Your thoughts on this set-up for digital imaging

[william_carter1]

OK: after months of agonizing and research, I'm steeling myself to

try the digital darkroom (see this thread for an earlier question I

posed, which produced very helpful responses:

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=001qMa). I'm

looking for thoughts on the set-up proposed below. I've done quite a

bit of research and am 90% sure that this set-up is the way to go,

but could happily be persuaded otherwise. Regarding intended use, I

am a serious hobbyist (about 12 years experience); would like to

produce prints suitable for possible gallery display and/or sale;

shoot medium format and 35mm (Rollei 6008i, Leica M7 and Nikon F4)

(I'm not interested in digital cameras (yet) so we can leave those

out of the equation); and shoot probably 60/40 black & white/color

(slide and neg). Also, while I'm willing to pay for quality results,

I am not independently wealthy and therefore realize that I may not

get the same "ultimate" quality that I could get with a $50K set-up.

Here's what I plan on purchasing:

 

(1) i-Mac G4 700Mhz, 40 Gig harddrive, CDRW/DVD ROM drive, w. 768 Mb

RAM

 

(2) Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro scanner

 

(3) ColorVision Spyder (for monitor calibration)

 

(4) Epson Stylus 2100P/2200 Printer (comes out in July; see

www.luminous-landscape.com (under "What's New") for a description of

this printer) (The MSRP for is expected to be $699)

 

(5) Wacom Graphire 2 4x5 tablet

 

(6) Photoshop 7.0

 

[(7) Possibly, Piezo inks/software (and another printer?) for serious

black and white, depending on how good Epson's new black and white

printing technology on the 2200 is)]

 

For future readers of this thread, as of April 2002, the cost of

items 1-6 above will approximately total a whopping $5900 (your price

may vary, particularly since I'm getting the educational discount on

photoshop) (even with the educational discount from Apple for the

computer, it's still cheaper to buy the i-mac on amazon.com).

Possibly add another $1000 for the Piezo system (if I go that route

later); and another $350-400 for a second printer (probably the Epson

1280) if I decide I need Piezo, and you're up to $7300, BEFORE the

associated costs of actually making a print (paper, inks, etc).

(Ouch -- hence the long months of hesitation before I take the

plunge).

 

Your thoughts are appreciated.

[staszeque_kroszczynski1]

I think you might like a bigger display than offered by iMac - a 19'

minimum, 22' better - it really helps; that would mean a G4 with a

good display.

 

Staszeque

[alex_p._schorsch]

i think you should go with a 35mm scanner with a higher definition like nikon or Canon 4000 dpi. The Dimage has a pretty low resolution for medium format. I have one and find that they`re OK for 35 but for 6x6 they just don`t cut the mustard. I think that you`ll find that you`ll regret it in the future. You`ll get much more satisfying results if you scan only your 35`s "in house". Save those reaaly great 6x6 selections for a professional drum scanner and you`ll be doing work which will rival traditional printing. That`s my 2cents. Alex

[godfrey]

Your setup is very close in performance/scope to what I have

and use successfully.

 

My "digital imaging workstation" is a Mac G4 Cube/500, 1.5G

RAM, 80 GByte drive, an Apple 17" Studio Monitor (last CRT), Mac

OS X, CD-RW drive, Minolta Scan Dual II for Minox to 35mm

format, Epson Perfection 2450 Photo for medium format,

VueScan and Photoshop 7. I also have iPhoto,

GraphicConverter, PixelNHance, and Curator installed, and

Toast 5 Titanium for the CD-RW. Printer is an Epson 1270, and

now I'm using a custom ICC profile for B&W printing instead of

Piezography.

 

The only limitation of the iMac G4 compared to the Cube is that

you have only the one screen which is built in. 1024x768 is

enough for most work, but higher resolutions and more pixels

makes for higher productivity if you're going at it professionally.

Then I'd recommend a G4 Tower and 17" monitor as a baseline.

You'd get more performance there as a bonus, since the Tower

systems have higher bus speed than the iMac or Cube.

 

I have some doubts that the color calibration hardware is really

necessary until you get into professional calibre work. LCD

flatscreens have very limited adjustability anyway, Apple's "as

delivered" flatscreen profiles are generally about as good as you

can get and it can't be changed much.

