Some questions about buying my first film scanner on a budget

Minolta93 · Mar 18, 2021

Well, I've figured it out. There's a small indicator near the shutter button, a hole in the body with what seems to be a sliding metal plate under it. When the winding knob is turned, the plate slides and clicks into place, exposing a red marked portion of the plat through the hole in the camera body. When the shutter is released, the plate slides back so the red portion is no longer showing. I haven't read the manual for this camera, but it must be some sort of check to see if the film has been wound or not, or something like that. Or maybe I'm way off. Either way, I can look at that indicator and see it slowly sliding back into place, so now I won't waste film. I put a small drop of light lubricating oil on it and worked the shutter a few times. It seems to stick less now, so I might order a roll of 120 pretty soon after all.

Wallendo · Mar 19, 2021

Regarding comparing Epson scans with lab scans it has been my experience that many (if not most) labs tend to turn up the saturation and digital "sharpness". As a result, the lab scans tend to be more colorful and subjectively sharp. I also find that labs also tend to boost the contrast a little. Most scans from an Epson benefit from adding "texture" or "clarity" in Lightroom (other software will have different names for these) as well as tweaking the color settings.

I use a Plustek 8100i for 35mm because the scans are inherently sharper, but still use my V600 for 120 format. With a few digital tweaks in Lightroom, I can bring my old 35mm Epson scans to nearly the quality of the Plustek scans. With my old computer, there was little difference between the two scans to begin with, but a 5K monitor displays significant differences - although these differences are likely not noticeable when the scans are printed (printer software and drivers tend to adjust the image on their own).

Alan Edward Klein · Mar 19, 2021

Wallendo said:
Regarding comparing Epson scans with lab scans it has been my experience that many (if not most) labs tend to turn up the saturation and digital "sharpness". As a result, the lab scans tend to be more colorful and subjectively sharp. I also find that labs also tend to boost the contrast a little. Most scans from an Epson benefit from adding "texture" or "clarity" in Lightroom (other software will have different names for these) as well as tweaking the color settings.

I use a Plustek 8100i for 35mm because the scans are inherently sharper, but still use my V600 for 120 format. With a few digital tweaks in Lightroom, I can bring my old 35mm Epson scans to nearly the quality of the Plustek scans. With my old computer, there was little difference between the two scans to begin with, but a 5K monitor displays significant differences - although these differences are likely not noticeable when the scans are printed (printer software and drivers tend to adjust the image on their own).

I add a little "clarity" as well in LR on my Epson scans. Also, you need to sharpen a lot. But that tends to increase the grain look, especially in the sky. So I raise Masking using the Alt key (Windows) in conjunction with it in the sharpening panel to reduce that noise in the sky.

sapearl · Mar 19, 2021

Hi Wallendo - I think there is some truth to the feeling that lab scans turn up the saturation and sharpness a bit. I shot Hasselblad film from 1998 - 2006 and towards the end of that period my last lab was scanning the negs. They did a nice job but my wedding and event proofs did have a slightly different look than when they were optically printed directly from the film.

I have no experience with any of the Plustek devices but have an old Epson flatbed that I used for medium format b/w negs with great success. I also use Nikon Coolscan V which has given me excellent results with 50 year old slides and and b/w negs from the same time. The Nikon ICE has made a tremendous difference in "cleaning" up the old b/w negs. These are some of the earliest negs I processed and the air-drying environment was terrible. I lot of very small dust became permanently attached to the film, not at all visible to the human eye. Upon scanning they became obvious. ICE is not perfect but it cleaned up a lot. Does your Plustek have that?

How do you feel about your V600 for 120 format? I'm considering the V850 for my medium format film. I good friend has a Minolta Dimage Multi Pro and absolutely loves it for his 120 material. He goes quite large from old film - 2 to 3 feet - and is very happy with the results. Problem is you'd have to find a used one on the market at a premium price and it requires a SCSI connection. You could probably find an Adaptec card for that but then you'd need either Windows XP or perhaps the Vuescan drivers would resurect it. Plus, according to some reviews, the V850 is as good as or slightly better than the old Dimage, and will run with current s/w and operating system.

MattKing · Mar 19, 2021

FWIW, there is an Adaptec SCSI card with Windows 7 drivers.

sapearl · Mar 19, 2021

Alan Edward Klein said:
I add a little "clarity" as well in LR on my Epson scans. Also, you need to sharpen a lot. But that tends to increase the grain look, especially in the sky. So I raise Masking using the Alt key (Windows) in conjunction with it in the sharpening panel to reduce that noise in the sky.

Interesting observation Alan - thank you. Have you tried this instead: do all of your sharpening in Photo Shop or whichever program you have, but only in the desired area using a separate adjustment layer? You leave the sky untouched, and then just "erase away" the area you want sharpened.

sapearl · Mar 19, 2021

MattKing said:
FWIW, there is an Adaptec SCSI card with Windows 7 drivers.

That's good to know, thank you Matt. I wonder if they have drivers for Win 10?

