Slides and scanners and scanning software

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More learning curve stuff for me here folks. I got a roll of slide back from Peak Imaging yesterday which I was quite excited about. I know you have to be cock on with slide exposure and I think I might have been a bit under but here's what I don't understand about scannners.

If I hold the slide upto the light it looks pretty good. When I do a preview scan (Epson 4490 using Epsonscan) they're really dark, probably about 2 stops under and I didn't think I was that far out. If I use the professional mode then I can adjust the levels before the final scan and the ouput file is pretty good. If I scan in home mode (so no levels) and do the levels in photoshop or LR then the noise is aweful.

The last bit about increasing the exposure in post I understand but is the preview scan the true exposure or is it normal for the preview to be a rough guess and what I see when holding upto the room light or window is a more accurate representation?

One other thing, the Epson 4490 only scans two 6x6 frames at a time. Usin pro mode it usually picks up the two frames and treats them seperately. Sometimes amd there appears to be no rhyme or reason it splits two 6x6 images into three that look like 6x4.5 even though I have 6x6 selected in the preferences. Is this just a bug with the software. When it does this I have to resort to Home mode which thens cans the whole strip and I have to marquee the frames to seperate them before scanning. The problem with this is that there little to nothing that I can do to sort the image (levels etc) before doing the final scan.

something tells me the answer is to get one of them slide holders from betterscanning.com but they're gonna be expensive with the exchange rate being so crap.

TIA
Kev
 
I'm planning on getting my freecycle scanner going tomorrow, or rather trying to. Are you telling me I have all this bo***ks to look forward to?????? :LOL:
Good luck Kev!:D
 
You can scan the whole strip in pro mode, you still need to marquee it off into separate images.
Its a button at the bottom, scan mode or something, it gives you two options neither of which I can remember.
Sometimes the scanner cannot define the two 6x6 frames, sometimes because the top of shot 1 and the bottom of shot 2 are as dark or nearly as dark as the film border, and sometimes because that's the frame of mind its in:shake:.
Its at this point it decides whether to just scan 1 out of the 2 frames or correct your mistake :wacky: selecting the wrong frame size.....stupid thing.
I always find that making exposure edits in scanner far more successful than a flat scan edited in secondary software.
I remember this stuff from my 4490 and the Epson scan software, I think it goes a bit with the flatbed territory, its not an issue on the Minolta.
They say there is better software than Epson, like Hammrick's ViewScan Pro, but I dunno, the Epson stuff never irritated me enough to try it.
 
OK, I knew that when I tried getting this scanner going, I'd have problems, I just didn't know what they'd be!
I have downloaded the epson driver for my scanner but can't find the actual software anywhere, you know, the actual application that you open up when you want to scan something. It's not on the Epson site, it just has these TWAIN driver things, not the actual software to run it which I think is called 'Smart Panel'.

Does anyone have any ideas? I've been googling for an hour looking all over the shop! :thinking:
 
hmmm,

might be worth downloading a trial version of Vuescan, silverfast or t'other one in the meantime. it looks like they've taken the software off the site for some reason. Unless it's packaged in with the twain drivers?
 
I don't know if the EpsonScan software that comes with more modern machines will work with that 1660.
I think the twain driver allows control of a scan from a 3rd party application, in this case its photo impressions 4 or adobe photoshop ? can't remember.
I suppose you could get a scan using windoze utility's, but I dunno how much control you will get with any of these.
 
More learning curve stuff for me here folks. I got a roll of slide back from Peak Imaging yesterday which I was quite excited about. I know you have to be cock on with slide exposure and I think I might have been a bit under but here's what I don't understand about scannners.

If I hold the slide upto the light it looks pretty good. When I do a preview scan (Epson 4490 using Epsonscan) they're really dark, probably about 2 stops under and I didn't think I was that far out. If I use the professional mode then I can adjust the levels before the final scan and the ouput file is pretty good. If I scan in home mode (so no levels) and do the levels in photoshop or LR then the noise is aweful.

The last bit about increasing the exposure in post I understand but is the preview scan the true exposure or is it normal for the preview to be a rough guess and what I see when holding upto the room light or window is a more accurate representation?

One other thing, the Epson 4490 only scans two 6x6 frames at a time. Usin pro mode it usually picks up the two frames and treats them seperately. Sometimes amd there appears to be no rhyme or reason it splits two 6x6 images into three that look like 6x4.5 even though I have 6x6 selected in the preferences. Is this just a bug with the software. When it does this I have to resort to Home mode which thens cans the whole strip and I have to marquee the frames to seperate them before scanning. The problem with this is that there little to nothing that I can do to sort the image (levels etc) before doing the final scan.

something tells me the answer is to get one of them slide holders from betterscanning.com but they're gonna be expensive with the exchange rate being so crap. size scanner If you have a 4490, where are the film holders?. I have the 4870 which comes with all film size holders

TIA
Kev

scanneIf you have a 4490, where are the film holders?. I have the 4870 which comes with all fim size holders
 
I'm using the MF film holder in it if that's what you're getting at.

Sounds like with my underexposed shots I'd be better off finding out how to scan the whole strip in Pro mode and marqueeing them individually.
 
forgot to mention, the film holder is vital because there is a strip portion to allow light to pass thru to set up the scan
 
Yep, I'm using that, I suspect that as Joxby said my dark shots have caused the software problems in seperating the frames on the strip of film.
 
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