Film scanner and output

[warren_spicer]

I'm in the process of making two credital decisions, and was hoping

for some imput/advice.

 

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I do not have a wet darkroom now, and with a totler at home I don't

have the large blocks of time to get back into one. I want to produce

digital prints that will be consistant with traditional prints from

the same film/developer combinations. I primarily shoot Tri-X and

process in Rodinal, and I like to print to 11x14.

 

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Film Scanners - I have heard that if you shoot fast film (Tri-X, Tmax

3200) a 2700 dpi scanner will have proplems with the grain, and only

at 4000 dpi or greater can you actually reproduce the grain.

 

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I am considering these scanners:

 

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Minolta Scan Elite - if I go with 2700 dpi and have to suttle for a

different look then my traditional prints, I want the Digital ICE

feature to work with my b&w negs (ICE supposedly does with Minota's

version, but not with Nikon's).

 

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Polaroid Sprintscan - 4000 dpi if it truely can reproduce the grain.

 

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Microtek - they make the Polaroid Sprintscan. Does anyone know if

Microtek saved some proprietary goodies for it's own scanner?

 

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Printer:

 

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Epson 1200 or 3000 with Quadtone inks as a dedicated b&w printer. Are

there advantages to one over the other? Should I consider another b&w

printer?

 

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Epson 2000P as an all around printer (I've read that the 1270 has an

orange casting problem).

[kl_prager2]

Hi Warren,

I'm also planning to set up a digital darkroom, am interested in some

of the same equipment and have some of the same concerns. You may

want to refer to http://www.photographyreview.com/ and to see what

other photographers experiences have been with regard to the specific

equipment you've mentioned. I'm leaning towards the Microtek 4000 w/

Epson 1200 for B&W and 2000P for Color, but this may change by the

time I actually set up. Let us know how it goes for you!

[mark_wrathall1]

Warren - I went through this process six months ago when my daughter

was born. I could only afford the Minolta Dual Scan and only needed

A4 so I got the Epson 870.

 

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I can't really comment on the scanners, except to take a good look at

which one has the best (fastest) batch scanning. It takes me about

two hours to scan in a 36 exposure roll and make a proof sheet (I use

Hammick Vuescan). If it was convenient, I would skip this and make a

chemical proof sheet. For the this reason the Kodak 3600dpi scanner

with the ablity to scan a whole roll my be interesting.

A flat bed scanner with an 8x10 slide attachment would be a huge time

saver.

 

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My scanner doesn't have ICE. Computors are the worlds best dust

magnets. If you can afford it, get ICE.

 

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The Dual scan is a 10 bit device, and doesn't do a great job with

slides, tending to blow out the highlights. It seems well matched to

T400CN and T-max 100.

 

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The 870 (and thus the 1270) are great general purpose printers. My

wife uses it a lot to do normal office stuff. The reviews of the

2000P would indicate that this printer is not general purpose. I have

experienced the cyan ink fading with a reject print I left lying on

the floor for a couple of days. The prints in my albums are still

fine after 5 months. Matt paper photos on my wall above my computor

at work are fine after 3+ months. I wouldn't sell output from this

printer, but the <a href="http://members.aon.at/wrathall/">wedding

album</a> (I wasn't the main Photographer) I printed on matt paper

for friends has been fine. I feel I can live with this printer's

flawed inkset.

 

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I have been tempted to buy a 750 to try the quadtone ink, but don't

have space (we will soon have to move the computor out of the babies

room). I feel I have a reasonable color correction to get a near B&W

on matt paper with the 870 (default is rather ugly cyan on mine), but

I haven't had the time to experiment to get a decent B&W on the PPGP.

 

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I really don't like color. Too many Varíables, and only want to print

the best photos I shoot, but If you wife is anything like mine, you

end up playing minilab printing flawed baby photo's in color :)

[michael_darnton1]

Several years ago, I did much what you're considering, but for me it

involved throwing out my darkroom. I've got an HP Photosmart scanner

and it's worked fine for me--probably most people will tend to say

that what they're using, if they think it's working, is the best,

having no experience with anything else. . . . but I think the leaders

right now seem to be the Polaroid scanner (but not with the Polaroid

software, for B&W, at least), and Kodak's similar one.

 

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If all you want to do is B&W, then the 1200 isn't the right

printer--the printer of choice at the moment for this stuff is the

1160 (or the more expensive 3000). You should go to the

piezography.com site and check out what they offer--it's the system

used by really hardcore B&W people. I've also used the MIS quad inks

in my 1160, and prefer the tone of their inks to the piezography inks,

but the piezography quality is better, as you can see on their site

(and they're currently working on a different/better colored inkset).

 

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The piezography3000 forum at egroups.com will give you a lot of info

on the piezo system, if you bear in mind that it's the place to go

with problems, so you'll read a lot of negative stuff that might not

be representative of the average experience.

 

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For color, you might want to get a 1200 and use the Piezography Color

system, if it ever shows up.

