phil_g1

I've had this problem several times when scanning high contrast photos from e-6 film. I

believe this is a function of the light source bleeding through the bright area as the scanning

head is passing the dark area causing the halo area. Fireworks were most notable for me, as

I not only had a single bright area, I had a prism-like effect from it. Unfortunately, no matter

how I scanned, I couldn't get ride of the problem - even using scanners from two different

manufacturers. While one scanner, the Canon FS-4000, showed the flaring to a lesser

degree, the loss in shadow detail capture in normal slide scans and increased noise were

enough for me to move to another scanner and relegate the Canon to backup.

<p>After much trial and error on my part, I've settled on WHCC in Minnesota for my work.

They ship out UPS and are very quick on processing orders. In addition, you are not

relegated to using sRGB as your color profile since, as long as you've properly tagged your

image, they will use the profile you've done your editing in and convert it to the printer

profile at printing time.</p> <p>I'm not sure how you feel about particular papers, but

WHCC is switching from Fuji Professional Crystal Archive to Kodak Supra Endura

Professional paper as of Feb 3, 2006. Also, if you're working on various shoots and want

to use image management software (like ordering wedding packages) they support

LabPrints for printing purposes.</p><p>All in all, I've been very pleased with the change-

over I made from local labs to their services.</p>

<p>Below is the image to which I was speaking.</p>

<p>I will contact WHCC to see if there was a problem with printing, since when looking at the histogram, the white point is slightly clipped but the image doesn't have many bright colors. The green background and on the parrot went to nearly black in printing and his head went to only slightly above medium gray.</p><div></div>

<p>I'm not sure if the problem I'm having is the same as yours, but I have found that prints I get back from WHCC have been darker than what I see on my LCD (Samsung SyncMaster 191T+). For example, I shot what I hoped would be a low key image of my parrot and it looked great, on screen. When I received the print, it was certainly low key... My parrots head is white (White Capped Pionus) and printed slightly higher than medium gray.</p>

<p>Relating my question to the original one, is it possible that the difference in brightness is associated with the incredible brightness difference between what an LCD can display versus a CRT or the reflected light a print can show? Following that, would using a calibrator such as the Spyder 2 correct for that inconsistency?</p>

<p>Don't get me wrong, I like the brightness and clarity of the LCD display, but want, ultimately, to correct the brightness so my prints have the same lightness as the display. From what I can tell, there are no apparent casts, but that might be related to the brightness differences.</p><p>Thank you!</p>

<p>According to an email I received from MPix, they believe only 200 ppi is needed for photographic content. </p>

<p><i>---- As quoted from an email I received from MPix.com</i></p>

<p>

Info given to us by our technicians on scanning. Please see below. </p>

<p>

Our large format printing equipment is state of the art for true photographic printing. The output resolution of these printers is variable and can be set to either 200 DPI or 400 DPI. As you know, resolution is about more than simply the mathematics of the file, much depends on the dynamic range of the media and the depth of modulation of the media and system as a whole. We use both Durst Lambda 76 and Durst Theta 50 printers for output. Both of these device types set the standard for photographic output around the world. Their combination of spot size and depth of modulation provide quality levels that other printers can not match at the same resolutions.

</p><p>

We have more of these particular printers than any other photo lab in the world. We print all images at 200 DPI, through extensive testing and usage of these devices over the past 4 years we have determined that the output resolution of 200 DPI is more than adequate to reproduce all but the most demanding vector based images. Because we are a photographic lab and not a commercial print shop we do not concern ourselves with the requirements of intricate vector based images or text. As you know there is always a balance between having enough data to represent the image and having so much data that transfer, storage and manipulation is impractical. For photographic images, a resolution of 200 DPI produces a very high quality photographic print.

</p><p>

 

Using 200 DPI as the output resolution would dictate that the true pixel dimension of a 20x30 to be 4000 x 6000 pixels, as a 24 bit image this would result in a file that is approximately 72 mb, if this were saved as a non compressed tif image. When saving this image as the highest quality jpg the file becomes approximately 12 mb, depending on the image content.

