Epson V850 scanning questions

<p>I have a few basic questions on the V850 scanner most likely same with older models.<br>

I purchased it recently to avoid costly professional scans as much as possible. It was at an affordable price point for me.<br>

I am only going to be scanning B&W 8x10 negs. The final output are 20x30 prints.<br>

I've spent sometime yesterday going over the SilverFast 8 sc software that came with it, and the learning curve is not something i want to get into, not very intuitive software. Unless it makes a big difference in scan quality I just a well skip it.</p>

<p>Q.<br>

1 Can I use the Epson professional scan software just as well. Images are going into PS anyway?<br>

2 What are your "go to" setting in SilverFast or with Epson that produce the very best LF scans for you?<br>

3 What the you consider the largest size print this scanner is capable of before the need for a drum scan.<br>

I really appreciate any advice in this area. Thanks</p>

I found this article very helpful when getting started with my Epson scanner.

 

http://www.kennethleegallery.com/html/scanning/index.php

You'd only need to scan at

900ppi to get the final

300ppi pixel density

necessary for a quality

20"x30" print. And since

Epson's scanners have a true

optical resolution of

somewhere in the region of

1800ppi, a 40"x60" print

should be possible from a

10x8 original.

 

I have a low opinion of Silverfast. Try Ed Hamrick's VueScan as an easy to use alternative.

<p>I agree, I use VueScan for my Epson 4990 as well as my Nikon Coolscan V and its very easy to use and a lot less expensive. </p>

Epson's scanners have been overkill for

large format forever. Epson's drivers

have a rep for being surprisingly not

complete garbage when running in

professional mode. The first tip:

turn off auto-thumbnailing.

A pro license of Vuescan is a great

investment, it will work with any

scanner you might buy in the future.

The interface of Vuescan is a thing to

itself and it can take a while before

you really get a handle on the logic

of it. Once you do, it is powerful

and sometimes a time saver.

<p>Software ranking:<br>

Silverfast Ai<br>

Vuescan<br>

Silverfast SE<br>

OEM software.<br>

There is a great big step between Vuescan and Silverfast Ai. Vuescan tries to be everything to all scanners and fails. It lacks many exposure adjustments found in other scanning software. Vuescan is great if you have an older scanner that will not run on your newer operating system.<br>

Silverfast SE is a half notch better than OEM at best. I did not install the version that shipped with my V700 as I already had Vuescan.</p>

<p>In EpsonScan select Professional mode. Click on the Configure box at the bottom of the scan page. Click on the Color box of the Configure window. Select NO Color Adjustment. Check OK and close the windows.<br>

Scan at the manufacturers Optical limit. The stated Optical limit is the limit before software interpolation is applied. (The True Optical Resolution claimed by others and third party reviewers uses a 1951 USAF film resolution target scan to determine scan resolution, a designed for digital media such as a ISO 12233 http://www.graphics.cornell.edu/~westin/misc/res-chart.html would be better for testing resolution.)<br>

Scan at 16 bit Grayscale or 48bit RGB. This should give you all the detail from the negative. Adjust in Photoshop and reduce to the resolution you want for storage/printing. A small file will not upscale very well, a large file will downscale very well.<br>

The advantage of scanning in 48bit RGB is that you can adjust each channel separately to get your desired tonality. A 16bit grayscale converted to RGB only gives you 3 channels of the same tonal scale where a RGB scan will have some differences between channels. </p>

<p>Scanning is as much of an art as making the exposure or silver print. Each has a learning curve that cannot be sidestepped. If your exposure or processing is off a little a good scan will expose it.</p>

<p>I find SIlverFast worth the learning curve. Their NegaFix is the only way I've ever gotten proper color scanning Ektar 100.</p>

 

<p>I tried Silverfast, Epson and Vuescan and it took me a month to work it out. My best results came from Vuescan. <br>

It is not expensive.<br>

Good luck!</p>

Thanks guys for the very informative replies. I went with vuescan, so far seems straightforward.

My scan looks pretty soft but it could be the way the scanner holds the negative. Might purchase a good 8x10 neg holder.

Thanks guys

<p>In my own tests using the V750, the most detail is to be had by scanning (using the film holders) at 6400dpi and sharpening before reducing the size. Because working in Photoshop with 8x10 at 6400dpi is not practical, even with a ton of memory and cpu power, you might make an action to do the sharpening and resizing automatically. At this step, you could add in other stuff like assigning/converting profiles and color space, and so on.<br /><br />A bit faster, but with the teensiest bit less detail, is scanning at 6400 but then using Vuescan's reduction feature for saving. I use a factor of 2, so the final output dpi is 3200 but with theoretically less noise (binning the CCD output like this is similar to averaging multiple samples) and more detail. <br /><br />The largest format I work with is 4x5, and although working at 3200 dpi in photoshop (layers and so forth) with 4x5 is doable, I do notice a bit of a slowdown when using brushes and so forth. (I work on a Hackintosh using an i5 processor with 16gb ram.) So 8x10 might be ridiculous at this size. You probably want to use a working version of 1600 dpi / use Viewscan with a size reduction setting of 3.</p>

<p>The beauty of Viewscan over the pretty good Epson software is that it lets you scan 120 and up at 6400. Epson Scan complains if you try this, at least with the v750. I think it's worth it to use the 6400 setting, even with 4x5, albeit working with reduced-size versions, and if possible with sharpening applied at 6400 before said reduction. Subjectively, I have always found that sharpening before AND after a size reduction yields superior results than doing just one or the other or neither. Just follow your eye.</p>

<p>I think this is basically what Charles Monday was advocating above.</p>

<p>Additionally, Vuescan gives me more control over exposure time and color management, which is very important for my calibrated color management process. You have to scan your film with exactly the same settings as you made your color profile! There is nothing in the Epson software that even pretends to assure me that it's giving me the same exposure time for every scan.</p>

<p>For a math-based discussion on the advantages of sharpening at higher resolutions: http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/MTF2.html</p>

<p>The only possible caveat I can think of with scanning 8x10 at 6400 is that, as the machine warms up during the longer scan, you may get color shifts along the length of the final output. Additionally, as the film warms up, it may buckle and sag and ruin focus if you're not using a glass holder. However, if the v850 is using LEDs and is faster overall, this may not be an issue. I have at times considered keeping my V750 in an air conditioned, dust-filtered box for these reasons, but whatever.</p>