Finding focus - Epson V550 + Silverfast 9

[grat]

There are a lot of "depends" going on here-- If you're doing digital printing, or heavy image manipulation, it might be necessary, but generally speaking, 24 bit should be enough to avoid banding. I certainly haven't run into it even when I was using the "basic" version of Silverfast.

 

[Adrian Bacon]

There are a lot of "depends" going on here-- If you're doing digital printing, or heavy image manipulation, it might be necessary, but generally speaking, 24 bit should be enough to avoid banding. I certainly haven't run into it even when I was using the "basic" version of Silverfast.

again, I’m not familiar with the software, but if it’s high bit depth all the way up to the point of saving, then you’re very unlikely to see any banding or posterization. I suspect that might be the case since you say you’ve never seen any banding. If it’s 8 bits through and through, you will see banding, especially if scanning negative film. 8 bits per color channel isn’t enough discrete tone values to avoid it. Your highlights will look chunky and noisy.

 

[grat]

I believe all versions scan at 48, and down-sample to 24. But I still maintain banding is the result of poor dithering.

 

[shutterfinger]

I believe all versions scan at 48, and down-sample to 24.

Silverfast SE and SE+ scan at 16 bits per channel and save at 8 bits per channel. Silverfast AI Studio scans and saves at 16 bits per channel. Epson scan scans and saves at 16 bits per channel.
All have the selection option to scan and save at 8 bits per channel.

 

[grat]

To pick a nit, SE+ can scan color at 48 -> 24 bit, 48 bit, or 48 bit HDR.

 

[shutterfinger]

To pick a nit,

Nit pick away!
I only own a V500, V700, both with Epsonscan and Silverfast SE and I have Vuescan Pro. Silverfast web site does not go into detail about the differences between SE and SE+, just the fluff to sell.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

again, I’m not familiar with the software, but if it’s high bit depth all the way up to the point of saving, then you’re very unlikely to see any banding or posterization. I suspect that might be the case since you say you’ve never seen any banding. If it’s 8 bits through and through, you will see banding, especially if scanning negative film. 8 bits per color channel isn’t enough discrete tone values to avoid it. Your highlights will look chunky and noisy.

I've always scanned color negative and chromes at 48 bits. I do it because people like you recommend it. I believe that there's more chance of banding when scanning let's say 35mm film than 120 or even large format film like 4x5 or 8x10. Is that true?

 

[Adrian Bacon]

I've always scanned color negative and chromes at 48 bits. I do it because people like you recommend it. I believe that there's more chance of banding when scanning let's say 35mm film than 120 or even large format film like 4x5 or 8x10. Is that true?

No. Format size doesn’t really make a difference. You can pick up more discrete tone values if you resize the scanned image to a smaller size (downscaling it), but only if you first convert it to 48 bit color, then scale it down, then convert it back to 24 bit color.

in the end, if you’re not going to do any color manipulation, you can scan it at 48 bit color, then save it as 24 bit color. The only real limitation at that point is your color space, which would be sRGB or Adobe RGB if saving 24 bit color. If you want to use a larger color space like ProPhoto, I strongly recommend staying in 48 bit color.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

No. Format size doesn’t really make a difference. You can pick up more discrete tone values if you resize the scanned image to a smaller size (downscaling it), but only if you first convert it to 48 bit color, then scale it down, then convert it back to 24 bit color.

in the end, if you’re not going to do any color manipulation, you can scan it at 48 bit color, then save it as 24 bit color. The only real limitation at that point is your color space, which would be sRGB or Adobe RGB if saving 24 bit color. If you want to use a larger color space like ProPhoto, I strongly recommend staying in 48 bit color.

So I scan at 48 bit and then save through Lightroom I believe at 48 bit as well (for color chromes and negatives.) If I post on the web, then I save as sRGB in a reduced resolution. What happens to the resultant file then?

If I intend to use as part of a video slide show using Adobe Premiere Elements video editing program, I save as sRGB at an 4K resolution. What happens to the resultant file then?

 

[Adrian Bacon]

So I scan at 48 bit and then save through Lightroom I believe at 48 bit as well (for color chromes and negatives.) If I post on the web, then I save as sRGB in a reduced resolution. What happens to the resultant file then?

