Raw scans with Polaroid Sprintscan 35 plus

Hi all,

I have a lovely piece of ancient technology known as a Polaroid
Sprintscan 35 plus, which I am using to scan 126 format slides which
none of the current crop of 35mm scanners can do (at least without
chopping of the top of the image).

I have a large number of slides to do, and I would like to scan them
with no corrections for archiving purposes. To that end, I would like
to scan the slides raw (@ 12 bits) & do the levels, corrections, etc
later.

Can anyone explain to me how I do raw scans in PolaColor? At the
moment the software is outputing 8-bit images, but I have read in a
couple of places that raw scanning is supported but I cannot see an
option to do this.

Also, do any of the options in PolaColor affect the way that the raw
scan is made? ie: Does changing the exposure settings actually change
the way the slide is scanned or is this just all post-processing?
Many thanks,

Jojax14

My feeling about the 8 versus 12 versus 16 bit color issue is that it is a
non-starter: monitors and printers live in a less than 8 bit world, they
cannot reproduce the entire 8 bit range (and neither can probably most
people's eyes). Therefore your greater than 8 bit color gamut is going to be
chopped down to 8 bits anyway by an arbitrary driver algorithm at some
point.
I doubt that ancient 126 slides are in pristine enough condition to warrant
preservation in a wider than 8 bit gamut anyway.
If vuescan works with your scanner you make basic pre-scan adjustments and
apply them to the entire film strip. Other wise, if you do not want to
pre-tweak each image prior to scanning, I usually find it best just to scan
the images with no ajdustment and do it later in Photoshop. Much depends on
where you stand on making adjustments prior to or after scanning. If your
images are reasonably well exposed to begin with I find it best to make
post-scan adjustments. Some difficult images require individual pre-scan
adjustments, however.
What comes in from the scanner is now your digital negative. There is no
"raw" format. It is important that you store that scan unaltered and work
off a copy or at least use non-destructive layers in Photoshop and save in
photoshop format.

jojax14@yahoo.com.au wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a lovely piece of ancient technology known as a Polaroid
> Sprintscan 35 plus, which I am using to scan 126 format slides which
~
> Can anyone explain to me how I do raw scans in PolaColor? At the

I just replaced my Polaroid sprintscan 35 (no plus) with a
Konica-Minolta 5400 film scanner. My old polaroid AFAIK couldn't
output more than 8-bits per channel. It was 10-bits per channel
"internal" to the box, but it couldn't output it using Polaroid SW or
using Vuescan. That said, at least with my unit, more than 8-bits
likely wouldn't be useful anyway due to noise considerations (although
I do think it was quieter when newer, and the noise may have just
increased as it aged). That's one of the big differences with my new
scanner -- blacks are pure and clean with a single scan (multiscan,
which it has, seems completely un-needed). You might try vuescan for
doing multi-scanning on the Polaroid if you find noise in the blacks.
Multiscanning takes forever and it won't get rid of the noise, but it
does help.

Mike

On 16 Jan 2005 15:43:19 -0800, jojax14@yahoo.com.au wrote:

>Hi all,
>
>I have a lovely piece of ancient technology known as a Polaroid
>Sprintscan 35 plus, which I am using to scan 126 format slides which
>none of the current crop of 35mm scanners can do (at least without
>chopping of the top of the image).
>
>I have a large number of slides to do, and I would like to scan them
>with no corrections for archiving purposes. To that end, I would like
>to scan the slides raw (@ 12 bits) & do the levels, corrections, etc
>later.
>
>Can anyone explain to me how I do raw scans in PolaColor? At the
>moment the software is outputing 8-bit images, but I have read in a
>couple of places that raw scanning is supported but I cannot see an
>option to do this.


Unfortunately the firmware of the Sprintscan doesn't allow a raw
output. But it is possible to scan the slides at two different
exposures each and combine the exposures in Photoshop.

My suggestion is to just trust the Polaroid software to adjust the
exposure and adjust the midtone brightness to your taste.

Does anyone know how much of the scan processing is done in the 10-bit
colourspace? I recall reading somewhere that vuescan does something
with the scanner's internal gamma table, so colour corrections are done
in 10-bit, then outputted as 8-bit. If this is true, then it is worth
my while trying to optimise my scan at scan-time (corrections done in
10-bit, then outputted to 8-bit would be better than taking an
unprocessed 8-bit file into Photoshop & doing corrections/levels)? I
don't know if I am getting extra colour fidelity that way (ie: if it
actually exists in the slides, and the scanner can capture this
detail), but at least it would make my histograms look prettier in
photoshop!

Having not played around with Vuescan that much, can anyone tell me if
it will do auto-levels correction (like the auto correction in
Photoshop elements)? If so, am I correct in assuming that this is just
modifying the gamma table, so it is again taking advantage of the
10-bit internal processing? At the moment I am manually doing levels
in Polacolor, because of my concerns about the 8-bit/10-bit thing, and
also PSE kills a little bit too much of the highlights/shadows for my
liking.

