margaret_s.

Bill, thanks for the heads up. I appreciate it. I'll check out the thread.<P>

Strange Man, thanks for the link. This gives me an idea now of what to expect and what I might want to do differently.

Bill, thanks for the input. I'm using AdobeRGB as my space. This project is very low budget, I don't have my own lights or any kind of studio equipment. This is literally making do with available lighting - so thank God for PS. Plus the ultimate result will be a composite of several photos and textures, which is why it's not that crucial that the original be "perfect", since it's going to be manipulated anyway. BUT I wanted to make sure that I would have an easy time scanning this film so that I can actually use the frames unlike many of my Velvia 50 slides that I can't scan because of too high contrast. I got some VC film too and I'll experiment with that as well. Some day I'll try the 160, but really would prefer to stick to 400 for speed right now, although I did think about taking a few shots with a flash. I can always darken it later if it's too bright. As for the Epson2200, it has a strong magenta cast and boosting the green doesn't always solve the problem. Blues come out purple and I'm always having to boost saturation because it prints with a lot less punch than the original. Every photo needs a different setting, so I haven't been successful with profiles. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, not sure. Anyway, thanks again for the helpful comments!<P>

Scott, thanks for the link. That's a great example for skin tones! <P>

Rafil, I think I'll want a lot less yellow but you're right, easy to fix in PS. I'm not so concerned with reddish tones since most of the final images will be quite dark. Thanks again!

Thank you everyone for your helpful answers!<P>

Les, the 5400 is my first scanner so I can't compare with anything else.. I like it overall, it does particularly well with Kodak negative film and Kodak E100VS slide film. Generally, it's horrible with Velvia 50 and Fuji Reala negative film!! I always underexpose Velvia, so it's especially hard to scan the slides! They scan VERY dark and if the slide has some very dark and very light sections, forget it. I end up having to scan 2 versions and combining them in PS otherwise either the details are lost in the dark sections or the lights are blown out. Maybe there's a way around this, I wish I knew! Overall, it's not bad.. but I can't say I'm 100% satisfied with it - about 70%.<P>

Andy & John: Thanks so much for the helpful tips! I'm going to experiment with/without filter and with/without overexposing and then scanning all versions before I actually do the real shoot. I actually want heavy shadows and warm light on only portions of my model's face and body - so we'll have to see if the overexposure helps or hinders the results. In any event, I'm thrilled to hear this film scans well with the 5400. The photos will be heavily manipulated in PS - a lot of overlapping layers to create specific artistic effects. So I guess maybe the tungsten filter may not be necessary since I can probably fix any yellow cast in PS.<P>Edward, thank you for your response and the link!<P>

Again, thank you all! Much appreciated.

I'm contemplating doing some portrait work using Kodak's Portra 400

UC film. I want good saturated colors and accurate skin tones.

Please keep in mind that I am a complete newbie to indoor portrait

work. I won't have access to a formal photo studio, but will be

working in a large room with regular spotlights from the ceiling.

Here are some concerns and questions:<P>

1. I am assuming that I should use an 80A Tungsten filter for all

shots to prevent the yellow cast? However, will this completely

remove any warmth from the photo? I want to create a warm glow in

the pictures for special effect, but I don't want that awful yellow

cast.<P>

2. How does Portra 400UC scan? I have a Minolta DiMAGE 5400 scanner

and have had good luck with Kodak Royal Gold films.. but that's not

the same.<P>

3. The final photo will be heavily manipulated in PS. I would like

to print my photos eventually on my Epson 2200. Will I need any

special profiles or can I just print this straight from PS with a

few minor adjustments? I know that for the most part, the Epson has

been a real pain for accurate color reproduction and I'm

particularly picky with getting the right skin tones.<P>

Thanks and sorry if some of these questions seem a little novice-

like. I appreciate any insight you can offer!

I joined this site so I could improve my photography, learn and be inspired. I also enjoy offering insight, to the extent of my abilities, on photos that prompt me to do so. As has been mentioned, ratings are only good to propel one to the top pages improving visibility and thus increasing one's chances to receive comments and more ratings but if you're not too popular or your images are just average, then you lose. I've experienced both ends of the spectrum. It's ironic because it's those photos (which never make it to the top 5-6 pages) that could use more comments so the photographer can improve. I personally would rather receive more comments and in particular <i>constructive criticism or insight</i> rather than drive-by ratings. It's a shame however that the system is set up in such a way that many images go by unnoticed. I have often to my great dismay come across some outstanding photos that never made it past 10 ratings. A real pity. <P>