 

Godfrey

[chris_hay]

I think Alex said it - if you drum scan 6x6 negs you can do work that will "rival traditional printing". Why go to all the trouble and expense of hopefully rivalling traditional? For your stated purpose, traditional is better, cheaper and much less time consuming. I work with the Mac stuff every day, and agree that if you want to dabble in digital you need a larger screen. If you want the best possible digital images, shoot digital in the first place. Scanning negs is a compromise, and your present equipment tells me you like quality. Unless you need to meet short deadlines for newspapers, catalogs or magazines, I recommend traditional for you. All that aside, the setup you have on your shopping list will work for you and it is satisfying to create in Photoshop. Best of luck with whatever you do.

[ellis_vener_photography]

hardware: very good, but I would budget for a second larger

monitor. You can apparently hook up a second monitor to the

new imac but my understanding is that it miirrors the built in

display.Still you'll want a larger monitor to accomodate the

photoshop tool palettes and your image at a decent size. it is

also my understandingthat be cause the iMAc monitor has the

color sync monitoring system built in , the Color Vision Spyder

w/ PhotoCal software will be redundant, as far as getting your

monitor neutral.<P>You will also want second and larger (like

80 Gb) Harddrive. Use one 10Gb partion as your primary scratch

disk (very important with Photoshop for keepingthe system from

bogging down) and use the other 70Gb partion for image

storage and backing up.<P>I would also get more RAM.<P>I

would look very hard at your need to scan medium format vs.

35mm. if you are shoot a lot of medium format than the

multi-scanner might be a good choice. But if you mostly shoot

35mm, get the Nikon Coolscan 4000.<P>If you are going to use

the piezo inksets you'll want a dedicated printer for ythat. it is

likely that the Epson and Piezo inksets are not chemically

compatible.<P>That is my analysis of your proposal. I would look

at getting a G4 tower --becauseof internal expandability--instead,

along with the larger monitor.

[ted_ylauan]

A Wacom Intuos 2 at least 6 X 8 would be a better graphics tablet

[carl smith]

I would suggest the switch to a CRT tower as well for a number of reasons.

<br><br>

1. Get a second hard drive for a scratch disk. Doesn't have to be anything big, but just put one in there.<br>

2. Two displays is good if you can afford it, one is survivable if its 19" or bigger. That's all I have right now.<br>

3. If you have the space, CRTs are cheaper and better for color critical work. that could drop your total cost by quite a bit.<br>

4. Wacom Intuos 2 6x8 USB is a must have. Don't be silly and get the graphire, its a toy (although a nice one) by comparison. I have the previous generation Intuos 6x8 USB and love it. I like the 6x8 size, I don't know if I'd want the next size up. You have to go and try the things out, because with the bigger surface you may be moving your had a whole lot further. depends on how you work<br><br>

Nobody knows if the 2200P will be any good. If its not leaps and bounds ahead of the 2000P in color gamut and the quality of solid blacks, I wouldn't bother.

[carl smith]

To expand on the scratch disk and HD deal. The ideal setup is three disks. System disk, storage disk, and scratch disk.

 

the System Disk is pretty straightfoward, big enough to hold all your programs. A big storage disk will always be nice for storing files and the files sure aren't getting any smaller as technology advances. The scratch disk is probably the most critical and difficult one to get to a high performance level. If you can have it on a separate channel from your other drives, then good. 10Gb is plenty for one.

 

Just to give you an idea, when I build a computer for editing, I'll have the three drives, probably a 40Gb, 80Gb and a 18Gb SCSI drive. The 40 is plenty for the programs, the 80 would be fine for me for storage, and the SCSI would make me happy because it wouldn't call on the processor as much to read and write the drive, so you're keeping more performance. That's if I were building it now, I don't know what will be around come next winter when I actually do it.

[pete_andrews]

Another anti- iMac vote here. I don't know if there's any improvement in the latest models, but IMHO the original iMac screen just wasn't big enough, or of high enough quality, to do any serious image editing.

[carl smith]

Did this become some sort of anti mac thread? or am I just lost?

 

William, if you've never used a Mac before, or prefer PCs, then get a PC. The same applies to macs. If you have no experience either way you've got quite a decision to make.

 

In PCs your options are the Pentium 3 or the Athlon, and nothing else if you really want it to work. Otherwise the rest of the system is pretty similar, although there are obviously many more options to confuse you with.

[jeffrey_abelson]

I would save the cash on the i-MAC (I mean i-toy) and put it into a killer PC - for the $1600 your getting on the entry level i-MAC (as opposed to the PowerPC G4) I'd have a PC set up that would blow the windows out of your house. I work on a photodesk, so we talk about this stuff all the time (we eat it for lunch), and even my techs admit that a Mac buys you nothing much but very pretty hardware (in real world usage): I have a 1.5 Ghz P4, 80 gigs of 7200rpm HD, CD-R burner, and a 21-inch Nokia with .21 pitch and a Epson 1280 - all which I got for well under $1600 (whcih includes a floppy drive) - running under 2000 professional. I know Mac nuts will decry me, but even the photoshop books I have claim both run the same on a PC or MAC- and Adobe releases PS for Windoze before Mac OS. With the extra money you'll save, you can buy more storage, a bigger monitor and, probably, a vacation for you and the wife...

