Getting it all to work together - Minolta Scan Dual II, Cinepaint, Linux and a photo printer

[colin_morrison]

I'm trying to plan out in advance my complete photo editing/printing

system; I have a Minolta Scan Dual II, am about to receive a new

notebook based on an Athlon processor, and am considering photo

printers at the moment.

 

The photo-editing software I want to use is Cinepaint (formally known

as Film Gimp) because it is free (open source), works in 16

bit/channel modes - I found in the past that Photoshop's limitations

in bit depth to be a real problem with greyscale images - and works on

a variety of operating systems - sadly, Windows is not amongst those

at the moment.

 

A Mac OS X based system would cost a fortune, so I am considering a

Linux based system, which I have used before, and would like to again.

However, I am aware that printer support, especially for a recently

released printer, is patchy. This could effect my choice of printer -

I do want a very good one, if possible. Vuescan, as far as I know is

the preferred 3rd party scanning software, and has support for the

Scan Dual II, and is inexpensive, so this isn't an issue at least.

 

Is my avoidance of Windows going to cause me nothing but headaches? Or

is there a much simpler and cheaper way around this confusion? Is my

quest for maximum bit depth really worth it? I have considered a

dual-boot system, were I use one OS to scan, another to edit and then

back again to print, but I suspect this will simply drive me up the

wall; I'd especially appreciate any feedback from others who have

departed from the standard Windows/Mac-Photoshop route.

[bloosqr]

I use Linux on my laptop (and at work) as my primary "desktop".

Epson printing support is quite good while canon support is not.

Vuescan which is quite popular is developed and available on both

linux and windows. SCSI interfaces are very well supported. After

messing w/ gimp for about a year to be honest I broke down and use

photoshop over codeweavers crossover office. Verify that all the

hardware you want to buy works before you purchase it. The best way

is to (in addition to looking at your OS's hardware support page (aka

redhat) using google to look for mailing list/usenet posts for that

piece of hardware. Verify that firewire won't be an issue. SATA

support is nonexistant currently.

<p>

To be honest I'm thinking of going the mac route (my laptop is about

3 yrs old) because of the hardware headache. If you have a cheap pc

lying around it can't hurt to try it out and reformat for windows if

it doesn't work. Incidentally my understanding was photoshop SE fixes

many of the 16 bit issues?

[colin_morrison]

The scanner is USB, but I have read of others who successfully used it under Linux using Vuescan. The nice thing about Vuescan is that it has a free trial, so I can give it a go first before buying. My photoediting needs are not great - it mostly concerns correcting contrst, dodging and burning a little to correct exposure and removing the odd dust mark.

[lachaine]

Why not just a Windows system with Picture Window Pro? It will handle 48-bit files, it works very well, and it's inexpensive (with a free 30-day trial, full program).

[oskar_ojala]

Can't comment too much on a photo setup since I do most of my photo editing in Windows and use Linux for software development. However, USB tends to work quite decently, but you might have to be ready to make some tuning. Printing on a non-postscript can be painless or very painful - seems to depend on the tools provided. Everything you describe might go really well or there might be problems, so if possible I think it's best just to try it out and see how it goes. I've seen much mroe kinkier issues solved, so I don't think your particular setup should be too difficult to get working.

[ade rixon]

<p>Most Epson printers, even recent ones, are supported by <a href="http://gimp-print.sf.net">GIMP-Print</a>. HP have released their own inkjet driver for Linux (<a href="http://hpinkjet.sf.net">hpijs</a>). Only Canon is a dubious proposition. See the <a href="http://www.linuxprinting.org/">Linux Printing</a> site for more info.</p><p>You should consider running PhotoShop under the Crossover product. However, I don't know if this will address the colour calibration issues that are not easily solved under X Windows (although if you're mainly working on greyscale images, is this a problem?). I use the GIMP myself and am quite happy with it, but then I don't know what I'm missing with PhotoShop. (My secret for calibrating the colour is ...erm... I don't bother. Gasp at my shocking amateurism!)</p><p>You <em>may</em> be able to get all this working out of the box, but you'll stand a better chance if you're comfortable with building and installing software from source, and Unix in general.</p>

[filippo_giarratano]

I am skeptical that the difference between 8 bit and 16 bit will be detectable (for editing purposes) on a laptop's LCD screen or (for final-product purposes) on any photo printer that you're fitting within a limited budget. The "noise" both of these variables will bring into your process is orders of magnitude greater than the bit difference.

