[LargeFormat] RE: Scanners/equipment--responses to two questions.

[Tony Galt]

   Frantisek Vlcek remarks:

   >I find that strange - in my experience the USM of SilverFast (done
   >only to Luminance channel of the image) is the best algorithm,
   >better than Photoshop's, and it offers much more fine control...
   >Are you using some sort of automatic USM, whose parameters get
   >decided by the software, not you? I use USM parameters set by me in
   >SilverFast, and it produces excellent results.

The version that comes bundled with the scanner is Silverfast SE--a "light"
version that provides a five step scale of auto-sharpening. The usual
adjustments for unsharp masking are not there. I use Picture Window--an
under-appreciated photo manipulation program designed by and for
photographers--that offers much finer control (like PhotoShop). I've never
used the full version of Silverfast and I'm tempted to buy it because the
"light" version with the scanner will not feed a 48 bit image to Picture
Window (the Epson Twain driver will, on the other hand, but its control
software is even more primitive). I've had some luck sharpening only the
luminence channel using Picture Window (but doing so is a many-step process)
and now that you mention that Silverfast does this automatically that
program seems even more attractive.


Brock Nanson asks:

>Have you tried 35mm on this unit?  If so how does it compare to what you
>were using up til now - and what was that?  I've looked at the specs on
>this scanner and some reviews that are all complementary.  But I would
>need to do 35mm as well.  I've got a Photosmart film scanner that is
>really (REALLY) bad in the shadows - don't want to make the same mistake
>twice!

I too have been using an HP Photosmart S20 and I agree that with 35 mm
transparency film shadow detail is very noisy. It was noisy enough that I
simply went over to shooting color negative film exclusively. I think the
S20 does very will with color negative material, however, and I've learned
to appreciate to latitude, fine grain and high speed of those films. The
Epson will scan 35 mm material, but I find that it is a bit like using a
diffusion instead of a condenser enlarger on small negatives. (The scanner's
light source is very diffused.) I am not able to produce the sharpness that
I can get from the HP with color negatives. Since 6x6 and 4x5 negs are so
much bigger this doesn't seem to be an issue and I get very sharp prints.
And (I'm not sure why) the larger negatives seem to be tolerant of higher
degrees of sharpening than 35 mm scanned on this scanner. On the other hand,
shadow detail with 35 mm transparencies is much better unless you
oversharpen. I think I'll continue to shoot color negative films in 35 mm
and use the HP, and use the Epson for medium and large format, and for the
occasional 35 mm slide that I don't intend to print very large, or that I
want to use on the web. In short, I disagree with some of the reviews I've
seen--I don't think this scanner is an all-around machine. It is still
possible, however, to acquire it and a pretty good 35 mm scanner for less
than the price of a high end 35 mm scanner, or certainly, than a
medium/large format scanner made by anyone else.

Tony Galt