Perhaps ratings of 3 and below should <i>require</i> a comment to go along with it and limited to paying members only, or members who have an active portfolio. After all, a "below average" photo merits an explanation or better yet, a suggestion to improve it. Certainly not a fool-proof system, but may discourage drive-by low ratings. I don't base myself on ratings, rather I enjoy when people suggest ways that I can improve my photos. I think many folks would too if only they had more visibility. In the meantime, I'll just keep shooting and hope that I keep getting comments so I can improve :-)

Stanley, I really can't answer the question about density as I am not an expert on this. However I can relate the following in my (short) experience of scanning with the Minolta. The Kodak Ektachrome E100VS scanned fairly close to original. ALL Fujichrome Velvia 50 slides scanned <i><B>much much</b></i> darker than the original. I had to make many adjustments but I found that the scanner seems to have trouble picking up the subtleties in the darker (denser?) areas of the exposed slide. I am losing detail in the shadows but more than anything, I seem to be losing the "brilliance" of the original slide. I can't quite get the perfect contrast ratios without either blowing out the whites or losing detail in the darker areas. For certain high contrast images, I've actually scanned the image twice at 2 different settings and then composited the properly exposed portions in Photoshop in an attempt to get around this problem. Now this could very well be due to my lack of expertise in using the scanner but it's a frustrating situation nonetheless. On the other hand, it might be impossible to exactly reproduce the image on the slide because I'm working with 2 different mediums. The other thing I found was that the reds don't reproduce well. My Velvia slides have this gorgeous deep intense bluish reds and the scan (at best) comes out with a rather boring shade of red and no amount of tweaking can get it to that exact shade on the original. Then there's the issue of sharpness. My slides are tack sharp and the scans are very soft even with spot focusing. I wish I knew how other folks manage to get such sharp images from their scanners. I can only presume I'm not doing something right.<P>I've decided to follow Leif's suggestion of creating my own scanner profile (see his thread above) to see if this improves the scanning results. I'll post feedback on this once I've tried it out. Bear in mind too that monitors will vary and I've literally recalibrated my monitor a few times in the last 2 months to get better results. All in all, this is a much more tedious process than I had anticipated but then again patience is not my forte ;-) Not to discourage you of course. As with anything else of this nature, there's a learning curve involved.

Mark, try this (it's not the best way but it works): Set your foreground or background color to black in your tools palette. Create a new layer, then using the Rectangular Marquee tool, draw your selection where you want the border to appear, then click on "Select -> Modify -> Border" from the tabs above and choose the width of the border you want. Next, click on "Edit -> Fill" and choose color and that's it. The only problem with this method is that one of the border lines ends up being lighter which is a real pain. A long time ago before I used Photoshop, Jasc's Paint Shop Pro allowed me to draw borders effortlessly with their software. Maybe there's an easier way in PS and I'm not aware of it!

Stanley, funny you mention this. I just scanned a couple of Ektachrome E100VS slides and the color/brightness were near perfect compared to the Velvia 50 slides. Both slides were slightly underexposed intentionally when shot, so I can only presume that there are huge variances in the film's emulsion. Yet I don't want to give up Velvia in favor of less headache in the scanning process. I have heard good things about Provia though and will give that a try.

Thank you all so much for your suggestions and answers. I went and tried them all (Leif, I haven't gone to coloraid.com yet or tried to create my own profile for Velvia 50 but I will). I even tried scanning color negatives to see what would happen. They all came out way too light! Go figure. Jonathan, I did end up recalibrating my monitor and that made a difference. I had it calibrated previously to match color output on my Epson 2200 but I think it was a little off relatively speaking. It's better now.

 

As for resolution, I'm scanning between 2700 and 5400 and 300dpi (for photos intended for print) depending on the purpose of the scanned photo. <P>

 

Here are the settings which ended up working for me: <P>

1. Setting "autoexposure for slides ON"<BR>

2. Setting "autofocus at scan"<BR>

3. Tweaking Master and RGB values under "Exposure Control" (This makes a huge difference!) Unfortunately, it doesn't work to use the same setting for all slides. One would think it's all relative and that it should work, but it doesn't. So I end up customizing the settings for each slide individually which is really tedious but until I figure out a better solution, this is the only thing that works.<BR>

4. Further corrections with the tone curves. This seems to really help bring out detail from the shadows without affecting image quality.<P>

 

I still had to tweak further in Photoshop such as unsharp mask and some color corrections but overall this process seemed to yield <i>much</i> better results than before. I'm still not getting the brilliance that's on the original slides and maybe that's impossible. I don't know. Also, the sharpness isn't there but I read somewhere that photonet compresses the images and they're already compressed when saved as JPG's, so that could be part of the problem.<P>

