Maximum usable resolution from old 35mm slides - type of scanner to use?

[mikeengles]

I recommend against compressed TIFF files. There seems to be no real consensus regarding TIFF compression, hence poor compatibility. Besides, 6 MP images aren't going to clog the system.

Hello

I accept what you say about compressed tiffs and size. I have used these kind of tiffs for nearly 30 years and have never had a problem. All the applications I have see then and use them as do Win 7 and Win 10.

They as far as I know use LZW, which is one of the oldest and most compatible form of data compression.

[digitaldog]

I recommend against compressed TIFF files. There seems to be no real consensus regarding TIFF compression, hence poor compatibility .

Unless you've got some really old software, there should be no problem with compressed TIFFs. But there's no free lunch; smaller in size for storage, slower to open and save:

http://digitaldog.net/files/TIFFvsPSD.pdf

TIFF and the compression options are openly formatted. If you run into issues, it's some software that's not doing something specified and that's a bad sign for the company not following how to properly handle this data.

[digitaldog]

I reached out to the Epson engineering team leader about the V600, optical resolution specified and indeed, it is optically 6400 dpi:

 

The V600 is 6400 dpi optical, but it is not one super high-end sensor. Like most modern scanners, it uses a stacked series of sensor elements to achieve the higher resolution. In this case, it is a 4-line sensor with each line a 1200 dpi sensor. The "nonsense" crowd will use line-pair tests to deduce the resolution of the individual sensors and cry "gotcha," but since this has been the hardware norm for a few decades, the ISO standard defines it for the purpose of specifications.

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

― Aldous Huxley

[AlanKlein]

I reached out to the Epson engineering team leader about the V600, optical resolution specified and indeed, it is optically 6400 dpi:

 

The V600 is 6400 dpi optical, but it is not one super high-end sensor. Like most modern scanners, it uses a stacked series of sensor elements to achieve the higher resolution. In this case, it is a 4-line sensor with each line a 1200 dpi sensor. The "nonsense" crowd will use line-pair tests to deduce the resolution of the individual sensors and cry "gotcha," but since this has been the hardware norm for a few decades, the ISO standard defines it for the purpose of specifications.

 

“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”

― Aldous Huxley

I've been scanning with my V600 my 6x7's at 2400, 16 bit, either Velvia 50 or Tmax 100. I get file sizes of 200mb+ with the Velvia which I save as tiffs. Regarding the 6400, some people have done tests and don't see any resolution higher than let's say 2400, maybe 3200. At least there's no discerning difference when comparing the results between 2400 or 3200 and the higher settings. So what's the real scoop on this? Is there a practical result that's better scanning at the higher 6400?

[digitaldog]

The scoop is explained based on their testing methodology. Doesn't change the facts of the optical resolution of the sensors.

[2Oceans]

Mike, I use a Nikon Coolscan 4000 and bulk feeder that I have owned for years since 2003-4. I bought the bulk feeder and have used it for batch converting large sets of slides for family and friends and now use Vuescan software to run it. I think the Vuescan is quite acceptable and has a infrared filter to remove dust. The Coolscan 4000 and its younger brother the Coolscan 5000 that has a little higher dynamic range have not been made for over 10 years. The bulk feeder always has been very hands on and requires constant attention. I used a c cell battery to provide additional weight to push the slides into the feeder. The straight stick cardboard slides would feed most of the time but my experience with plastic slides was not so great. I have a colleague who purchased a Coolscan 5000 and bulk feeder to batch scan his family collection of several thousand slides and then sold it for the same price he paid for it. If I had a collection to scan or even just a few I would strongly consider the simple Nikon ES-1. With respect to resolution the tightest grained film that I know of is Fuji Provia followed closely by Velvia. I could print 13X19 prints from a scan I had made using the Coolscan 4000 and I was quite happy with the detail however digital sensors on DSLRs from the last 10 year surpass my scans. I imagine you might get slightly higher res scan with an Imacon Flextight or even more from a Heidelberg scanner at a ridiculous cost but the Nikon ES-1 might provide what you need using a modern DSLR. Dust will be a problem since you don’t have a built in software solution but you could probably establish a good cleaning methodology and workflow and you could do well. On resolution you have to be satisfied with the technology of the day. Galen Rowell passed in August of 2002 and I believe that he was still using film. I had the privilege of seeing a collection of his work at the San Diego Museum of Natural History in Balboa Park in 2006. The images were taken with lightweight Nikon 35mm film cameras sometimes using cheap zoom lenses stopped down or good quality fixed focal length wide angle lenses that Galen liked because they were light weight. They were 24 inches or larger as their smaller dimension and at the time I was disappointed at resolution of these large prints and could easily see the breakdown in detail but from a proper viewing distance they were just fine. Galen used high end scanning technology. I was shooting a Fuji S2 6MP res with 12 MP interpolation and a Nikon D2x 12 MP camera. Both were APC sensors that in my mind show very good resolution that I liked better than film. So I think you may be disappointed with the best resolution but on the other hand 35mm film can IMHO be scanned into satisfying images if you accept the limitation of film. I have. I have never used a Plustech or Pacific Image scanner but they may be all you need and also provide dust removal software to boot. I would hope that they may be better than my Coolscan 4000. I have no experience with flat bed scanners using 35mm slides. Stay frosty.