[william_carter1]

Thanks for your responses. There's one thing I don't entirely understand. A couple people said that the ColorVision Spyder should be unnecessary because the i-mac screen has "limited adjustability" and is already about as good as you can get. But isn't the point of profiling your monitor to make sure that what you see on screen matches the final output? Isn't that what these "spyder" devices do -- create a profile for that monitor that other devices (like printers) can "read" to ensure that the printer produces exactly (OK, almost exactly) the colors you see on the screen?

 

Or is the point that the i-mac monitor already comes with a highly accurate "profile" that will be read by the printer anyway, so why bother with the spyder calibration? I guess (as an almost complete novice) I'm confused as to when you would ever use a monitor calibration package with a (good) LCD screen, if my understanding of the statements referred to is correct.

[paul_wilson2]

In response to Alex,

 

You're thinking of the wrong scanner. The Minolta Scan Multi Pro will scan 35mm at 4800 dpi and MF at 3200 dpi. It's essentially equivelent to the Nikon LS-8000 and the Polaroid SS120.

 

William, if you're used to a Mac then go for a Mac. However, the money you would spend on that i-Mac would buy you a PC with dual processors (I'd recommend a dual PIII 1.2G system) and a lot of ram and hard drive. I have nothing against Macs except the price.

[andreas_carl]

All of the advise above is excellent and the only thing I would add is that there are many possible setups, and that you do not need the absolute state-of-the-art to get satisfying results. I am using my old Pentium 200MMX computer (ouch... but it does run Windows XP and Photoshop 6), a $400 Epson 2450 for my MF slides, no monitor calibration software (after a few prints you will notice, if they tend to come out too contrasty, too light, too bluish and make the adjustments - plus I suspect that you will NEVER be able to EXACTLY match what's on the screen).

 

Even with such antiquated system, I am very happy and have no desire to set my feet into a traditional darkroom ever again. Eventually I will upgrade my components, but you may be surprised how far you can get with your existing equipment with out shelling out major $$$.

[kevin_kolosky]

William

 

I have been known to buy a fine art print or two, and to tell you the truth I wouldn't buy one that wasn't on silver based fiber paper.

Maybe the art market will change and you will be able to sell them from an epsom printer. I don't know. But I do know I wouln't buy one. good luck.

[bill_eadie1]

They iMac2 is not the right computer for your high end digital darkroom. Here's what I'd get:

1) Mac QuickSilver dual 800 Apple refurb. from Small dog Electronics $2300 (Very expandable)

2) 1.5 Gigs of ram $400 (Needed for big PS files.)

3) 22" Sony/ Mitsubishi/Nec Monitors $700, (Some of the best.)

4) Canon D60 $2200 (Where you'll end up, so why not start here?)

5) Canon 50 mm F1.4 lens $400 (Best low cost lens worthy of your D60)

6) Epson Perfection 2450 scanner $350 ( Read all reviews Google sniffs out to learn why and why not.)

7) Epson 2200 Printer $700/Canon S9000 $450 (Both have pluses, but S9000 has 3rd party continuous inking systems.) For $3000 you may find film scanning to be a time consuming, never quite getting it right, pain in the keester, but with the Epson 2450 you can find this out for only $400. You've bitten off a very big topic and because you're chosen to combine an iMac2 with a Minolta Multi Pro II, I think you may need to do more research. Reading all the digital topics in this Medium Format Forum should help. One conclusion emerging from Epson 1280-2000 users seems to be there's little difference in A3 prints from a Canon D60 and medium format scans. I'd hate to spend $3000 on a Minolta Multi Pro II to find this out. If you buy a Canon D60, keep it minty and save the box along with everything else, you should be able to prove this to yourself for almost no money at all with a little help from our eBay friends.

[bill_eadie1]

Just after writing the above post I found the following:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/d60.htm,

so I'm returning in a slightly chastened condition.

[rmi]

Your digital darkroom sounds perfect. I have the Minolta Dimage Scan Multi Pro and it is incredible!! You cannot buy a better scanner.

 

However, as others have said, the iMac screen is too small. the 17" G4 PowerBook would be better. Check out:

 

http://www.photo.net/gc/view-one?classified_ad_id=516197