Epson Scan crops 35mm slides, Document Size doesn't help

<p>Hi all,<br>

I'm scanning 35mm slides using Epson Scan 3.9.2.2 in Professional Mode, with the Thumbnail tab selected in the Preview window.<br />I noticed that the resulting images were cropped. People's heads are cut off (Oh, the humanity!) and worse. The "Document Size" fields say 1.26' x 0.80", while an actual slide image is 1.31" x 0.90", as measured. If I change the "Document Size" fields, they revert back to their original values as soon as another field is selected.<br>

I've read posts describing the same problem, and citing an upgrade to the current Epson Scan as the fix. 3.9.2.2 is the current version.</p>

<p>What scanner are you using?</p>

<p>The holders for my V600 are coded with "dots" at the top for slides or negative film. Do you have your holder inserted properly to the "C" tab on the holder is in the "C" indent on the scanner.</p>

<p>You can drop out of the "Thumbnail" tab and select you own area in the preview pane if nothing else works.</p>

 

<p>I am using an Epson V700.<br>

There is a row of holes at the top of the carrier, also a pair of white squares, probably also for location. A pair of pins in the carrier fit a pair of holes in the scanner, each having white triangles to guide placement. There's no opportunity to position the carrier in any other way.<br>

The problem is not skewed placement or shifted image - the cardboard slide mount does not show in the scanned image. The problem is that the image excludes a significant portion of the film image area, and the scanner software does not allow adjustment to the image size, in spite of fields designed to accept image size values.<br>

Selecting an image area would require far more time than batch scanning.</p>

<p>Scott, use a screen capture program and post the capture of your scan setting panel with settings you are using and encountering the problem. Epson scan has not changed much since the 1640SU and 1650 Photo scanner days. My V500, on the other machine, has a few of the 1650's check boxes expanded and the crop and zoom functions changed slightly. <br>

On the preview plane clear the crop/zoom box if set. <br>

Ikons are used for some settings and are easy to overlook.</p>

<p>First, in the software have you change the "thumbnail cropping area" slider from small to midway or large (you did switch the format size parameter in the software configuration box to your particular format though, right?). You will find many references to the poor auto cropping problem on the internet. Many people never realize that they are missing part of their image(s) until they get an obvious error like the one you experienced. If they did a careful comparison of most scans though, they would probably be surprised to find how many of their images on film are overly cropped or mis-cropped by the software's auto-cropping. Auto-cropping is nothing more than a "guess" based on an algorithm and it is often fooled.<br>

Most people I know just set a batch scan of manual crops. It is easy to set up and you know it will be accurate. In the end, this actually takes less time because you don't have to spend time doing comparisons of scans to film and then have to do the inevitable rescans. Here is a page of tips I put up to help people learn about creating manual batch scans with the EpsonScan software:<br>

<a href="http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/batchscanning.html">http://www.betterscanning.com/scanning/batchscanning.html</a><br>

Doug</p>

<p>It seems the automatic area selection is based on position, rather than edge detection. This is fine, except the size of the area should be configurable, especially since there is are fields to set the document and target sizes. I tried creating a custom target size for 35mm slides with 36 x 24 mm. Once the preview scan completes, the selection changes back to "original". I don't see any option to include anything but a link to an image within posts to this board, else I would include a screenshot of the settings.<br>

Since it is a transmission and not a reflective scan, the white cardboard slide mount shows up as black. For underexposed or dark subjects, manually selecting the scan area is a real challenge. Epson Scan has the potential to do what I want, but falls short by not having the ability to set the image size.<br>

Silverfast was also included with the scanner. Is it any better at scanning slides?</p>

<p>When making a post you click the submit box at the bottom of the text box which takes you to a preview with update and confirm buttons. Once you click the confirm button the next page has a box for attaching a file or photo. Click on the browse button next to the small box and select the file from your computer then confirm. If it is a photo you are required to include a caption. If the file/photo is larger than the inline size requirement then it will show up as a link at the bottom of your post.</p>

<p>Silverfast AI has many more options to adjust the scan and resulting image but has a much steeper learning curve.<br>

There are many complaints about Silverfast 8 being hard to understand and poor customer service. I have not used Silverfast since Silverfast 6.</p>

<p>Silverfast SE is a basic scan software less featured than Epson Scan.</p>

<p>I taught myself scanning by taking a technically excellent slide, scanning it at default settings in Silverfast AI 6 then adjusting each setting 5% to 10% one at a time and scanning after each adjustment then comparing that scan to the default scan. Once I had adjusted each individually and found their fail points I repeated the operation making adjustments in combination with other adjustments until I found their limits. I scanned at 1200 dpi so I could see fine detail without having excessively large files. The process 12 to 14 hours spread out over 3 days. The time was well spent. </p>

You ought to be able to manually select each of the

slides the first time. But oversize the crop so each

subsequent setup will select all of the film portion.

You won't have to redo the framing. Of course you'll

have to crop each picture in post editing.

<p>Thanks for all the help. As suggested in your replies, it works to manually select the scan field for all the slides. I did a zoom preview scan so I could more accurately select the scan area, then copied that marquee for each of the other 11 slides. When I load the slide carrier, I push each slide to the lower left corner. I include about 1/32" of the slide mount which takes care of variations in the slides and verifies that I have the whole image. Subsequent scans use the same selection marquees.</p>

<p>The best way around this problem, that I have found, is to do a preview in the Epson Scan softeware, then click on the "normal" tab of the preview window. Then use a the mouse to outline the whole image... this is creating a marquee for each image. This is a bit tedious, but it gets all the picture. I tend to over do it as I will edit it later in Lightroom or other software.</p>