Scanning Update

As promised, here’s a little update on the scanning situation. I’ve played some more with VueScan, and possibly better sources.

First up, is this slide from somewhere around 1980, taken in Annapolis. There’s a whole lotta schmutz on the slide, mostly because of crappy storage. Clicking on the little image will bring up a real big image. This scan is from an old Ektrachrome, taken with my Canon AT-1, and probably a Vivitar Series-1 24mm wide-angle. Frankly, it’s okay, at best — at least in comparison with what I’ve become accustomed.

The scan was performed on an Epson Perfection 2400-series scanner, using VueScan at 2400dpi. The file produced is 2104×3106 (or about 6.5MP) 24-bit RGB image.

This image is considerably newer, taken within the past 4 years or so. Again, it’s an Ektachrome slide, and again, it’s a little dirty. Clicking gets the horrendously large image display. The dollar signs are backwards on this one, because I inadvertently dropped the slide on the scanner glass backwards.

Which brings up a point. This scanner doesn’t have any auto-focus ability or cleaning or noise reduction. It is what it is, as far as that goes. 

I will say, so far, that the scans I’m getting using Vuescan on my cheap-o Epson are slightly better than the results I got from the Microtek at the gallery, but not as good as what Rob was getting. They’re far better than anything I can get using the Epson-supplied TWAIN driver.

This black-and-white is an Ilford XP-2 negative scan. Once again, clicking gets that extraordinarily large image! This one isn’t too bad, but, still appears soft. This was made with a Nikon N8008s, and either a Sigma 28-135 or a Sigma 80-300.

XP-2, for those who aren’t familiar with it, is a “chromogenic” black-and-white film, which means that it’s essentially color print film that produces a B&W neg. The XP-2 isn’t bad to work with, as the negative almost looks like a real B&W neg — unlike Kodak’s “Black and White Plus” film.

That’s enough for now. I’m beginning to see a couple of trends here. 1) My scanner’s really not up to snuff for any serious film scanning and (2) the software that comes with most scanners isn’t all that great. And, that still leaves me in pretty much the same position I was in before.

[NOTE: The original image files are far too large to view practically on this site. I've reduced the size of the larger images to a more manageable size. They're still quite indicative of the quality of the images.]