Yea, the flatbed scanner pays for itself after just a few good quality drum scanned negatives, unless you actually need the extra resolution of the drum scan.
I also scan 4X5 on a 4990 and have found exactly the same results as Daniel. Its good up to 2400ppi. Above that, the optical system can't really support the detail and the scan is soft. But at 2400ppi, with 4X5 you're talking about a roughly 125 megapixel image so you've got alot of real estate. But for 35mm 2400ppi is only providing 10megapixels, give or take. 35mm I scan on a Nikon LS-4000 which has much better optical resolution.
Just a normal Joe who has spent too much time running my scanners. As I've worked with them more, I've come to realize that all the software basically works the same way. The only hardware advantage the Nikon has over the Epson is the ability to control the lamp brightness and therefore truly affect the exposure. This affects the scanner's ability to retrieve shadow and highlight detail.
Color balance is always the same in every software though the sliders are usually not titled the same. They always go like this.
Cyan <-> Red
Magenta <-> Green
Yellow <-> Blue
Once I learned that, its just a matter of setting up black and white points, the curve and making the scan to look the way I want it to.
I think color balance is the trickiest part in the color negative films. I rarely have a true gray in my shots, so I don't even try to use the gray dropper to color balance.
To me, your chicken scan looks pretty good. The colors are rich and the white/black points seem to be set well. If you're scanning in Epson Scan, my suggestion would be to move the Cyan or Red slider on the color balance dialog towards Red a bit (to reduce cyan). Always make small movements of just a couple values. Then if it needed a bit more correction, I'd move the Yellow-Blue slider towards Yellow a bit. This slider actually works alot like the color temp slider in ACR. Once these two are balanced the way you would like them, then make small adjustments to the Magenta Green only if needed. Also remember that this was shot in the shade on a daylight balanced film. They should have a bit of a cool temp. Watch your shadows and highlights while you do this. If they start taking on a funky shade you've either made too much adjustment or you need to zero them out with the white and black droppers (which will create separate curves for the red blue and green channels). And finally, don't forget to reset the values if you feel like you're loosing control. Unlike Photoshop layers, the scan controls cannot be stepped back, just reset. If you feel uncomfortable with this, consider do these adjustments in Photoshop with the Selective Color layer adjusting Neutral, White and Black balance first and any other colors second. I can make all the same adjustments in Photoshop later.
If you're using Silverfast SE or Ai, the controls are not quite as simple and Silverfast can fight against you sometimes. I like the software really well, but I have had some occasions when its driven me bonkers with color negatives. In Ai, there is a control where you can adjust the "white" and "black" points of each color histogram in an expert dialog of negafix. This is helpful when you need to expand the range of the film or you know that the image is supposed to be mostly mid tones, but it can shift the colors. Two things I don't like about Silverfast is that there is not a simple master chroma or saturation control and that setting color balance is not as intuitive as some other systems.
Just a normal Joe who has spent too much time running my scanners. As I've worked with them more, I've come to realize that all the software basically works the same way. The only hardware advantage the Nikon has over the Epson is the ability to control the lamp brightness and therefore truly affect the exposure. This affects the scanner's ability to retrieve shadow and highlight detail.
Color balance is always the same in every software though the sliders are usually not titled the same. They always go like this.
Cyan <-> Red
Magenta <-> Green
Yellow <-> Blue
Once I learned that, its just a matter of setting up black and white points, the curve and making the scan to look the way I want it to.
I think color balance is the trickiest part in the color negative films. I rarely have a true gray in my shots, so I don't even try to use the gray dropper to color balance.