[mark_wrathall1]

Micheal, did you go through the photoshop separation workflow

recommended by MIS to send the individual inks the layers which they

need? The MIS site indicates that this is required to avoid the Epson

driver laing down inks which it thinks are still color, and will

deliver results similar to the Piezo process at a much lower price.

[michael_darnton1]

They hadn't published that workflow when I was using MIS inks, and

when I last looked for it, after someone mentioned it, I couldn't find

it (though I just now looked, and did).

 

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The following comments are from someone, therefore, who hasn't tried

the MIS workflow with MIS inks:

 

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Be aware that the Epson printer driver is an RGB driver, so any

separation you do to CMYK in Photoshop gets converted to RGB for

printing, which in theory undoes much of your fancy separation and

curves, putting things back together mostly as they were before. The

Epson driver will still use black ink pretty much as it pleases,

whenever it wants, in whatever range of the grey scale, which is one

part of the problem that can't be corrected in RGB. Also, below a

certain black level the Epson driver defaults to 100% ink (this is so

type and such print totally black), which results in solid black

clogged islands of ink in shadow areas--once you realize it, it's

pretty irritating, and the Piezo system has a succulent bottom end

that I doubt (well, OK, I completely disbelieve :-) MIS matches. As if

that wasn't enough, the Piezo driver does print a dotless image, by

independently driving the printer head to a higher resolution 50%

higher than the Epson driver, and the MIS workflow can't do that.

 

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At least in theory, the only way to really solve the separation

problems is to use a CMYK driver in place of the Epson RBG driver, and

I believe some people have done this with some quite expensive

aftermarket programs developed for the printing industry, such as the

recently discontinued Pressready.

 

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All that said, I found the prints I made with the MIS inks completely

adequate under normal viewing conditions--the differences only pop up

with a magnifier. If you're printing on glossy papers, the Piezo

inks look exceptionally cruddy, because they're pigment

based and developed for the fine arts crowd to print on

watercolor papers--that's one place where MIS looks a LOT better. If,

however, you really are trying to hide that you're using digital

processes, I think the Piezo system is the only real way to do it.

[mark_wrathall1]

Thanks Micheal. I haven't tried either system, and am interested in a

better B&W than the 870 is giving.

[michael_darnton1]

When I was using an Epson 600 for B&W I finally arrived at a color

compromise that worked for me. The Epson (and all other color inks,

for that matter) change color under different lighting. Printing color

you really don't notice this. When the results are supposed to be

neutral, however, it's much more obvious. I finally gave up trying to

print neutral, and tweaked the color balance in the printer driver to

give me B&W prints which looked in daylight as if they'd been selenium

toned (dark red/purple brown), and pretty neutral under incandescents.

I don't remember the exact correction, but I think it was something on

the order of [advanced/more settings] +5 magenta and +7 yellow. This

prevented the prints from looking that ugly green that Epson B&W

prints appear to be under some lightings. With the fine grain pattern

of the 870/1270 (relative to the 600), you might not even see the

colored dots that make up the image, and this could work to make nicer

prints than you've been getting.

[mark_wrathall]

WIth my 870 I have found that the color cast is not linear enough to

just add +x Magenta and -y Cyan in the printer driver.

 

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Once I am happy with the B&W picture in Photoshop, my last step is an

action to convert the image to RGB and then add differnt corrections

to the highlights, mid tones and shadows. The results on the Epson

Matt paper are pretty good but not completely neutral. I read on one

of the "Expert" sites that color profiling to get perfect repeatable

tones for the 870/1270 is not possible.

 

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I have a group of Framed B&W pictures on the wall printed on the

Epson and at least three conventional B&W papers. The Epson print

color is within the variation of the other three papers.

 

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For that you need MIS or Peizo inksets and an older printer without

the cartidge chip.

[michael_darnton1]

What I'm referring to isn't a cast--it's color shifts with different

light sources. As such, it's impossible to "correct", since it

changes with the quality of the viewing light. That's why I went

overboard in a direction that I liked the resulting color. You won't

get very far correcting the color, because that's not the problem.

[kl_prager2]

Hi mark & Michael,

 

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Since you're both apparently quite experienced with digital darkroom

equipment, I'm wondering what equipment (scanner & printer)you would

recommend to someone who's not particularly computer savvy.

 

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I use both B&W and color print film in both 35 and 120 (mostly 35

these days). I want to set up a digital archive of my better images

and be able to produce good quality proof prints to 11x14 (although

initially I might be satisfied w/ 8x10).

 

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I'd like to keep things as simple as possible and can see setting

myself up incrementally by getting a scanner for 35 to start (MF

later) and 1 printer to do both B&W and color, then add a second

printer later. By the time I know what I'm doing, the technology may

well continue to change. Ease of use is very important to me at this

stage! Your comments will be greatly appreciated.

[michael_darnton1]

When you put color into the equation, I fall out--I don't do any, and

my whole setup is based on B&W. Maybe the Epson 2000 would be a good

choice--I think the 870/1270 is a bad choice at this point, based on

the reliability of its color stability. Maybe some people can live

with the idea that you never know when a print will blow up, but I

can't.

