You've got some great photos posted at Photo.net! Excellent composition and
colors.
PS6 or PSE? - it depends, really, on your budget and whether you an amateur or
professional. If professional I would spring for PS6. If amateur and you
can't/don't want to spend $600 consider Corel PhotoPaint 9 (bundled with the
CorelDRAW Suite and available for under $50). For image adjustment you would
do well to work not only in RGB (which is all PSE will handle) but also in CMYK
(read Dan Margulis's Professional Photoshop, any version) and in LAB color
spaces. PhotoPaint and PS6 will do this whereas PhotoDeluxe and Corel Photo
House will not, nor will PSE. And your best adjustment method is using curves,
which once again only PS6 and PhotoPaint have available.
Get an Epson - I had an hp PhotoSmart but pictures were grainy even at highest
resolution. I have the Epson C80 now with individual color ink cartridges,
pigment ink.
Generally, save as a TIFF - I don't know that it's any smaller than a BMP, but
when you start making adjustments with layers and alpha channels you can save
those in TIFF though not in BMP.
Get Vuescan - some on this list prefer it, some Nikon users prefer Nikonscan,
some prefer Silverfast - but none to my knowledge have denied Vuescan's
quality. I prefer Vuescan myself.
Save your original scanned TIFF for the future - as you get better you will
find you will adjust it better for improved output, so save it. Make your
adjustments on the original TIFF, but resample to web size before final
sharpening but before conversion to compressed JPEG.
You won't have to learn about color management unless and until you start using
software that utilizes color management such as PS6 or PhotoPaint - some
references on color management are:
<>
<>
<>
<>
(see especially the Essay Configuring Photoshop 6 & Colour Management)
<>
<>
Gamma is essentially a curve necessary to coordinate a CRT monitor's input
power to output levels - it's not linear. You can find Charles Poynton's Gamma
FAQs (and Color FAQs) at
Ask all the questions you like - we're here to learn ourselves and to help when
we can.
Maris Lidaka Sr
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ken Durling" <kdurling@earthlink.net>
To: <filmscanners@halftone.co.uk>
Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2001 11:59 PM
Subject: filmscanners: Hello
| Greetings -
|
| Can you handle another newbie? (I heard that groan) ;-)
|
| OK, not entirely new to scanning, but just got my first film scanner -
| a Canon FS2710 that I got 2nd hand. Seems to be working fine.
|
| it's making me realize that I need to get into a whole other level of
| control and understanding of what I'm doing. Prior to this all my
| work - about 4 years of it - has been on a HP 5200C flatbed, with the
| bundled PhotoDeluxe and occasionally Corel Photo House. I've gotten
| pretty good at the basics. I've tried out Photoshop Elements and
| like it, but at this point am wavering as to whether I should get the
| whole PS6 package or if PSE would do it. IAny advice appreciated. I
| know you need to know more about what I want to be able to do.
|
| At this point I mainly am striving to just get the absolute best
| quality photo and then reproduction thereof that I can, given my
| budget, which is why I'm limited to 2720 dpi. Probably it will be
| fine for my purposes, which is mostly web-based right now, but
| eventually I'd like to make my own prints, up to 8x10, with a very
| occasional larger one. Don't have a photo printer right now, just an
| HP Color Inkjet, but will probably eventually get an Epson 1280 or a
| smaller one.
|
| Right now I think most of my questions concern procedure with these
| large scans, which are new to me. I'd appreciate any tips no how to
| minimize loss when compressing to a jpeg. For example, Is there any
| substantial difference as to whether I save the original scan as a
| .TIFF or a .BMP? These seem to be the main options offered by the
| Canon software. I do have a trial copy of Vuescan, which I'm *very*
| impressed by so far, and will be going over to a full version of that
| probably, unless I'm convinced otherwise here! Vuescan seems to be
| able to handle different films much better.
|
| Another question when working with large files like this is at what
| point do you do most of your image adjustment? Do you do all your
| color balancing, sizing, and similar image property work on the .TIFF
| and then compress and run sharpen on the jpeg?
|
| So I have a lot to learn about color control, and have basically zero
| experience with color management. But I'm not doing a lot of printing
| just yet, so that's probably not my first concern. To start with I'd
| appreciate a good explanation of "gamma."
|
| Anyway, enough for now! Needless to say, some or all of the above may
| be able to be answered by links and FAQ's, please feel free to refer
| me to the requisite sources, I'm a good reader!
|
| If you want to critique what I've been doing thus far, I have a
| portfolio at photo.net:
|
|
|
| And a primitive template-based website. URL is in my sig.
|
| Thanks very much. I promise to try not to ask the 14,000 most asked
| newbie questions.
|
|
| Ken Durling
|
| Website
|
| Alternate e-mail: kdurling2001@yahoo.com
|
