Test scan with my new Epson Perfection V600

[Benny Stevens]

Hi all,
I finally sold the old Epson Perfection 1240 scanner and splashed out for a V600. I couldn't justify a V700 or V750, since I do not shoot enough. But I'm rather happy with the results so far.
Here is a first trial scan from an old Rolleiflex neg.
My scanning talents are pretty limited, so let me know what you think. Here's my flow for this image :
I scanned as a b/w negative at 400dpi, chose 16bit gray as 'target' and moved the black and white triangles in the pre-scan histogram inwards before hitting final 'scan'.
In PSE9 I then increased the contrast, tweaked levels again and finally sharpened somewhat. I uploaded to both flickr and photobucket, but found that the image is crisper on flickr (?)
I also did some tests scanning this negative as a color neg and then fiddling around in channel mixer (a free plug-in which I downloaded, because this is not available in PSE). I also tried Vuescan (a free trial version), but those scans looked softer and needed more tweaking, especially in terms of contrast and sharpening. Does that make sense to you, or is it my limited scanning ability...? Thanks for your ideas.
Rgds,
Benny

[Philip]

Benny, nice work.  What you are doing looks good to me.

I used Vuescan for several years and even bought the "Professional" version (which gives me unlimited updates). But it's a clumsy and unintuitive instrument (Vuescan), so I switched to the Epson software (which came with my scanner), and I have never really looked back since.  It's far easier to get a good image with the Epson software.

Philip

[LarryD]

Looks nice. I prefer the epson scan over the others also.

[br1078lum]

That's some good work, Benny.  Maybe someday I'll get my V500 hooked up.

PF

[xvvvz]

>>I scanned as a b/wh negative at 400dpi<<

I would scan at 2400 or 3200 ppi and create a master file so that you don't have to scan again.  Make all of your global corrections (corrections to perfect the image that would be appropriate for any image output) and save the master file.  Then save a copy of the master file under a new name and downsize as needed for printing, web posting, etc.  This is a more efficient workflow and makes sure you make the most of the resolution your scanner can achieve.  Scanning is slow so you only want to do it once

Doug

[CarlosE]

I absolutely agree with Doug.
I do the same.


Carlos

[Benny Stevens]

Thanks everyone. Much appreciated.
Benny

[Tom Hildreth]

I agree with Doug and Carlos. To my surprise, scanning speed varies very little from max resolution to intermediate resolution on my Minolta Dimage slide scanner. With a flatbed scanner there may be more of a difference. Still, you're not wasting much, if any, time in making a high resolution scan, but you certainly are saving yourself time in the future becuase you won't need to relocate the source neg/slide for a rescan if you are going to print/publish the image in hard copy form. This is assuming you have the storage capability for the larger files a high resolution scan will produce.

I would like to add that every scan I have made without entering the image data into the file has come back to haunt me.  Nothing worse than locating on your computer a nice image you want to use, only to find the image data field is blank.  If you have lots of images, and have been shooting for a long time, you may not remember the who, what, when and where of every shot you scan-but you may need to go find it again by locating the original negative or slide.