 

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As for 35+120--there are a lot of good 35mm scanners, but the larger

format ones I'm familiar with don't handle 35mm too efficiently or

well, so I think your idea of starting with 35mm is good--maybe by

the time you want to scan larger film there'll be more choices. I set

up a digital lab for someone a couple of years ago and used a $2500

flatbed that also scans film--now that scanner is MUCH cheaper. But

still no good for 35mm--and frankly, it's not that good for 4x5 and

120 either--I think waiting is good, in this situation.

[msitaraman]

Nikon is coming out with what appear to be state of the art desktop

film 35mm and 120 film scanners in about 6-8 weeks.

 

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Look here for information.

 

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http://www.dpreview.com/news/0101/01010901nikonscanners.asp

[kl_prager2]

Michael and Mani,

 

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Thanks for the feedback!

[mark_wrathall1]

K.L. Not being computor savy is not a show stopper for digital work

as most scanenrs and Epson computors are basically plug and pray.

Photoshop is also easy enough to learn from tutorials and books.

There is a definate rather steep learning curve, but is is more the

learning of the Graphic designer role than the computor role.

[warren_spicer]

Hello All,

 

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Thanks for the great advice. This is where I am at thus far:

 

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Printer - definately getting the Epson 1160 (same printing head as the

3000 at 1/5 the cost), and I'll try the Cone Piezography quad inks.

Today I spoke to an Epson representative at MacWorld Expo, and he

informed me of the identical printing heads and that the 1160/Piezo is

b&w state of the art for moderate volumn up to 13" wide.

 

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Scanner - still a tough one. I will have test scans done today on

both the new Nikons (2900dpi and 4000dpi) and the Kodak (3600dpi).

I'm leaning toward the higher dpi (3600+) so I can output up to 12"

wide prints at 300 dpi without spreading out the pixels. My big

issues are now density range, noise and batch scanning.

 

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Kodak's 3600dpi scanner ($1100) cliams 3.6 density is more then enough

to "see" everything on film. Kodak also has the ability to feed roll

film - best batch scanning ability I've seen. Noise might be an

issue, Kodak does not have multipass scanning, but says there scan

progresses real slowly and that eliminates noise. They also claim

that multipass scanning means interpolation which means a less

accurate scan.

 

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Nikon claims 4.2 density with their new 4000dpi scanner ($1700 sug.

retail). I've seen the last generation of Nikon scanner criticized

for noise, but solved by multipass scanning. Nikon has digital ICE,

but they say it does not work on silver halide film (and niether

should Minolta's Scan Elite). You can batch scan only six frames at a

time, or pay another $500 for a roll film adapter. That's $2200

total. If all the specs matter, Nikon has just raised the bar for

desktop color film/transparency scanners, but I'm not sure if that

holds true for silver halide film and budgetary concerns.

 

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What are the best test negatives and transparencies? Dense or thin

[kl_prager2]

Hi Warren:

 

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Have you heard if the 1160 is good for both color and B&W? How does

the 1160 differ from the 1200? Are there any other comments you have

about why you chose the 1160?

 

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Thanks,

 

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Ken

[warren_spicer]

Ken,

 

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I began focusing on the 3000 as the most likely b&w dedicated printer

using the Cone Piezography Quadtone inks because that is the printer

they use at Cone's studio. On other bulletin boards I have

consistantly read high praise for the combination. Because of this,

the 1200 fell out of favor. I know the 1200 is a good Quadtone

printer, but I haven't found any consistant "hands down" this is the

printer to consider threads. The 1160 is under $200 refurbished ($300

new), it is not currently being produced but is available online

(check out a price search engine). The Epson Rep I spoke to said the

1160 and 3000 have exactly the same quality output (the 3000 being the

workhorse). The 3000 ($900 refurbished, $1100 new) may be worth it if

your doing 50 prints a day, everyday.

 

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If you know more about the 1200 over the 1160 or 3000, pleas

[warren_spicer]

Ken,

 

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About color output...two dedicated printers (b&w and 6 color) is the

best way to go.

 

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If Epson has solved the ozone problem with their cyan ink (can create

an orange cast within days) then the 1270 at $450 must be considered.

If they have not, then I wouldn't roll the dice with every print.

This problem is specific to the 1270, and when resolved the prints

should last up to 25 years.

 

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My choice for color is the Epson 2000p ($800-900). Archival to 100+

years on their matte paper, and subjectively speaking produces a finer

print then the 1270 with the same image file. In my opinion, the 1270

is like Velvia and the 2000p is like Kodachrome. The 1270 is

punchier, and has more enherent contrast, but lacks the subtle

gradations produced by the 2000p. I'm a young man, and I want my

prints to outlive me. The 2000p is a more delicate print and is prone

to scratches, so it is not for making images to be passed around -

[kl_prager2]

Hi Warren,

Thanks for comments. I appreciate the explanation as I'll be building

my own setup in a few months. I haven't done very much research yet,

but I think you're probably right about 2 dedicated printers, 1 each

for B&W and color. Take care and please let us know how your system

evolves!

 

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Ken