Newbie scanning - Minolta 5400II - not so great:(

Hey guys, I just bought a 5400II from a friend and have spent the last couple of weeks with it. Occasionally I get a great scan, but most of the time, I'm sadly disappointed, even with negs that I KNOW printed great on 11x14FB paper in the past.

I'm not able to find any way of using this scanner on my Vista64 or new OSX box, only works with XP32 which leaves me not able to access my other software, which is in Vista 64 (dual boot box). I've also heard there is much better software out there but am not sure where to start.

Can someone make a few recommendations please? Is it possible to get this scanner running on my new Mac (preferably, though Vista 64 would be fine too) with more tweakable software, maybe even allowing me to scan at 32bit, or is that a hardware limitation?

Thanks for any help
Shawn

Does this help - solution 5 on http://www.fixya.com/support/t872019-minolta_dimage_scan_elite_5400_vista

Further, re Mac - have you tried version 1.0.2 of the Minolta software found here
http://download2.konicaminoltaeurop...d=C1256AE800480E96&sub=&pcat=&pcc=0&fr=0&frs=

I have a Minolta 5400 and I'm able to run the latest available Minolta driver software 0n my Mac 10.5.8

Thanks so much, I'll give it a go when I get home. I am apparently hopeless when it comes to searching the internet lol...hopefully I can get it to run on my Mac, that would be ideal

Installed on my Mac lickity-split. Thanks so much. Now I need to see if VueScan or Silverfast, the only software I'm aware of as of today (lol), will work

My negatives are all very contrasty...my mainstay was Tech Pan back in the day, and I developed all emulsions rather contrasty back then. It's turning out to not work so well with a scanner so far...I need to learn the art of scanning with finesse. I'm not getting histograms that I'm used to so that's the learning curve, I guess...

On my Minolta Scan Dual IV I got my best results on the Minolta scan software, not Vuescan. Very dense areas on film are challenging to scan with cheaper scanners but the 5400 II had an excellent reputation so it is probably just a matter of learning to drive it properly. I used to set my scan exposure manually on my Minolta because the autoexposure didn't always get it right for negs.

Also, you might consider scanning them as linear positive and using the wonderful ColorPerfect plugin. It is very popular with black and white shooters as well. Has some really good tools for fine tuning the exposure in a "zone-oriented" way. The interface is pretty bad but it is consistent and you can learn it. The results are very good.

Wow, I scanned a couple this morning as positives, and 16bit linear. Made a HUGE difference. I don't know why that would be? The scanner will probably work great, as I learn. Feel positive finally, if you'll pardon the pun

On another note, does anyone scan their negatives wet? Does that help at all? Just seems like something, in my head, worth trying...why, I don't know lol...maybe I read it somewhere.

edit: Colorperfect looks great, just looked at it (http://www.c-f-systems.com/ColorPerfectHelp.html). I'll add that to my workflow, if it works with 64bit Mac, haven't gotten that far yet. Seems better than NIK Silver Efx for how I use it...excluding the control points in NIK, which are awesome

dafy said:

Wow, I scanned a couple this morning as positives, and 16bit linear. Made a HUGE difference. I don't know why that would be? The scanner will probably work great, as I learn. Feel positive finally, if you'll pardon the pun

On another note, does anyone scan their negatives wet? Does that help at all? Just seems like something, in my head, worth trying...why, I don't know lol...maybe I read it somewhere.

edit: Colorperfect looks great, just looked at it (http://www.c-f-systems.com/ColorPerfectHelp.html). I'll add that to my workflow, if it works with 64bit Mac, haven't gotten that far yet. Seems better than NIK Silver Efx for how I use it...excluding the control points in NIK, which are awesome

Click to expand...

I've tried wetscanning but I didn't see the great benefit that everybody is talking about, and its messy beyond belief. I used lighter fluid, but there may be better liquids out there that don't muck up your negs or slides afterwards like lighter fluid does. Lighter fluid is supposed to leave NO residue, but in my case I was left with negs that needed to be washed with dishwashing soap and rinsed in running water afterwards. A few rounds of wetscanning would probably make scratches sooner or later. Besides you need to place the neg/slide between to plates of glass or acetat sheet or the like, and that may easily cause newton rings and glare. AND . . . try removing stubborn bubbles.
This is why I scan dry. Dust hasn't been a problem so far, and the best is to have as little glass between the film and the sensor as possible.