[mikef7]

Thank you everyone for your many useful tips and notes. I am deeply into comparing the possible routes I might take. This is a work in progress, but if anyone wants to see, here are my thoughts at the moment:

• It might have been great to use a Nikon Coolscan 4000 (or better), but I don't want to deal with something long out of production that might need special parts or have dated-PC-driver surprises. It's a machine I've never dealt with. It seems to start at $300 on eBay (though the cheaper ones may be gorked or incomplete), up to $2000 for one on Amazon. Anyway - it seems out, relative to my feelings on other options.
  
• It seems clear that a DSLR setup is definitely a way to get high quality myself ... BUT I'd practically have to take up a new hobby (of DSLRs), including spending probably several thousand just to get started (a Nikon D810 sells for ~$2k without any lens or other accessories). It would force me to be awash in details like how to get images to my cloud account, how exactly to setup the focus etc. when I've never used an SLR (not since the 1980s). And past all that, there is no bulk feeder at all, as I understand it. It does seem like it can handle imaging the mounts, too, but that would be even more time for every one of the thousand slides.
  
• I am trying to grapple with whether the Epson V800 (or more likely V850) might be viable. It certainly seems like it will be better than the V600. But whether it's good enough to be worth doing everything all over again, I don't know. I will probably start another thread here asking about V800/850 vs V600. But not today.
  
• I'm going to call a few slide services (thanks @AlanKlein), to cover all bases. I see where DigMyPics can do 4000 dpi on a Nikon Coolscan 9000, for 69 cents each. At $690 for a thousand slides, it would be cheaper than even a V800 (and probably better quality, even if the operator doesn't pay complete attention). But I don't know if they can do things like scan the mounts, too ... maybe I will just do those by hand. Which my existing V600 can do fine; heck, 600 dpi or even 300 is enough just to see the mounts themselves, and any notes and exposure dates and numbers, on the mounts. I could just lay a bunch of slides flat on the 11" x 8.5", then turn them over, then crop them apart and stitch the halves together. I can get 4 x 6 = 24 slides on the flatbed. (I already numbered all slides' mounts in pencil by hand, so there shouldn't be any mix-ups, if I do it carefully... And the service follows my slide numbers, which they pledge to do on their site.)
  

To quote @andylynn's quote, “Good, cheap or fast? You can pick two.” - seems very appropriate!

 

I hope I don't seem to be shutting anyone out. I really appreciate everyone's ideas here. But I have to pick something that is neither an ungodly amount of money or of time. And at 60 years old, I am trying very hard to not pick up entirely new avocations. Instead, I'm trying to finish the hundreds of projects I've already started, lol ... like scanning the old family slides.

 

A couple of other notes:

• Thanks for getting that info from Epson on the V600's sensor, @digitaldog. While I don't understand it all, I think it supports my personal observation that I noticed clarity improvement going from 1200 to 2400 dpi, but anything higher turned into a questionable muck where it wasn't clear that there was any improvement. To me, that means it wasn't enough to matter. (It also means my practical max resolution on the V600 was somewhere between 1200 and 2400, but I didn't try to test just where.)
  
• I saw a fascinating YouTube by Geoffrey Byers on
  . In particular, it showed his DSLR result directly compared to an Epson V700 at 4800 dpi (compare the video at times 4:13 and 4:27), and the DSLR was impressive ... incredibly, it even showed individual fibers in the clothes of someone a few feet away (but the V700 didn't). (This also makes me wonder whether the V800/850 will really be worth it, to scan everything again. It's my understanding that it's just an incremental improvement of the V700.)
  
• The idea of scanning the slide mounts separately was from another thread (where I also flailed around). Thanks @AJG and @Robin Smith!
  

Anyway ... thanks again, all. I'll keep thinking it through.

[wgpinc]

Scanning large numbers of slides is the pits. I've done it with my Minolta Dimage Scan Elite. Give yourself a break and send your slides to Arizona WWW digmypics dot com. Happiness!

[AlanKlein]

Here's a video from my 35mm Ektachrome slides in mounts taken 30 years ago and scanned with my V600 at 2400. Looks great on a 75" TV.

 

You can see the stills and some other 35mm slide shots including Kodachromes taken back them on my Flickr page. I'm not suggesting you do your own scanning. Just trying to show what I did with mine to help you decide what you should do.

