Neg film scans beautifully!

[biotime_biotime]

I did stick this at the end of another thread but wanted to share it

here. Today something rather amazing to me occured after all the

struggle I've put into attempting to get my Minolta Multi pro to

give good neg scans, trying many films brand and techniques etc. I

just came back from an hour with a scanner operator at Prolab in

Culver City area in So. CA. He was running a Scitex Eversmart

Supreme flatbed with Oxy something software. I asked him all the

questions I have asked you all in regards to neg scans, film brands

etc. and he said, "oh it does not matter, they all scan well"! Then

he scanned a 67 neg for me. I mean he just plalced it, previewed it

and there was this incredibly beautiful preview that was so clean

and beautiful with no evidence of grain aliasing or whatever. I mean

georgeous! All the grain, noise, artifacts were not there and this

is with no Gem, Ice etc. Perhaps many of you know this already but

for the rest the message is clear, neg film is not the problem, it

is our desktop scanners and or software! I am both pleased to find

my desired neg film can give me what I want beautifully and very

aggravated that my Multi Pro (and my Nikon CoolScan V)performes so

terribly. Folks, it's not your fault nor neg films fault, it is your

scanner. I should add that scanner originally was $60000. This info

doesn't solve our neg scan struggles but at least it let's us know

it is not something inherent in neg film itself.

[carl smith]

Some films do geniuinely scan better than others, regardless of what he says. Even on high end scanners.

 

One thing that lab probably has set up is some good film profiles to get a smooth workflow where they can slap in the film, select the film type and go. That is a major issue which can often improve results immediately without all the fuss.

[biotime_biotime]

Of course I would not assume all films react the same with any particular scanner. I am not at all just talking about color or color matching. What I am talking about is a super clean scan that could not be distinguished from a beautiful chrome scan as compared to junk that these desktop scanners produce with negs. Actually I can only speak regarding Epson 3200, Nikon CoolScan IV and Minolta Dimage Multi Pro.

If you could have seen how clean and artifact free including no visible shadow or highlight noise and how sommth the tonality you would see what I am talking about. He also showed me some BW neg scans that only showed valid film grain with out ANY of what people are calling grain aliasing. Just the film grain, no more, no less. My bw scans on my Minolta looked as though someone drove a truck over them they were so porus looking.

 

I have also worked with a $40000 (new) Screen Cezanne that had poor software that worked worse than my Multi Pro.

[bruce watson]

Yup.

[fourfa]

and how much did this scan cost you?

[biotime_biotime]

I did noy pay anything nor did he scan my film. I was just noticed the business and dropped in and ended up in conversation with the scanner operator who was very polite in taking time to show me around and scan some client's film. They do Lightjet, Duratrans, large format Novajet, Phase One Digital shots, full custom color, e6 etc. They even have a 5 color Heidleburg offset press. What they don't do is machine prints as in Frontier. Anyway I am not trying to pitch them it was just a nice shop to see. To answer your question about cost and looking at a price sheet it would look to be about 115 for a drum scan and a bit less for an Eversmart scan. Of course it is very expensive as expected and is why we struggle with our sub $3000 machines. I certaintly could not pay for such scans. The main benefit I got out of it is that it not negative film per se but how it reacts with our little scanners. I don't know if that is good or bad news. It does make me wonder if attempting to hang on to film by doing my own neg scans is rather pointless in the face of digial cameras. Or that I will be forced to stick with the limitations of chrome if I cannot find a neg film that works well for me. Actually I have got a few ok scans from particularly right exposures from Kodak HD 400 and Fuji s-400. Horrible results from NPZ and Fuji 800 extra. Really I want is the tonal range, faster speed preferably 800, and cheaper film. For you Multi Pro users the recent 1,1,4 version of the software has helped I believe. I did not find Vue Scan to be an advantage over the Minolta software in terms of this "grain alaising" if that a correct term I don't know. I have not delved into this issue but the look of it that I am talking about can be see on this link:

 

http://www.photoscientia.co.uk/Grain.htm

 

Hudson

[carl smith]

For a film that scans well I'd suggest a peek at the kodak Portra line.