By the way Neil, I'm going to try shooting a roll of Provia 100 and see how that works. Thanks for the suggestion. (I suppose I could always go digital and save myself all this headache.. ;-)<P>

 

Again, HUGE thanks to everybody! You've been a great help!!<P>

Cheers, Margaret :-)

I haven't counted the number of prints I got but it's been a lot less than what Epson claims. Keeping in mind too that I've printed a lot of small "test prints" (3x5) to test for color matching, quality, etc.. and this eats up ink in the process. Once you've figured this part out though, it's not too bad. The light magenta, light cyan and yellow seem to go the fastest followed by light black, photo black and magenta. Also, you can go a lot farther than you think if you just keep printing even though the "less than 5% ink remaining" warning comes up. Someone told me that every time you change a cartridge, the printer wastes ink in the recharging process and all inks are affected. So if you can hold on and change 2 cartridges that are empty or almost empty, you can save a bit. It's more of a cumulative thing.<P>

 

Ebay occasionally has some good deals on Epson inks and papers so you can check there periodically. I'm on my 3rd cartridge of light magenta and this is after less than 100 prints however I've also been printing 10x14 prints at 2880 for prints that were intended for framing. Best of luck to you!

I just received my new Minolta 5400 scanner and after scanning 3

slides (Velvia 50) I'm ready to go back to the pro lab to have them

scanned! OK now that I've vented, onto specifics.. I downloaded a

trial version of Vuescan and found no significant difference in

using that software vs the Minolta Scan Utility. Here are my main

complaints: <P>

1. The scans are showing up <I><B>waaay</B></I> darker than the

original slides so I'm losing a lot of detail. When I try adjusting

the brightness/contrast, I get <i>some</i> improvement but nothing

compared to the original.<P>

 

2. The reds aren't properly reproduced. My slides show this deep,

intense blue-red and when scanned I get an ugly orangy tomato- red

color! Aaack! Adjusting the red via the color selector doesn't

produce acceptable results (or it screws up the other colors),

neither does fiddling around with PS post-scanning. The other colors

are also off but not as much as the reds.<P>

 

3. My slides are <I>tack-sharp</I> and the sharpness, brilliance and

contrast are completely lost in the scanning process! I end up with

a very soft looking image. I tried to do a manual focus but I don't

see a difference. Using the unsharp mask helps somewhat but I still

find the result unsatisfactory. I must be doing something wrong..

Anybody else encountering these problems??? Any suggestions/profiles

to use to get accurate results? If you want to see 2 of the photos I

scanned (and spent hours adjusting in PS and they're still not

right!) please click on my name and go to: Boats, Piers and

Harbours. Surely there must be an easier way?<P>

 

Thanks in advance for all your help. I'm sure I'm not the only

scanner-challenged soul here.

Thanks everyone for your input. My gut feelings have been confirmed by your responses. I'll skip the warranty and put the money to better use! Cheers!

I own the Epson 2200 (cannot speak for the Epson 2200p). I really love this printer. I find the quality is excellent for photos, especially on Premium Luster and Premium Semi-gloss papers (once you get past the learning curve that is... color management is a pain but once you figure it out, it's a dream) My only disappointment was that it does a lousy job printing on regular paper (i.e. non-photo paper), so it's really a dedicated photo printer.

Hi John,

 

I have the Martin Evening book and it covers just about everything you need to know (perhaps MORE than you need to know! LOL) It's highly technical but then again, it helps deepen your knowledge. I think it's a good book, but if you're looking for something more "hands-on" with lots of detailed examples and without all the theoretical details, you might be better off with another book. Hope this helps.

I've decided to purchase the Minolta DiMage 5400 scanner and this is

my first scanner purchase. The scanner comes with 90-day labor, 1-yr

parts warranty. Since I am not experienced with scanners (and their

breakdown record), can anyone let me know whether it's worth

investing an additional $199 for a 3-yr extended warranty? (The cost

of the scanner is already plenty so the additional warranty price is

a major stretch) I realize the Minolta is too new for most people to

assess whether it has a propensity towards mechanical/technical

problems but I'm assuming that film scanners in general probably are

either known or not known for being notorious repair candidates.

 

I have never gotten extended warranty on anything and never had any

problems but not being familiar with film scanners, I thought I

should ask. I should also state that my usage would be on the lower

end scale, probably a maximum of 20-36 slides/negatives per month if

that. Based on that, what do you think?

