeding the LS-2000 and what I've seen of the 4000
ED--notwithstanding GEM which appears to exact an enormous performance
penalty. Flare (blooming) is also better controlled in the SS4000.

I'm very pleased with the imaging performance of the SS4000. If the SS4000+
is in fact an improvement, it should be super.

CAVEAT NOTE TO READERS:
The advantage of the SS4000 over the LS-2000 is not like night-and-day.
Shadow performance and noise have been a limit for me with the LS-2000, so
any improvement is desirable.

Don't go rushing off to replace a Nikon scanner based on my comments. YMMV.
My opinion is that Nikon scanners are in general of very high quality. A
LS-2000 has served me faithfully (notwithstanding a glitch or two) for
years. The low price of the discontinued SS4000 lead me to shop Polaroid
where otherwise I would have bought another Nikon. I've discovered that
Polaroid has a good product.

BTW--Comments by Bruce Fraser about the performance of the SS4000 and the
scanner comparisons on Tony Sleep's web site, especially in comparison to
the Aztek/Howtek reference scan, were also important factors in my purchase
decision.

Wire

on 10/4/01 1:35 PM, Hemingway, David J at HEMINGD@POLAROID.COM wrote:

> Wire
> The purpose of the new profile is that it should be more robust and give
> cleaner (less noise) results when you have a very dark image and you are
> trying to pull detail out of the shadows.  The previous profile accentuated
> noise in the shadow regions.  This showed up as a greenish haze.  The new
> profile produces cleaner shadow detail without that artifact.  When scanning
> properly exposed slides the results should be the similar but not
> necessarily exactly the same as the old profile.