[AlanKlein]

PS Set it for 1080 using the Youtube setting.

[mikef7]

Here's a video from my 35mm Ektachrome slides in mounts taken 30 years ago and scanned with my V600 at 2400. Looks great on a 75" TV.

 

Alan, those are really great.

 

Here's an example of pretty good detail from one of mine... I didn't spend much time looking for a great slide (for clarity of resolution), but I did avoid sucky ones (which could have happened for any number of reasons, such as camera movement).

 

Click on it to enlarge. It's 3425 x 2385 at 2400 dpi on my V600.

 

 

How'd you get around the issue of the Epson software automatically cutting off the top of slide images sometimes? (see my OP if not familiar with this issue - it's why all mine have large borders)

[glen_h]

For most films, Kodak runs the MTF graph out to about 80 cycles/mm (often called lines/mm). That converts to about 4000dpi.

(There is a factor of two that comes from the Nyquist sampling theorem.)

 

Unlike with many digital systems, the resolution (MTF) falls of slowly, so there isn't a sharp cutoff,

but 4000dpi is probably not bad.

 

To get that onto the film, you need a pretty good lens, and accurately focused.

 

To get it out with a scanner, again you need a good lens and well focused.

 

As above, if you get 2000dpi, you have more of what is there, for most uses.

[mikef7]

thanks @glen_h and everyone here ...

 

@AlanKlein did you address the question of V600 software cutting off the tops of slide images? Perhaps you didn't know about it, or perhaps you monitored results and it wasn't any sort of problem for you?

[glen_h]

Many slide mounts have slightly rounded corners around the film.

 

If you scan the full size of the image, then black rounded corners will appear.

 

Otherwise, you can crop the edges and avoid the round corners.

 

I don't know that any scanning software does either automatically as well as one might like.

Many scanners, especially flatbed, require you to select the desired scan region for each one.

[glen_h]

 

 

This is VPL120 through a Type F color correction filter using a Brownie 2-F.

Scanned 800dpi on a 2.25x3.25in negative. I suspect the lens isn't best for full resolution.

[httpswww.markpetrick.co]

For a "few hundred dollars," the Epson V600 is as good as it gets. You can set up a default crop and apply it to all images. It's best to exclude the slide mount or film borders to get the best exposure and rendering.

 

It takes 3000 to 4000 ppi to resolve dye clouds in color film. The total resolution can't be any better than that. 4000 ppi represents 24 MP per image, or about 72 MB per TIFF image. JPEGs are okay for derived images, but TIFF is better for the master, especially if you need to adjust the exposure and color.

 

The de facto standard for home scanning is probably a Nikon Coolscan LS-4000 or LS-5000 (35 mm slides and negatives). They haven't been made for 5 years or so, but are available, used, for $1000 or so. Make sure you get the film holders, which can get very expensive and hard to find on the open market. It takes about 2 hours to scan a roll of film, assuming 36 slides or frames. Judge for yourself how many days, months or years it will take to complete your project.

 

Your local photo store or photo center and produce postcard-quality scans quickly and cheaply. The resolution is good enough for social media, but the colors are generally off the wall gaudy. High resolution, high quality scans can cost $15/frame and up.

 

IMO, the best solution is a DSLR or MILC camera with a macro lens capable of 1:1 magnification (0.75 resolution for APS-C), and a slide/film holder like a Nikon ES-2. You can scan 5-10 rolls an hour, with film-scanner quality. I have a Nikon LS-4000 and LS-8000 (medium format) scanner, but choose to use a camera instead. The setup is compsct and rigid, so no tripod or special support is needed. I use a desk lamp with an LED screw-base daylight bulb for a light source.

 

Sony A7ii + Nikon F lens adapter + Nikon PX-13 extension tube (for 1:1) + Nikon 55/2.8 Macro + Nikon ES-1 (shown) or ES-2 film holder.

[httpswww.markpetrick.co]

Hi Ed, I've been looking for an experienced user of the Nikon 8000 scanner and Silverfast and you seem to be a good candidate. I am trying to scan 6x6 b/w negs on my old Nikon 8000 with Silverfast v8. Most of the scanning process with Silverfast I understand. But, I don't understand how to prescan the entire strip of film (3 frames) and then select the frame that I want to scan. I'm using the Nikon FH-869G glass negative holder. When I insert the holder and run a prescan the preview only shows the first third of the negative. How do I get the prescan to do the entire strip? Thanks in advance for your help.

[Ed_Ingold]

I'm flying blind. My scanner is not set up and the computer I use with it is not operational.

 

Make sure you have the frame size set correctly. You may be looking for thumbnails at first. Previews are nearly a complete scan, once you have set a frame up on the thumbnail page.

 

That's about all I can suggest at this point. You should consult the LaserSoft website for detailed information, and/or contact their help desk.

