M/F film scanners - again?

Stacey wrote:

I'm not sure anyone would be able to see the difference in a "web size"
jpeg
image of say even 640X480 in size between a scan of a print and a scan of
the original film. Given many people display their images smaller than
this
(for fear of them being stolen?) I can't see any reason to be scanning
film
for web display purposes if the print being scanned looks good.

You will indeed see a clear difference. In this case, size does not matter.
A scan made from film has better/"cleaner"/"crisper" contrast, and is
sharper. It just looks better, even in small sizes.
I know, because i used to scan prints quite a lot before i began using a
film scanner. (And yes, both flatbed and film scanner are good, i.e not to
blame for the difference.)
;-)

Q.G. de Bakker wrote:



You will indeed see a clear difference. In this case, size does not
matter. A scan made from film has better/"cleaner"/"crisper" contrast, and
is sharper. It just looks better, even in small sizes.
I know, because i used to scan prints quite a lot before i began using a
film scanner. (And yes, both flatbed and film scanner are good, i.e not to
blame for the difference.)


What film scanner are you using and do you have some samples where I can see
how much difference you're talking about. -I- might not be able to see
it. :-)

I've tried scanning film on my flatbed and at least with the scanner I have,
the results from prints looks better on screen.

--

Stacey

Stacey wrote:

What film scanner are you using

Nikon 8000

and do you have some samples where I can see
how much difference you're talking about.

Sorry, but no.

-I- might not be able to see
it. :-)

I've tried scanning film on my flatbed and at least with the scanner I
have,
the results from prints looks better on screen.

Ah yes, scanning film using flatbeds is not the way to go...
;-)

On Sun, 30 May 2004 16:51:31 -0400, Stacey wrote:

Q.G. de Bakker wrote:

Pete wrote:

You don't think you can get a good scan from a 5x7 or better print?
[...]

What's good?
Compared to a scan done from film, a print scan is not good, no.
And that does show when the scanned image is used only on computer
displays.


I'm not sure anyone would be able to see the difference in a "web size" jpeg
image of say even 640X480 in size between a scan of a print and a scan of
the original film. Given many people display their images smaller than this
(for fear of them being stolen?) I can't see any reason to be scanning film
for web display purposes if the print being scanned looks good.

My experience scanning images from my Lubitel (yeah, I know...) has
been that the images scanned from the negative using a flatbed with a
transparent media adapter are massively better than those scanned from
the print.

In particular the detail in the shadows that isn't that clear in the
print is much better in the scans from negative. The dynamic range is
wider and it's genuinely noticeable even on small images for the web
(say 600 x 600 pixels).

Here's a scan from a piece of film:

http://www.mcgrattan.f2s.com/lub_film.jpg

here's a detail from the same scan:

http://www.mcgrattan.f2s.com/lub_film_detail.jpg

Here's the scan from the print:

http://www.mcgrattan.f2s.com/lub_print.jpg

here's the same area from a scan from the print:

http://www.mcgrattan.f2s.com/lub_print_detail.jpg

The detail is taken from the darkest centre area.

The original scans were at comparable levels of detail i.e. the print
was scanned at a relatively low res and the film at higher but the
larger size of the print meant that the final images were almost
exactly the same number of pixels wide and high.

Both images had the same unsharp masking routine run on them and the
same level tweak to try and bring out comparable levels of detail in
the shadows. Neither is a straight unmodified scan - the original scan
wasn't done for this kind of comparison. But both had the same things
done to them.

Neither is scanned at the maximum resolution I had available and I
have done better scans from film using medium format negs.

Matt

P.S. The image isn't great, it's just the only one I had handy that I
had already scanned from film and from print.

Q.G. de Bakker wrote:

Stacey wrote:

What film scanner are you using

Nikon 8000


Ah....


Ah yes, scanning film using flatbeds is not the way to go...
;-)

So I've gathered. :-)

I think for the small amount of digital work I'm doing (sharing shot with
friends), I'll stick with scanning prints for now.
--

Stacey

Matt McGrattan wrote:


My experience scanning images from my Lubitel (yeah, I know...) has
been that the images scanned from the negative using a flatbed with a
transparent media adapter are massively better than those scanned from
the print.


What scanner/software are you using. Just wondering as I've never gotten
decent scans of film, especially negative film using my Umax2200. Chromes
come out OK as long as they aren't very dense.


In particular the detail in the shadows that isn't that clear in the
print is much better in the scans from negative.

So are you saying this detail wasn't in the print you scanned but was on the
negative? Maybe you're scanning a poor print?

Just trying to figure out how your flatbed scans of prints look so bad when
mine look better than the scans from the negs!
--

Stacey

On Sun, 30 May 2004 23:46:37 -0400, Stacey wrote:

Matt McGrattan wrote:


My experience scanning images from my Lubitel (yeah, I know...) has
been that the images scanned from the negative using a flatbed with a
transparent media adapter are massively better than those scanned from
the print.


What scanner/software are you using. Just wondering as I've never gotten
decent scans of film, especially negative film using my Umax2200. Chromes
come out OK as long as they aren't very dense.


In particular the detail in the shadows that isn't that clear in the
print is much better in the scans from negative.

So are you saying this detail wasn't in the print you scanned but was on the
negative? Maybe you're scanning a poor print?

Just trying to figure out how your flatbed scans of prints look so bad when
mine look better than the scans from the negs!

The scanner for the negative was an Epson Perfection 2400. The scanner
for the print was an earlier Epson scanner without a transparency kit.

The software in both cases was the standard Epson TWAIN software then
into Photoshop for minor level tweaks and then into Neat Image for
(un)sharp masking.

However, the lack of scan detail is not an artefact of two different
scanners being in use. I've tried scanning some images from print on
the Perfection 2400 and the results still aren't as good as scans from
negative.

Also, the print wasn't a poor print. The print was done by a pro-lab
and looks good - nice and sharp and contrasty. But it just doesn't
have the detail or range of the negative.

Matt

Matt McGrattan wrote:
Also, the print wasn't a poor print. The print was done by a pro-lab
and looks good - nice and sharp and contrasty. But it just doesn't
have the detail or range of the negative.



I'm kinda confused here. Does the actual print look like the scanned
negative when looking at the print and the screen at the same time?

If not there is something wrong with the print whoever printed it. Now if
you're getting better results from -your- negatives scanning than the
person doing your printing, that's great!
--

Stacey