Alan Edward Klein · Mar 19, 2021

sapearl said:
Hi Wallendo - I think there is some truth to the feeling that lab scans turn up the saturation and sharpness a bit. I shot Hasselblad film from 1998 - 2006 and towards the end of that period my last lab was scanning the negs. They did a nice job but my wedding and event proofs did have a slightly different look than when they were optically printed directly from the film.

I have no experience with any of the Plustek devices but have an old Epson flatbed that I used for medium format b/w negs with great success. I also use Nikon Coolscan V which has given me excellent results with 50 year old slides and and b/w negs from the same time. The Nikon ICE has made a tremendous difference in "cleaning" up the old b/w negs. These are some of the earliest negs I processed and the air-drying environment was terrible. I lot of very small dust became permanently attached to the film, not at all visible to the human eye. Upon scanning they became obvious. ICE is not perfect but it cleaned up a lot. Does your Plustek have that?

How do you feel about your V600 for 120 format? I'm considering the V850 for my medium format film. I good friend has a Minolta Dimage Multi Pro and absolutely loves it for his 120 material. He goes quite large from old film - 2 to 3 feet - and is very happy with the results. Problem is you'd have to find a used one on the market at a premium price and it requires a SCSI connection. You could probably find an Adaptec card for that but then you'd need either Windows XP or perhaps the Vuescan drivers would resurect it. Plus, according to some reviews, the V850 is as good as or slightly better than the old Dimage, and will run with current s/w and operating system.

I used a V600 for the years with my Medium format. See my Flickr site for samples also include 4x5 (with my V850) and 35mm. There's a big difference in price between the two. I wouldn't bother with the V850 unless you plan on scanning large format 4x5 and up. That's the only reason I upgraded to the V850.

Alan Edward Klein · Mar 19, 2021

sapearl said:
Interesting observation Alan - thank you. Have you tried this instead: do all of your sharpening in Photo Shop or whichever program you have, but only in the desired area using a separate adjustment layer? You leave the sky untouched, and then just "erase away" the area you want sharpened.

Funny you mentioned that. I was watching a Youtube video last night where a guy was doing that. But I believe he was using the CC version of LR. I have the perpetual purchase version of LR. I'm not sure if I have that ability in my LR to select out the sky when sharpening. Maybe someone knows how to do that with the sky. I don't have Photoshop.

Minolta93 · Mar 19, 2021

Wallendo said:
I also find that labs also tend to boost the contrast a little. Most scans from an Epson benefit from adding "texture" or "clarity" in Lightroom (other software will have different names for these) as well as tweaking the color settings.

I noticed this as well. Here's a scan I got from the epson. I scanned the whole area of the film just to see how it'd look since I'm still testing things out with the scanner. Next you can see that image after I made some adjustments in Darktable. I'm still not very good at it. The last is the lab scan of the same frame.

Alan Edward Klein · Mar 19, 2021

Minolta93 said:
I noticed this as well. Here's a scan I got from the epson. I scanned the whole area of the film just to see how it'd look since I'm still testing things out with the scanner. Next you can see that image after I made some adjustments in Darktable. I'm still not very good at it. The last is the lab scan of the same frame.

That's very good. Keep working at it. It took me a long while to get something I like on a regular basis. What Epson scanner do you use? What software to scan? What settings? what film is that?

I find that the first thing I do is Levels to get contrast, exposure and most colors right. That's where you set the white and black points. That handles about 90%. That I teak the rest a little based on taste.

Minolta93 · Mar 19, 2021

Alan Edward Klein said:
That's very good.

Thanks, Alan!

Alan Edward Klein said:
What Epson scanner do you use? What software to scan? What settings? what film is that?

It's an Epson Perfection 4870. I saw it for sale locally, and I just did a quick search here on the forums for it. Lo and behold, Photo Engineer mentioned that he used one, and I believe he also said he uses the default Epson Scan software. After seeing that I knew I would be fine. I'm also using Epson Scan. I understand Vuescan is quite good but thus far I'm seeing acceptable results from Epson scan, so I'm going to hold off on buying Vuescan for the time being. As for settings I am still doing a bit of experimenting. As of now I've decided to turn off sharpening in Epson Scan as I'll do that after adjusting the scan anyway. Also have color correction and grain reduction turned off as well. Color depth is 48 bit and I'll set the DPI based on what I'd want to use the scan for. I am saving the scans as JPG as well.

Film I believe is Fujicolor Superia, 200 I think.

Alan Edward Klein said:
I find that the first thing I do is Levels to get contrast, exposure and most colors right. That's where you set the white and black points. That handles about 90%. That I teak the rest a little based on taste.

Ah, I still don't know much about levels. I'm planning to read up on that sometime soon. That should help out quite a bit once I know more about it.

Mesabound · Mar 19, 2021

Yeah that's not bad; I would maybe play around with the "dehaze" functionality on that frame.

Re: levels/curves, I can't post it right now but the YouTube channel "PiXimperfect" has a video on learning about curves in PS (translatable to LR) that is extremely helpful in this regard.

Some questions about buying my first film scanner on a budget

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Some questions about buying my first film scanner on a budget

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