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Craig,

I believe many people are using EPSON 2450 Photo including me due to its quality and user views. So, could you please share your tips with us?

Dirk,

Thank for your hard work for keeping the wonderful web site running.

Here is a link to a Norman Koren's website about the EPSON 2450 and its successor 3200: http://www.normankoren.com/Tutorials/Epson_flatbeds.html

Frank
 
> Is the Microtek 6700 Scanmaker as good as or better than the Epson > 2450? It seems to be about the same price and specs that are as good > as or better than the Epson. I do not understand the difference > between 4800 x 2400 dpi vs 2400 x 4800 dpi. Is there any difference? > Both seem to end up with 2400 dpi resolution. Has anyone used this > 6700 Scanmaker or seen evaluations? Thanks, Larry Street
 
***"I believe many people are using EPSON 2450 Photo including me due to its quality and user views. So, could you please share your tips with us?"****

Please give me a few days to put in writing the workflow which works for me.

Craig
 
Dirk,

Take a look at the Polaroid SprintScan 120. It has been recently selling for $2,000. or less (maybe with a rebate on top of that ?) It does everything up to 6X7, including great 35mm. It comes bundled with very good softwear including Silverfast.

Sell your Nikon scanner and use the funds for one, because with this 4000dpi scanner, the Nikon 35mm unit will be redundant.

The importance of a 4000 dpi dedicated film scanner with such a good D-Max (4.2 effective), is that you can crop images and retain sharpness and shadow detail. I used a flat bed for a while and the images are okay, but any cropping or major enlargements revealed the weakness of such inexpensive "hybrids"
 
Thanks for the hint Marc,

but is the Sprint Scan 120 as good as the Nikon Supercoolscan for 35mm scanning?

Or is it a trade off between better MF-quality of the Sprint (vs. the Epson 2450) but inferior quality for 24x36 against the Nikon Supercoolscan?

Dirk
 
Dirk,
No there are no compromises in 35mm scanning.
The spec's of the scanners are basically the same.
I scan negs from my Leica M ASPH lenses, and they are tack sharp with all the shadow detail the neg has to offer.

The Polaroid does not have Ice, but Ice is known to soften an image, so I didn't want it anyway. I prefer to just clean my negs before scanning the same as with work in the darkroom.

I once used a dedicated 35mm scanner, and a flat bed for MF. But my MF scans were a poor second to those I now get from the Polaroid. So, the only compromise to be experienced is if you use a flat bed for MF scans.
 
The Polaroid does not have Ice, but Ice is known to soften an image, so I didn't want it anyway.

The Polaroid film scanners don't use ICE because they don't need it. The Nikon scanners use an undiffused LED light source. Because of this, the Nikon tends to 'see' the surface of the film. The Polaroid units have a diffused light source, and tend to see the image within the film, not the film itself. I've been using an older Poloaroid 35mm scanner (the SprintScan 35plus) for about five years, and have had no problems with the scanner picking up minor abrasions or imperfections in the film surface. ICE basically is there to fix a shortcoming of the Nikon scanner.

Check out this link:

http://www.cix.co.uk/~tsphoto/welcome.htm

there is a link on this page to the filmscanner reviews (because the site is framed, I can't link directly to the reviews).

The 120 has similar specs to the Polaroid Super 4000.

- Paul
 
Does anybody know if the Epson 2450 Scanner can be used indenpendant of its rather simple slide carrier so that multiple 6 x 4.5 slides can be scanned at a time ? Currently when I put a strip in the carrier two slides show - but only 1 1/2 are actually scanned by the software. The carrier actually raises the image off the glass and the separation seems to make the image sharper so I don't want to scan directly on the glass. I'm wondering if there's possibly a custom carrier for slides that anyone knows of.
Thanks for any help,

Kenny
 
> I also have the 2450, and I've been looking for a way to scan polaroid > t55 negatives, which won't fit in the included 4x5 tray. If anyone has > a home-cooked recipe or a source available, I'd be really grateful to > hear of it. Thanks. -- brad
 
Regarding the scanning of odd-sized negatives or slides with an Epson 2450 scanner: what I've done in the past is scanning an entire strip of negatives, because the software wasn't able to determine the edges of the negatives. They were photo's of the eclipse of '99. You do have to disable automatic detection of your negatives somewhere. After pre-scanning, you do have to select the area to scan manually. And cut up the image afterward if you're scanning multiple slides.

I don't know whether you really need to keep the slides separated from the scanner surface, I imagine there's some kind of auto-focussing?

Hope this helps.
 
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