PamelaHL said:
May I ask why you prefer to scan the film rather than using a flatbed? Also, what is the benefit of calibration?
Thanks.
The Epson 3200 and 4870 Pro are flatbed scanners. They have film holders to allow MF film to be scanned. The 3200 lets you scan one frame at a time and the 4870 allows multiple frames, but I don't how many.
Calibration is important to create a custom ICC profile for your scanner. The ICC profile will ensure that everytime you scan the film, the correct colours, as they appear on te film, are captured by the scanner. The IT8 target is key since it is a standard set of colours with a specified set of colours. When you scan in the target, the calibration software compares the scan results to the target and creates a custom profile for your scanner. Once you have a custom profile, the scanner then adjusts itself to compensate for the difference between the target and the scan. Think of this as the digital equivalent of dialing in the colour correction numbers on your dichromatic enlarger when you buy new box of Ilfochrome paper.
Colour management in general is important and you should keep your colour gamut at the biggest 'bucket' of colours - most likely Adobe RGB - until you are ready to do something with your pic - print or post on web, when you may then need to convert to a lesser gamut like sRGB 1998.
It is also important to calibrate your monitor and your printer. You just want to make sure that Yellow 1234 is Yellow 1234 when you see it on the film, when you scan it, when you see on the monitor and when you print it out.
Calibration should be done about once a month. The reason is the light bulbs fade and the phosphor fades over time.
I found all this out the hard way by scanning film in without colour management and pics looked different on different monitors and when I printed them out on different printers. For the life of me, I could figure out what the heck was going on - no colour management!
Art.
