Epson V700 questions

zenza · May 1, 2010

Hello all, I just stepped up from a Canoscan 8400f and bought an Epson V700, this post might be a little jam packed with a ton of questions so please bear with it!

1. Today was the first day I started scanning and I was doing great with my slide film. When it came to scanning the black and white film all the scans came out with very little contrast and almost as if they were shot on colour and then "grayscaled." Can anyone help me out with this? I have scanned the same shot with my Canoscan previously and compaired the two. Even after multiple tweaks and edits I still couldn't get the Epson scan to look anywhere close to the Canoscan one.

2. I'd like to do some printing with my Epson scans and at the most I'll be printing up to 13x13(shooting on MF 6x6), should I be scanning at 6400dpi or am I safe scanning at a lower DPI?

3. Can anyone tell me the benefits of using the SilverFast SE software over the Epson scan software?

4. Any tips or helpful suggestions for custom settings on the V700? I primarily scan slides or black and white 6x6 film. Right now I have all the settings like USM and colour correction turned off. Do any of you suggest using Digital Ice? I'm not familiar with how it works but I'm a little afraid it might take away detail from the film.

Thanks for all the tips...I apologize if any of this had been asked before. I posted some questions about scanning on APUG and got flamed/directed to here, ha!

pschwart · May 2, 2010

zenza said:
Hello all, I just stepped up from a Canoscan 8400f and bought an Epson V700, this post might be a little jam packed with a ton of questions so please bear with it!

1. Today was the first day I started scanning and I was doing great with my slide film. When it came to scanning the black and white film all the scans came out with very little contrast and almost as if they were shot on colour and then "grayscaled." Can anyone help me out with this? I have scanned the same shot with my Canoscan previously and compaired the two. Even after multiple tweaks and edits I still couldn't get the Epson scan to look anywhere close to the Canoscan one.

2. I'd like to do some printing with my Epson scans and at the most I'll be printing up to 13x13(shooting on MF 6x6), should I be scanning at 6400dpi or am I safe scanning at a lower DPI?

3. Can anyone tell me the benefits of using the SilverFast SE software over the Epson scan software?

4. Any tips or helpful suggestions for custom settings on the V700? I primarily scan slides or black and white 6x6 film. Right now I have all the settings like USM and colour correction turned off. Do any of you suggest using Digital Ice? I'm not familiar with how it works but I'm a little afraid it might take away detail from the film.

Thanks for all the tips...I apologize if any of this had been asked before. I posted some questions about scanning on APUG and got flamed/directed to here, ha!

1. Did you use the histogram tool to set the black and white points?
Did you use create a curve to adjust the tones/contyrast (called gradation
tool in SilverFast, tone correction in EpsonScan)?
EpsonScan is actually a little easier to use as it provides some canned
curves in a dropdown list.

2. Scanning at 6400 dpi will use the high res lens in the Epson, but the
scanner is only capable of resolving something like 2400 anyway, so you
will generate a hugh file for not much return. Using a BetterScanning film
holder and lower resolutions yields fine results for me. Bottom line: try
scanning 6x6 film at both 6400 and lower resolutions and see for yourself!

3. SilverFast SE and EpsonScan seem pretty equivalent to me; you may get
more functionality in the full SilverFast product. I mostly use Vuescan
with my V700 and it does a good job.

4. Digital ICE only works with color negs or slides. And Epson does say:
"Images scanned with Digital ICE may appear softer than your original
image."

TareqPhoto · May 2, 2010

Welcome to the forum!

I use Epson Scan more or over SilverFast and i like it more, i have VueScan and i use it as well sometimes.

1. I scanned my friend B&W rolls [i think mostly 35mm format] and got nice results, maybe some are not so contrasty but i fixed this with some adjusting, i will try with my B&W later when i will develop some.

2. I scanned with 1600dpi up to 6400dpi, didn't see much difference except that 6400 is larger file, no more details i saw anyway, so if i will print some large up to 16x24 i will scan either at 2400dpi or 3200dpi.

3. As i said above, I prefer Epson Scan over SilverFast because the interface of Epson Scan on "Professional" mode is way better than SilverFast or even Vuescan, but as it was said, all software should give equivalent results with certain adjustments or tweaking, and i posted a thread here asking about that and got answers and i am still learning to do that and see.

4. I love digital ICE option, but i found that it will soften the scan, but it is up to you, do you want a soft scan but clean from dust or scratch maybe or a scan full of dust/hair, scratch.... but sharper?

I asked about scanning on APUG before as well, and they transfered me to here They don't want to go digital path, all pure analog and film even in printing.

Welcome again!

zenza · May 2, 2010

Thanks to both of you. Is there any way to rotate the thumbnails so the images aren't scanned in wrong?

Doug Fisher · May 2, 2010

In regard to #1, make sure that digital ICE is not turned on if you are using traditional B/W film.

Doug

TareqPhoto · May 2, 2010

zenza said:
Thanks to both of you. Is there any way to rotate the thumbnails so the images aren't scanned in wrong?

In Epson Scan if you choose the Thumbnail option when using Film Holder option as well then when select one photo in preview there are two buttons in the left side of the preview image, one for rotating and the other for flipping, i think there is same thing in SilverFast and VueScan.

pellicle · May 2, 2010

Hi

zenza said:
4. Any tips or helpful suggestions for custom settings on the V700?

generally good starting points for the Epson scan software are what I put on my blog.

start here: http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2009/10/quick-negative-scan-tutorial.html

and follow up some of the links. Its mainly biased for Negative, so with slides don't adjust R G and B individually (as one would with colour neg)

Epson V700 questions

zenza

pschwart

TareqPhoto

zenza

Doug Fisher

TareqPhoto

pellicle

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