roger_smith4

<p>They also have dramatically worse permanence. See Aardenburg Imaging: http://www.aardenburg-imaging.com/light-fade-test-results/<br /><br />I did a south-facing window test myself and the MIS inks failed within a year. Prints in dark storage and Epson OEM inks lasted fine.</p>

<p>After years of not scanning I just scanned a couple of rolls of slide film with my Nikon LS-5000. I'm using Nikonscan as the last time I used Vuescan it has errors which I reported to Ed H. and then gave up on the program. I spent way too much time testing and debugging that software a decade ago. I recommend disabling/not using most of its software correction settings as I found them worse than useless (agree with Ty's post above. Set white/black clipping to 0%, film type to generic, color balance none and fix the color in Photoshop).<br /><br />Anyway, on my slides I see similar issues at black edges (edge of the frame as well as bright areas with shadows immediately adjacent.) I also notice pepper grain on Provia slides in smooth highlights. I figured out I can minimize pepper grain (at the slight expense of detail) by changing the cleaning from normal to fine. <br /><br />For the ghosting, the best advice I have is not to overbrighten shadows, as this exposes the scanner's flaws. From pepper grain to soft corners to scanner noise to flare/ghosting, scanning is a lossy procedure. I have resigned myself to minimizing problems through good technique but making peace with the limitations of scanning itself.</p>

<p>For what it's worth, it isn't difficult to get a Nikon scanner to work with Windows 7 by doing a search and following instructions. I use my LS-5000 with Windows 7 64 bit using Nikonscan without issue. I had the same concern about needing to keep a Windows XP laptop around. There's no need.</p>

<p>It's one sided. Yes to the moist finger test. Then write "bottom" on the label so you don't have to do this each time. I use the same paper and think highly of it.</p>

<p>These are all good links to explain color and how it works in practice with monitors. Thank you for your thoughtful responses to a somewhat confused line of questioning.</p> <p>On a practical level I second Andrew's suggestion to get a high quality wide gamut monitor. I'm quite happy with my calibrated Nec screen. It's much better than the CRTs I switched from and now I can see colors beyond sRGB that used to be more or less imaginary to me (I knew I was editing in ProPhoto to future-proof my work but the colors never changed between that and sRGB before.)</p>

<p>I used MIS inks extensively (MISPRO and then their Ultrachrome equivalent.) I would not recommend them. I had some clogging issues with the R1800 but the reason I wouldn't recommend them has to do with longevity. I did my own tests with southfacing window glass, a reference print kept in dark storage and both Epson and MIS ink. The MIS faded quite quickly (less than 1 year). The paper itself (Harmon FB AL and Epson Luster) performed fine with minimal changes (Harmon warmed up a bit). Paper and inks in dark storage didn't appreciably change.<br /><br />For real tests, check out Aardenburg Imaging. I believe my results were generally consistent with theirs.<br /><br />I also used dedicated printers with MIS B&W ink. I think the prints looked great but beware that except for the all-carbon formulations they are using MIS's somewhat inferior pigments to cool the ink tone. You're probably better off with Epson's multi-greys instead.<br /><br />Personally, as a workaround I got refillable carts for my printer, bought high capacity (220ML) Ultrachrome carts and used that cheaper ink to refill my cartridges. Just make sure the bigger printer is using the same inkset as what your printer expects. I think that yields the best of both worlds.</p>