[filmscanners] Re: SS 120 questions for current users

["Dave King" <kingphoto@mindspring.com>]

I hope the store has their monitor calibrated so you can judge the accuracy
of the scan's colors.  If you buy the SS120 you may find yourself using
Insight for chromes and Silverfast or Vuescan for negs.  Vuescan can easily
be set up to bring in conservative end points for later editing in
Photoshop, and the film terms for color negs are among the best I've seen.
For critical work I wouldn't be happy using a scan driver that always
clipped the end points at some preset value.

Dave

----- Original Message -----
From: "Simon Lamb" <simon@sclamb.com>
To: <kingphoto@mindspring.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 3:35 PM
Subject: [filmscanners] Re: SS 120 questions for current users


Interesting.  I will try again tomorrow and use their copy of Insight.  I
also found that when I scanned a Delta 100 6X6 neg. the histogram showed
everything moved towards the black end.  There was a loss of detail and the
histogram ended sharply at the black end as it everything had been pushed
against a wall.

I think I need more practice with the SS120 but it is difficult at the
dealer.  I think I will ask if I can rent it out for a weekend.

Thanks for your reply.

Simon

On 11/4/02 8:03 pm, "Dave King" <kingphoto@mindspring.com> wrote:

> My guess is Insight 5.5 would be better based on the result of your
current
> test, but my experience with Silverfast is limited to a few quick tests.
My
> impression is Silverfast can be quite accurate if you go to the trouble of
> making a custom profile for it with an IT-8 target.  But I do find Insight
> 5.5 gets the colors of the chrome right on the nose with both the SS4000
and
> SS120.  The end points come in on the conservative side, which I prefer,
and
> a simple tone curve to set end points and lift gamma a bit gets the scan
> dialed in from there.  I do the tone correction first, then convert the
file
> to 8 bit RGB.  I set Insight up so that "monitor space" and "output
profile"
> (or whatever they call it) are Adobe RGB 98 (my working space), and then
the
> scan preview matches the Photoshop view very accurately, so basic prescan
> color and tone correction in Insight is possible.  For some reason
however,
> when a working space is used with Insight the curves feature is turned
off,
> so the prescan corrections have to be kept pretty basic, but they would
> still be useful for production work.
>
> Dave
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Simon Lamb" <simon@sclamb.com>
> To: <kingphoto@mindspring.com>
> Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 1:24 PM
> Subject: [filmscanners] Re: SS 120 questions for current users
>
>
> I was using the Photoshop plug of Silverfast Ai 5.  Would Insight be
better?
> I could not of course test out Vuescan which I use with my LS30.
>
> Simon
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Dave King" <kingphoto@mindspring.com>
> To: <simon@sclamb.com>
> Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 6:05 PM
> Subject: [filmscanners] Re: SS 120 questions for current users
>
>
>> The short answer is you will have to some basic tweaking in Photoshop if
> you
>> use Insight 5.5 with the most recent transparency profile.  It comes in
> with
>> accurate color, but a little flat.  Many chromes you don't want an exact
>> color reproduction anyway, considering film's color distortions of lens
>> output.  Hey it's film you're looking at, not lens output:)  But in my
>> experience the colors are true to the chrome at Insight's no adjustment
>> settings, and I would think you could save a standard tone curve for
>> production work.
>>
>> Color negs are an entirely different story.  Insight hypes colors, and
>> crossovers abound.  Vuescan is considerably better, but I find I often
> still
>> have to work with relatively minor crossovers quite a bit in Photoshop to
>> get a great final.  But since it doesn't start out hyped it's at least
>> possible to get there.  The little bit I've worked with Insight for negs
> my
>> impression was "impossible".  For production work with color negs you'd
be
>> better off with Nikonscan or the Imacon software.  (Haven't used the
> Imacon
>> software, going by what I've heard.)
>>
>> My .02
>>
>> Dave
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Simon Lamb" <simon@sclamb.com>
>> To: <kingphoto@mindspring.com>
>> Sent: Thursday, April 11, 2002 12:11 PM
>> Subject: [filmscanners] SS 120 questions for current users
>>
>>
>> I just spent three hours with an SS 120 and the Imacon Photo.  The only
>> major difference that I found was in the colour fidelity when scanning
>> slides, in this case Kodak E100VS 6X6 slides.  Whereas the Imacon
>> representation of the slide was spot on in colour reproduction, the SS
120
>> was more washed out and the saturation had been lost.
>>
>> Other than that it seemed to be an excellent unit, not as good as the
> Imacon
>> in the final scans (the Imacon seemed to show more detail and smoother
>> transitions even though it was working at 3200dpi and not 4000dpi.
>>
>> Have any of you current SS 120 users notices colours not being reproduced
>> correctly and have you managed to fix this easily using the scanner
>> software?  Or am I going to need to do a lot of colour manipulation in
>> Photoshop?
>>
>> Sorry to keep asking questions but I want to make sure I spend my money
on
>> the right scanner as it is a lot of money.


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