To me, your chicken scan looks pretty good. The colors are rich and the white/black points seem to be set well. If you're scanning in Epson Scan, my suggestion would be to move the Cyan or Red slider on the color balance dialog towards Red a bit (to reduce cyan). Always make small movements of just a couple values. Then if it needed a bit more correction, I'd move the Yellow-Blue slider towards Yellow a bit. This slider actually works alot like the color temp slider in ACR. Once these two are balanced the way you would like them, then make small adjustments to the Magenta Green only if needed. Also remember that this was shot in the shade on a daylight balanced film. They should have a bit of a cool temp. Watch your shadows and highlights while you do this. If they start taking on a funky shade you've either made too much adjustment or you need to zero them out with the white and black droppers (which will create separate curves for the red blue and green channels). And finally, don't forget to reset the values if you feel like you're loosing control. Unlike Photoshop layers, the scan controls cannot be stepped back, just reset. If you feel uncomfortable with this, consider do these adjustments in Photoshop with the Selective Color layer adjusting Neutral, White and Black balance first and any other colors second. I can make all the same adjustments in Photoshop later.
If you're using Silverfast SE or Ai, the controls are not quite as simple and Silverfast can fight against you sometimes. I like the software really well, but I have had some occasions when its driven me bonkers with color negatives. In Ai, there is a control where you can adjust the "white" and "black" points of each color histogram in an expert dialog of negafix. This is helpful when you need to expand the range of the film or you know that the image is supposed to be mostly mid tones, but it can shift the colors. Two things I don't like about Silverfast is that there is not a simple master chroma or saturation control and that setting color balance is not as intuitive as some other systems. ...Show more →
Thanks for the pointers. I'm working with them right now. I got the V700 because the only Coolscan that does MF is $2000ish normally. I am using Epson Scan. Do you have any recommendation for having less apparent grain in my scans? I really get grainy scans even on film that is nearly grain free by most accounts and previous scans at my developer also have had less grain.
For less grainy scans, if you are scanning B&W film you can try scanning it in color and using only the green channel, I've heard that results in a less grainy B&W image. In general though, I think if you scan higher resolution than you need, then down-size to your print resolution that will give you less grain than scanning at your print res. Also, take off any sharpening in the scan, and do the sharpening later so you have more control over it.
Daniel Buck wrote:
For less grainy scans, if you are scanning B&W film you can try scanning it in color and using only the green channel, I've heard that results in a less grainy B&W image. In general though, I think if you scan higher resolution than you need, then down-size to your print resolution that will give you less grain than scanning at your print res. Also, take off any sharpening in the scan, and do the sharpening later so you have more control over it.
My scans with no sharpening done by the scanner software are still more grainy than my lab scans were and the lab scans were a lot sharper.
TWoK wrote:
My scans with no sharpening done by the scanner software are still more grainy than my lab scans were and the lab scans were a lot sharper.
consumer scanners like our epson flatbeds tend to enhance the grain (or add digital noise?) a decent amount more than higher end scanners and drum scanners, at least from what I've seen. I guess that's the trade off for the inexpensive price for B&W I don't mind grain at all, but I'm scanning 4x5 and 8x10 film, so the grain is very minimal even on a consumer flatbed scan.
The lab scans were probably done on a pretty nice scanner, but they just run it on auto pilot. They may have been using Kodak GEM software during the scan.
I'd check to ensure that unsharp is off if it is increasing the appearance of grain. But I haven't had any issue with this myself. On the Epson, I've left unsharp on medium. On the Nikon I always turn it off. Generally I find that the Epson shows grain far less than the Nikon. The LED light source on the Nikon is not as diffuse as the cold cathod lamp in the flatbed. The only Epson I know of with an LED light source is the V500.
If the grain is very evident, it might be there in the film. I've definitely seem more grain in the old Portra 400NC than the new version. A couple very fine grain color negative films to try would be Fuji Pro160S, Kodak Ektar (if you can find it in Japan) and Kodak Ultra Color 100. In the case of Ektar, I don't think you'll see grain at 2400ppi at all. I didn't on my 4990, I could only see it on the Nikon. With the others it should appear very fine. With a slide film such as Astia, Provia 100f or Kodak E100G/E100GX you should also find the scans free of grain in the mid-tones and highlights at 2400ppi. When I've scanned with my 4990 above 2400ppi (which I've only done in Silverfast with slide film), it wipes out the grain completely for some reason.