</p>

<p>The number of pixels is the same in both files, so if you want to set the resolution to 360 as in the converted RAW files, you should be able to using the Image Size dialog. Just be sure to uncheck the "resample" box. That should give you the same dimensions as the RAW files.</p>

<p>To print the 10d files at 11x14, however, means that the file's PPI would need to be around 180 if you wanted to set the PPI without resampling, so the JPG would be pretty close to that setting. In the Image Size dialog, what dimensions does it give you in inches when the JPGs are set at 180? I would figure around 17x11 would be pretty close to the "image size."</p>

<p>In reality, the only numbers that really matter are the dimensions, the 3072 and 2048, since they are the, excepting the bayer demosaicing, actual pixels recorded by the camera. Printing at sizes larger than 5.68x8.53 at 360 PPI means either resampling or lowering the PPI to some lesser amount.</p>

<p>I recently arrived home from a trip to Carlsbad Caverns and White Sands National

Monument. Everyone is right about using a sturdy tripod in the caverns. My concern,

however, is that using a high contrast film, like Velvia, may cause some problems with

either no shadow detail or blown highlights. I used my Canon 20d and have several shots

that, had I used a lower contrast negative film, might have shown more details on both

ends of the spectrum. The RAW files certainly do hold more information than the jpgs, but

what wasn't recorded can't be brought back.</p> <p>If you don't mind carrying your

equipment for long periods, I suggest taking the natural entrance hike. The Park Service

estimates about an hour for the hike, but when stopping to photograph, it took my wife

and me more like 2.5 hours to get to the Big Room. </p>

<p>Have a great time and enjoy yourself!</p>

<p>Before submission of your files, are you converting them to sRGB for printing? I've found, in my limited experience that, without an actual printer profile for the printer in question, sRGB seems to produce relatively good color prints from Frontier and Noristu machines.</p>

<p>In Photoshop CS, you can go under the Image menu, then Mode, and follow down the list to Convert to Profile. You can then select the profile you would like to use and then set additional options - I usually use Relative Colormetric, but that's just me. In addition, I also use the black point compensation.</p>

<p>Best of luck!</p>

<p>If a slide is almost entirely high-key do you think the flaring would be so bad that it would render the scan completely useless? I have some pictures I shot while on vacation at White Sands National Monument that I just got back from A & I, and I am hoping I can scan and make prints of a few of the better shots. For example, I have a picture of one of the white lizards in the white gypsum sand. On the loupe, the exposure is great, nice and bright, but mostly white, since the entire area is so white.</P>

<p>The slides are clean and sharp with no visible flare when viewed under a loupe on the light table. Incidently, I'm using Vuescan as my primary scanning software and calibrate the scanner everytime I use it. I found the Minolta software clips the histograms a bit too much for my liking.</p>

 

<p>The images I posted are uncorrected, just cropped in on some areas where I noticed the problem. On the fireworks image, I can aggressively clip into the shadows and nearly eliminate the flare, but I do lose detail in the rest of the image as a result. Not a great solution, IMHO.</P>

 

<P>Unfortunately, I've had the scanner since February, and had been scanning primarily negatives on it. It wasn't until recently I started scanning some of my slides on it to see how well the scans compared to the Canon FS4000. Believe me, this scanner really does scan slides well, but that flaring or ghosting problem certainly puts a bit of a crimp on the "fun" in scanning.</P>

<p>I tried scanning with the grain dissolver turned on and off as well as those combinations with the infrared cleaning enabled and disabled. The only thing I hadn't tried was to manually focusing to see if that would minimize the problem.</p>

<p>When I scanned some Velvia film on which I had shot some

fireworks, I noticed a significant amount of flaring around the

bright areas of the image. I noticed the flaring didn't go in only

one direction, but rather it showed on the left side of the scan as

a flare to the left and on the right the flare was directed right.

In addition, I found that even without extremely high contrast

subjects, such as a photograph in my living room shot on EktaChrome

I found the same thing happening.</p>

 

<p>I rescanned the fireworks image on a Canon FS4000 and found there

to be very little flaring around the bright objects; however, I did

not rescan the image from my living room since the owner of that

scanner needed it for his own work.</p>

 

<p>My question is about whether this phenomenon is related to a

problem with the optics in my particular scanner, dust in the scan

path somewhere, or because of an uncoated piece of

glass "protecting" the CCD to which I am at the mercy of the

scanner. I should also note that I have not yet noticed any

problems around edges in negative films, but I attribute that to the

lower contrast nature of a negative.</p>

<p>

Below are some examples.

</p>

<center>

<p><img src="http://govschl.ndsu.nodak.edu/~phgunder/pjg-

photography/examples/flare1.jpg" alt="Left hand side fireworks

shot"></p>

<p><img src="http://govschl.ndsu.nodak.edu/~phgunder/pjg-

photography/examples/flare2.jpg" alt="Right hand side fireworks

shot"></p>

<p><img src="http://govschl.ndsu.nodak.edu/~phgunder/pjg-

photography/examples/flare3.jpg" alt="Shot in living room exhibiting

similar flaring issues"></p></center>