[grant_.]

dont know if your model does it, but i just got a minolta 5400. it does whats called 16 bit linear, which is basically a raw output from the scanner. it comes out as a positive, if you do negs. i found its far better to use photoshop than to let the minolta software manipulate the image during the scan. the built in diffuser works great too for higher grain films as well....

[qtluong]

Price quoted sounds high to me. The <a href = "http://terragalleria.com/photography/35mm/labs.html">labs I know</a>

all charge much less for a scan on the Tango, which most would agree

outperforms any high-end flatbed. It's very realistic to order a drum

scan each time you sell a reasonablly sized print.

[erik scanhancer]

Biotime,

 

Did you actually come across my website during your quest to

solve your scanning troubles with your Multi Pro?

 

http://scanhancer.iddo.nl/

 

My Scanhancer 5LE device is the predecessor of Minolta's "own

unique Grain Dissolver" that is implemented in the Elite 5400.

[biotime_biotime]

I am aware of the Scanhancer but have not tried it. I have been working on a few images with Neat Image 4 vs Gem vs despeckle and smart/gaussian blur in PhotoShop on my Multi Pro. I would like to see some sort of comparison between these methods and your product.

 

On my initial tests letting Neat Image auto create a profile and letting it run on defaults I found I have to push GEM to 75% to equal the cleanliness of Neat Image. At 75% neat Image perserved sharpness better than Gem. Also I found Neat Image to perform better than what I could do with PhotoShop. I would welcome any comparisons and pro and cons of your product vs the above methods.

 

Hudson

 

On a couple

[biotime_biotime]

Here are some crops of Provia 400 VC normally exposed with Nikon Matrix meter. These are with out Gem or anything else. The train was in sunny 16 conditions. I hope Portra UC will perform better, it is finer garained than VC. Please note the high rez inserts.<div></div>

[biotime_biotime]

Heres a worse example from the same roll.<div></div>

[erik scanhancer]

Hudson,

 

I have no experience with Neat Image because I'm on a Mac.

Recently a Scanhancer customer wrote the following email to

me though:

 

"Of course you know I tried the item as soon as I got it home and

I am extremely impressed. In all honesty I was somewhat

skeptical because I use a software product called Neatimage to

reduce the effects of grain from scanning. I thought your product

would simply produce comparable results. The difference being

one was hardware manipulated and the other software

processed. Well, this was incorrect. The Neatimage processed

Scanhancer images were far superior. Thanks for the product."

 

There is an independent test of the Scanhancer 5LE here:

 

http://www.allari-photo.com/scanhancer.html

 

It was performed by someone who purchased a Scanhancer set

and decided to do a test with it.

[biotime_biotime]

Heres what happened with neat Image 4 on defaults. How do you think your product would have compared?

[biotime_biotime]

Here a crop of the image<div></div>

[erik scanhancer]

Hudson,

 

I honestly couldn't tell on the basis of what I see. A lot depends

on the quality of the original negative, especially how it is

exposed and developed. What I do note though is that

NeatImage seems to alter the grain identity, while the

Scanhancer keeps the original grain fully intact, but less

pronounced.

 

I have not seen direct comparisons between scans worked on

with NeatImage and the Scanhancer. Perhaps a user of both

could come forward? It would be quite interesting to see,

although it has not much relevance for my own scanning

situation.

 

It could also be very interesting to combine both the Scanhancer

and NeatImage in order to get further grain reduction in cases

where it is wanted.

[erik scanhancer]

You could also go to this page and follow the downloadlink

provided there to two 100% files; one with and one without

Scanhancer:

 

http://scanhancer.iddo.nl/index.php?art=12&men=12

 

Then perform a NeatImage treatment on the scan without

Scanhancer in order to see the difference in effect.