Hum, my neg carrier wouldn't really be conducive to adding glass, I don't think; and it's a film scanner not a flatbed. I think based on that and your results above, it's probably not worth fussing over right now. So many things to learn, may as well stick with the most important things first

Daffy

dafy said:

My negatives are all very contrasty...my mainstay was Tech Pan back in the day, and I developed all emulsions rather contrasty back then. It's turning out to not work so well with a scanner so far...I need to learn the art of scanning with finesse. I'm not getting histograms that I'm used to so that's the learning curve, I guess...

Click to expand...

contrasty negs will scan quite nicely, the trick is to not use the scanner software in scanning negative as negative. They always apply curves for you that you may not like or need. Scan as positive and invert.

Pay attention to black and white points in the scanner driver, try to observe where your "base" level is by including a bit of the "frame", record a little past that. Keep in mind that that the film base fog is not a "hard" point ... so give it a little leeway to capture all then curve it down in photoshop.

maybe this post will help?

http://cjeastwd.blogspot.com/2010/02/black-and-white-neg-scanning.html

dafy said:

Hum, my neg carrier wouldn't really be conducive to adding glass, I don't think; and it's a film scanner not a flatbed. I think based on that and your results above, it's probably not worth fussing over right now. So many things to learn, may as well stick with the most important things first

Click to expand...

I've tried glass a lot, and it mostly produces glare so you're probably not missing out on anything.
Every good scan starts with a good neg or slide which is correctly exposed and developed. After developing the local gas station is your best friend. Buy a windshield wiper for cars and wipe off the rinsing water (slides), or the stabilizer (negs) from the film with the rubber edge on the windshield wiper.
Now you'll get a filmstrip free of drying spots. After that it's just a matter of keeping the slides/negs dust free and free of fingermarks.
Now you've got a good starting point and the rest is really just to get to know your scanner. My first scans were a disaster and I was unhappy with my Epson v750. Now even my negative scans are pretty nice, but it has been a learning process. Let me add I never use ICE, multiple scanning, multiexposure or even sharpening, but I do tweak the histogram settings when neccessary. Sharpening is done in Photoshop.
This is what I usually end up with:



This image is shot with a Rolleicord, but the images from my Bronica ETRSi are a tad sharper. In fact much sharper straight from the scanner compared to the raw-files of the Nikon D-50 dslr I used to own. So just keep on scanning. When you get to know your scanner your scans will be fine.

The following link may serve as a better example of what can easily be expected from a consumer-quality scanner.
I say easily for several reasons:
1) I'm a newbie and no expert, and
2) this negative was scanned as a negative and not as a positive as Pellicle suggests.
By scanning negs as positives I guess even better results should be obtained.
Straight scanning,-which means no ICE, multiple exposure or anything, and no sharpening in Silverfast.

Camera: Bronica ETRSi with 75 / 2,8 lens
Film: Fujicolor Pro 160 C
Scanner: Epson v750 w/Silverfast

Dead Link Removed

Konica-Minolta DMSE 5400 workflow

I have the v.1 DMSE 5400 and have used it extensively for color transparency and negatives.
Couple of critical issues with this scanner. One is that the Minolta software doesn't easily show blown out individual RGB channels. On the Mac there is the included utility Digital Color Meter that you can run around the prescan looking for blown channels. Alternately, Silverfast Ai Studio version has a highlight warning. Should you not pay attention, saturated pixels can lead to scanner lines-- as can a software bug in the driver if you crop the image in prescan prior to scanning.
The manual focus adjustment knob and utility in driver is much better at critical focus than the AF focus sensing.
48 bit linear scans work best for difficult color negs. The frequency of the fixed CCD pitch leads to grain aliasing with certain negative films, best to be avoided. I couldn't get a good scan with early Portra or Pro 160C or 160N neg emulsions due to this.
The MDSE 5400 is superb with fine grained transparency films-- even Kodachrome, and especially using ICE and or multisampled 16 bit scans when the film has a lot of density.
It takes a lot of time to scan like this but if you're doing big prints it's absolutely worth it. Hybrid 16x20's as sharp as wet/optical 11x14's was the convincer for me. I've had drum scans done of some of the same images that were not as good.