I had the same problem you did with my Epson 2200(US version of the 2100) and found the following solution after many hours of research and testing (and losing a few hairs ;-)

 

In Photoshop, select "Print with Preview" and then under "Print Space" choose Printer Color Management. You should see "AdobeRGB" under Source Space (Document: Adobe RGB 1998)

 

Then go to Printer Properties (Advanced) and choose "Color Controls", then go down to the colors and start by adjusting Yellow to +15 (since you have a heavy blue cast, you can balance that by increasing its color opposite which is yellow). Experiment by increasing or decreasing in 5-pt increments with the actual yellow setting until you get the desired result and then fine-tune. Everything else should remain as is (keep default settings)

 

As for the dullness of the colors, you can either boost the saturation in Photoshop or try boosting it under the Advanced settings and see if that helps.

 

If you absolutely prefer to go with "Epson Semigloss Photo profile" under "Print Space" then go with Intent: Perceptual. This works best for photos.

 

Good luck and let me know if this works for you.

I'm trying to print a cartoon design (mostly B&W with a few fills of

solid color - no gradients) on a CD jewel case insert with my Epson

2200. I currently have the Photo Black ink installed but I'm getting

a very "washed-out" black as opposed to a solid DARK black. As a

matter of fact, the colors are also kind of dull! I noticed that

when I tried printing on business-card paper stock (which is heavier

and thicker than CD jewel case insert paper stock) the black was

darker (and the colors also more vivid).

 

Would the Matte Black ink cartridge solve my problem by producing a

darker "pitch-black" black or does the problem lie elsewhere with

the paper absorbency level? Unfortunately, the paper stock for CD

Jewel cases and labels is standard so I can't change that. I need to

produce professional looking results as this is not for personal

use. The other alternative I thought of is using glossy paper for

the inserts but this paper is not Epson-brand so who knows what kind

of color reproduction I would get. Has anyone had any experience

with this?

 

Any suggestions would be greatly helpful. Thank you!

Thanks to everyone for their comments, insights and suggestions! OK, so it sounds like the Epson 2200 is a winner in terms of a photo printer. BUT there is one thing about this printer... I hear it eats up ink like crazy and that you can barely get 15-20 prints (13x19) out of it before you have to replace the inks (primarily the light cyan and light magenta). Have those of you who own this printer experienced this? This is a real deterrent as it can get expensive (not to mention a real hassle) I hear the Canons are much better that way without sacrificing print quality. So on this point, how long do the Canon S9000 prints <i>really</i> last? Is it really that bad? <p>

 

Oh and yes, Carl.. I think I'll wait for that Minolta scanner. If nothing else, the Canon and Nikons should have dropped a little in price by then like you say. Could make those very attractive..<p>

 

David, as for negatives vs slides.. I've experimented with negatives using the highest grade negative film money can buy and I just can't get the color saturation (even with a polarizer) that I can get with slides. I also want to get most of the saturation on film/slide and not through Photoshop. There are other major reasons too, but this is one of the main ones.<p>

 

Thanks again folks :)

I'm in the process of evaluating professional photo-quality printers

and slide/film scanners for the following reasons:

1. I have been shooting 35mm negative film forever but am taking the

plunge and switching to slides for higher quality results but I love

to look at actual prints often and the cost of printing from slides

at a pro lab would be prohibitive, so I want to scan the slides

myself and print out the ones I want on a good quality printer. (And

no, I don't want to switch to digital. I'm partial to my manual SLR!)

2. I want to print out enlargements (up to 12"x18") because I might

be selling some of my photos and I want to keep the cost reasonable.

3. I want to print all photos on high gloss paper.

 

So I need a printer that can produce excellent professional results

without having to take out a second mortgage :-) I've narrowed it

down to the Canon S9000 because I hear the Epson 2200 doesn't perform

as well on glossy paper. Only problem is that I've heard some mixed

reviews about the prints from the Canon having problems with color

fading. Is this true? I can't afford to have this problem if I'm

selling the prints. What other printers would you recommend for high

lab quality in this price range?

 

 

Second part of my question is scanners. Again, I want a high quality

scanner for 35mm film and slides (that have the dust-removing

feature). I have heard the Nikon LS-2000 (2700dpi), Nikon Coolscan IV-

ED (2900dpi) are both very good, but for a little bit extra I can

get the Canon PS4000US which scans at 4000dpi but is slow. I also

heard they are coming out with a 5900dpi scanner this summer (can't

remember which brand) which is reasonably priced and I could

certainly afford to wait a few months. Again, quality is a huge

consideration as I'm very picky about my photos but it has to be

reasonably priced too. (max $700)

 

Any recommendations and suggestions would be greatly appreciated!