[AlanKlein]

thanks @glen_h and everyone here ...

 

@AlanKlein did you address the question of V600 software cutting off the tops of slide images? Perhaps you didn't know about it, or perhaps you monitored results and it wasn't any sort of problem for you?

I don't recall when I scanned them whether I used auto select for cropping. But if you're having problems with auto, you can select the cropping size by using the "marquee" settings. Check the manual for instructions. Be careful though. If you use auto color control, you'll be selecting the cardboard of the slide holder which will fool the auto control. Scan flat with No COlor Correction in COnfigurations. Or set the marquee so you only get the photo and not the cardboard holder. Also, the scuba slide show was done with Auto color correction. If you look at it again, you'll see a lot of clipped highlights, many of which were done by the auto scans. I now scan flat and maybe set the Levels only so not to clip.

[AlanKlein]

Alan, those are really great.

 

Here's an example of pretty good detail from one of mine... I didn't spend much time looking for a great slide (for clarity of resolution), but I did avoid sucky ones (which could have happened for any number of reasons, such as camera movement).

 

Click on it to enlarge. It's 3425 x 2385 at 2400 dpi on my V600.

 

[ATTACH]1308947[/ATTACH]

 

How'd you get around the issue of the Epson software automatically cutting off the top of slide images sometimes? (see my OP if not familiar with this issue - it's why all mine have large borders)

Thanks for your comments. It's nice to get an "atta boy".

 

Nice scan. Very clear. Of course you need to level it. Also, take the time to spot or clone out the dust spots. You only have to do it once. It will make the end results look so much better and more professional. PS: I used Adobe Premiere Elements to do the video. It's pretty cheap, powerful, and you buy it forever. None of their monthly charges. The thing I like is they have a forum where experienced Adobe Premiere reps are really helpful explaining things. I'm using it also for 4K digital video which I "publish" so I can show it on my 4K UHDTV. Great stuff.

[RaymondC]

As others have mentioned there are better scanners given your quality needs. However even 10 or 20yrs ago, while dedicated were available in stores to purchase. Most of the high street film digitising services were not using dedicated quality scanners. They were available but many were more specialised outlets.

 

Like now many places provide film scanning thru their Fuji Frontier machines.

 

If you don't want the round black border frame - using the Epson software under Preview Window - Normal. Draw your own marque square around the frame of the photo. You can also press the zoom button to assist you.

[glen_h]

(snip)

 

If you don't want the round black border frame - using the Epson software under Preview Window - Normal. Draw your own marque square around the frame of the photo. You can also press the zoom button to assist you.

 

Yes, but for most scanners, you have to do it individually for each one.

It takes some concentration to get it right.

 

Well, recently I was using an Epson 3200 with OS X's Image Capture.

 

You do preview and then select the scan area for each one.

They were 110 negatives, so pretty small, and not so easy to select the frame

for each one. Easy to miss by a millimeter or two, which is a big part of a 110

negative.

 

Some scan software will automatically select a frame, with a few choices such

that it includes the black border, or not.

[RaymondC]

Yes, but for most scanners, you have to do it individually for each one.

It takes some concentration to get it right.

 

 

 

Some scan software will automatically select a frame, with a few choices such

that it includes the black border, or not.

 

In all practical purposes just crop in photo editing software then.

 

The Epson software and others allow you to auto select the frame yep. In the preview Window it is called "thumbnails", does not always work though but it is a automatic huge time saver. When it doesn't work I need to manually draw the marque square for the first frame, then hit duplicate and move the square to the 2nd frame, the 3rd, the 4th, the 5th .... the 24th and then select all and hit scan. Time consuming yes ...

[glen_h]

In all practical purposes just crop in photo editing software then.

 

The Epson software and others allow you to auto select the frame yep. In the preview Window it is called "thumbnails", does not always work though but it is a automatic huge time saver. When it doesn't work I need to manually draw the marque square for the first frame, then hit duplicate and move the square to the 2nd frame, the 3rd, the 4th, the 5th .... the 24th and then select all and hit scan. Time consuming yes ...

 

I should try it from Windows, and see how it works.

 

In OS X, it uses the OS X program Image Capture through the Epson Twain driver.

The selection and such is done from Image Capture.

 

I have a few other scanners, and all work differently.

 

I have a ScanDual IV, which works pretty well, but needs Win2000 or XP, which I do have

on one (or two) computers.

[RaymondC]

I should try it from Windows, and see how it works.

 

In OS X, it uses the OS X program Image Capture through the Epson Twain driver.

The selection and such is done from Image Capture.

 

I have a few other scanners, and all work differently.

 

I have a ScanDual IV, which works pretty well, but needs Win2000 or XP, which I do have

on one (or two) computers.

 

Oh I see, so with Apple you don't have Epson Scan software?