If I intend to use as part of a video slide show using Adobe Premiere Elements video editing program, I save as sRGB at an 4K resolution. What happens to the resultant file then?

sRGB is a relatively small color space, so if you save as sRGB, it will get converted to the smaller color space. Any colors that are outside of the sRGB gamut will be changed. How they change will depend on the rendering intent you have set for the color space conversion. Going from 48 bit to 24 bit isn't so much of a big deal as the gamma of sRGB is ~2.4, which lets you encode about 12 stops of dynamic range into the 8 bits worth of tone values. Your whites will be really white, and your blacks will be pretty black, assuming you have a display that can actually display 12+ stops of dynamic range.

In video land, the color space is rec.709, which is the same size and has the same primaries as sRGB, so it'll be the same as sRGB in terms of how the colors look. The gamma for rec.709 video isn't the same as sRGB, but they both are about 12 stops of dynamic range.

All that said, sRGB has been the display standard for a really long time, and rec.709 will be for quite a while as well. That's all most of us have been seeing for quite a while and we don't know any better. If you have a monitor that can actually display AdobeRGB or ProPhoto and you do color work, you'll discover pretty quickly just how small and how few colors sRGB actually displays relative to much larger color spaces. The difference is actually being able to display and see those colors, but if you've never seen a display that does, you don't know any better. There's nothing wrong with that though. People have been looking at sRGB for the last 15-20 years and very few if any people have been making much noise over the size of the color space.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

sRGB is a relatively small color space, so if you save as sRGB, it will get converted to the smaller color space. Any colors that are outside of the sRGB gamut will be changed. How they change will depend on the rendering intent you have set for the color space conversion. Going from 48 bit to 24 bit isn't so much of a big deal as the gamma of sRGB is ~2.4, which lets you encode about 12 stops of dynamic range into the 8 bits worth of tone values. Your whites will be really white, and your blacks will be pretty black, assuming you have a display that can actually display 12+ stops of dynamic range.

In video land, the color space is rec.709, which is the same size and has the same primaries as sRGB, so it'll be the same as sRGB in terms of how the colors look. The gamma for rec.709 video isn't the same as sRGB, but they both are about 12 stops of dynamic range.

All that said, sRGB has been the display standard for a really long time, and rec.709 will be for quite a while as well. That's all most of us have been seeing for quite a while and we don't know any better. If you have a monitor that can actually display AdobeRGB or ProPhoto and you do color work, you'll discover pretty quickly just how small and how few colors sRGB actually displays relative to much larger color spaces. The difference is actually being able to display and see those colors, but if you've never seen a display that does, you don't know any better. There's nothing wrong with that though. People have been looking at sRGB for the last 15-20 years and very few if any people have been making much noise over the size of the color space.

Wouldn't I be better off working completely in sRGB if the end result is sRGB to the web? If I shoot digital or process and scan film in let's say Adobe RGB or ProPhoto, won't the colors switch to something unknown when I make the final sRGB file?

 

[Adrian Bacon]

Wouldn't I be better off working completely in sRGB if the end result is sRGB to the web? If I shoot digital or process and scan film in let's say Adobe RGB or ProPhoto, won't the colors switch to something unknown when I make the final sRGB file?

no. sRGB Monitors are not the only output. You can control how the colors change with rendering intent, and you can change the colors to get to what you want before hand. This is what soft proofing tools are for, and why monitors and printers have ICC profiles. They’re there so that you can do a “test run” to see what converting to a different color space will do to the colors, and let you manipulate the colors to get to a desirable output in the cases where the rendering intent does something wonky. This is why it pays to have a monitor that can actually display much more than sRGB if you work in color, and why monitors that can do so exist.

you also don’t want to just go straight to sRGB and stay there for the exact same reason. All scanners and input devices also have an input profile to get you into a color managed environment, and they’re all waaaaay bigger than sRGB. Often times they can see way outside of even the CIE horseshoe. If you just convert straight to sRGB upon input you’re effectively giving up a bunch of precision and control with regards to colors that fall outside of sRGB. Modern color managed environments are pretty well behaved and generally are pretty smart about giving a pleasing result on their own, but there are instances where they’re not, and then you’ll want to get in there and touch it.

this of course is if you care to have that control. If you don’t, then go straight to sRGB and live with it. Most of the time you’ll be OK, but you’ll run into instances where the colors are strange, or way off, and you won’t have an easy way to fix it.