 

Not that that would stop me from trying anyway! I intend to explore CinePaint soon.

 

I regret nothing about my own move from Windows to Linux, and think that the rewards that come from climbing its steep learning curve are substantial. Nevertheless, converting to Linux doesn't sound like the easiest and best way to solve your present problem. If you don't have other motives for getting into Linux, you may be setting yourself up for frustration. I would be tempted in that case to stick with Windows, run The GIMP, and buy the best printer you can afford with the money you don't spend on PhotoShop and/or a Mac.

 

If you do have some additional motives to migrate, though, go for it! By the way, dual-booting is definitely the way to go; it can be a very helpful crutch while you're getting comfortable with Linux, and with a little work-flow adaptation you can be comfortable switching OSs to support hardware. My scanner lacks a Linux driver so I do all my scanning in Windows before starting my editing in Linux. It actually keeps me more disciplined and efficient, I think!

[colin_morrison]

I did want to switch to Linux anyway - Windows has been wearing thin on me for a while now, even the much better XP. One thread of my reasoning is that money saved on a Photoshop license would more than pay for an Epson 2100 (2200 outside Europe), currently the finest photo printer out there that I know of. I'm familiar with GIMP in any case, and the Cinepaint interface looks similar but much cleaner (in the brief moments it works in Windows before crashing). One other thing to mention is it's ability to shift between sequential images in a directory, which is perfect in the event of big batch scanning jobs.

 

I'll have to do some reading up on calibration, as it's something I'm amateur enough to be ignorant of.

 

I'm keeping a weather eye open for the release of Cinepaint 0.18-1, which hopefully will work in Windows, and give me the option of using either OS - it does raise the problem of choosing which version of Vuescan to purchase, though!

 

I have seen 0.18-5 available packaged as an RPM for the Mandrake Linux distribution - RPMs are a nice alternative to compiling software, and will suffice until I learn how. As previously mentioned, I can try it all out without spending a penny (printer not included, but the 2100 is a solid choice anyway), and revert to Windows if it isn't satisfactory. I have the trial version of Picture Window Pro downloaded, and I'll give it a go shortly. Thanks for all the opinion and advice so far.

[ade rixon]

I admire your grit. :-)You may want to look at GIMP v2, which is supposedly due out soon with many new features (early development releases are already available). Btw, NeatImage is supposed to run under the WINE emulator.You can use the VueScan licenses on any platform, so one key should be sufficient for both your Windows & Linux partitions.Picking a Linux distro currently isn't easy, with Red Hat in transition to a "community development" model, Mandrake in financial difficulties and SuSE just bought by Novell. I've used Red Hat for years myself, but Debian looks like the safest option right now.

[colin_morrison]

After a long trip, I've just resumed my research, and have made a few discoveries. The issue of calibration has suddenly become quite important, the reason being that I set up a Windows machine with Photoshop, using the standard OEM scanner software plus the Vuescan trial version side-by-side, all (except Vuescan) using a user-created ICM profile customised for the flat screen this setup uses. At a stroke, the profile solved a problem with a red cast the scanner always previously gave to scans (I had not previously known about calibration, and just fixed it in Photoshop.)

 

I'm currently researching if Vuescan can use this, or a similar profile, to produce similar results; comprehensive information on IT8 profiles (used by Vuescan Pro) is a little hard to find.

As it currently stands, I may well do the scanning in Windows, then do all the image processing on Cinepaint, on whatever OS it happens to run on. I have read elsewhere that the Histogram function, an essential function of any photo editing package, is not very good. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

This route would, incidentally, cost me absolutely nothing except the time to reboot to Linux, though with my growing mountain of slide film strips, the speed I can scan images is becoming more of an issue.

 

It appears that calibration can happen either at the scanning stage or at the point of importing the scan into the image processing software (where the scanner was using a standard profile which the photo editing software would recognise); the former is catered for by the OEM software and Vuescan (if I can find or create appropriate profiles for Vuescan in Windows or Linux) and the later is best catered for by Photoshop (which is not my preferred choice).

 

I also discovered that Photoshop v6.0 and on do handle 16-bit images fairly well, though more advanced functions are unavailable.

 

I'll keep looking and learning, but would appreciate commentary on any of my new observations. To clarify the film I shoot on, it's mostly Fuji slide film of various sorts, but I do have some B&W too, both chromogenic and regular (I intend to stick to chromogenic in future for B&W work, as I don't do my own processing)