Thanks,

Jojax14


Al wrote:
> On 16 Jan 2005 15:43:19 -0800, jojax14@yahoo.com.au wrote:
>
> >Hi all,
> >
> >I have a lovely piece of ancient technology known as a Polaroid
> >Sprintscan 35 plus, which I am using to scan 126 format slides which
> >none of the current crop of 35mm scanners can do (at least without
> >chopping of the top of the image).
> >
> >I have a large number of slides to do, and I would like to scan them
> >with no corrections for archiving purposes. To that end, I would
like
> >to scan the slides raw (@ 12 bits) & do the levels, corrections, etc
> >later.
> >
> >Can anyone explain to me how I do raw scans in PolaColor? At the
> >moment the software is outputing 8-bit images, but I have read in a
> >couple of places that raw scanning is supported but I cannot see an
> >option to do this.
>
>
> Unfortunately the firmware of the Sprintscan doesn't allow a raw
> output. But it is possible to scan the slides at two different
> exposures each and combine the exposures in Photoshop.
>
> My suggestion is to just trust the Polaroid software to adjust the
> exposure and adjust the midtone brightness to your taste.

Late reply, but VueScan does output RAW data for the SprintScan 35+.
At least, I think so : a 2 MB JPG file corresponds to a > 50 MB so
called RAW file (written with the TIF extension)

On 13 Feb 2005 21:58:16 -0800, jojax14@yahoo.com.au wrote:

>Does anyone know how much of the scan processing is done in the 10-bit
>colourspace? I recall reading somewhere that vuescan does something
>with the scanner's internal gamma table, so colour corrections are done
>in 10-bit, then outputted as 8-bit. If this is true, then it is worth
>my while trying to optimise my scan at scan-time (corrections done in
>10-bit, then outputted to 8-bit would be better than taking an
>unprocessed 8-bit file into Photoshop & doing corrections/levels)? I
>don't know if I am getting extra colour fidelity that way (ie: if it
>actually exists in the slides, and the scanner can capture this
>detail), but at least it would make my histograms look prettier in
>photoshop!
>
>Having not played around with Vuescan that much, can anyone tell me if
>it will do auto-levels correction (like the auto correction in
>Photoshop elements)? If so, am I correct in assuming that this is just
>modifying the gamma table, so it is again taking advantage of the
>10-bit internal processing? At the moment I am manually doing levels
>in Polacolor, because of my concerns about the 8-bit/10-bit thing, and
>also PSE kills a little bit too much of the highlights/shadows for my
>liking.
>
>Thanks,
>
>Jojax14
>
>
>Al wrote:
>> On 16 Jan 2005 15:43:19 -0800, jojax14@yahoo.com.au wrote:
>>
>> >Hi all,
>> >
>> >I have a lovely piece of ancient technology known as a Polaroid
>> >Sprintscan 35 plus, which I am using to scan 126 format slides which
>> >none of the current crop of 35mm scanners can do (at least without
>> >chopping of the top of the image).
>> >
>> >I have a large number of slides to do, and I would like to scan them
>> >with no corrections for archiving purposes. To that end, I would
>like
>> >to scan the slides raw (@ 12 bits) & do the levels, corrections, etc
>> >later.
>> >
>> >Can anyone explain to me how I do raw scans in PolaColor? At the
>> >moment the software is outputing 8-bit images, but I have read in a
>> >couple of places that raw scanning is supported but I cannot see an
>> >option to do this.
>>
>>
>> Unfortunately the firmware of the Sprintscan doesn't allow a raw
>> output. But it is possible to scan the slides at two different
>> exposures each and combine the exposures in Photoshop.
>>
>> My suggestion is to just trust the Polaroid software to adjust the
>> exposure and adjust the midtone brightness to your taste.

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 10:30:38 +0200, ClashJo <no@no.net> wrote:

>Late reply, but VueScan does output RAW data for the SprintScan 35+.
>At least, I think so : a 2 MB JPG file corresponds to a > 50 MB so
>called RAW file (written with the TIF extension)

That's a bit of a contradiction. A JPG file is *not* a RAW file.

The whole idea of a RAW file is to get *all* data from the scanner "as
is" meaning maximum quality. By using JPG this data is severely
compromised due to *lossy* JGP compression. (Of course, Vuescan tends
to corrupt it further, but that's another story.)

Therefore, there is no such a thing as "JPG RAW". It's a contradiction
in terms like "military intelligence"... ;o)

Don.

Yes, but the bits may just be padded to maintain conformity with the
raw format standard.

Assuming a 1-inch sq slide (126 is mentioned below) at 8 bits/channel:
2700*2700*3 = ~20mb
at 10 bits (padded to 16bits):
2700*2700*6 = ~40mb

So it does look like the file is greater than 8-bits, but whether that
is just a waste of disk space remains a mystery (Unless Ed Hamerick
ever decides to grace us with his presence again).


ClashJo wrote:
> Late reply, but VueScan does output RAW data for the SprintScan 35+.
> At least, I think so : a 2 MB JPG file corresponds to a > 50 MB so
> called RAW file (written with the TIF extension)
>
> On 13 Feb 2005 21:58:16 -0800, jojax14@yahoo.com.au wrote:
>
> >Does anyone know how much of the scan processing is done in the 10-bit
> >colourspace? I recall reading somewhere that vuescan does something
> >with the scanner's internal gamma table, so colour corrections are done
> >in 10-bit, then outputted as 8-bit. If this is true, then it is worth
> >my while trying to optimise my scan at scan-time (corrections done in
> >10-bit, then outputted to 8-bit would be better than taking an
> >unprocessed 8-bit file into Photoshop & doing corrections/levels)? I
> >don't know if I am getting extra colour fidelity that way (ie: if it
> >actually exists in the slides, and the scanner can capture this
> >detail), but at least it would make my histograms look prettier in
> >photoshop!
> >
> >Having not played around with Vuescan that much, can anyone tell me if
> >it will do auto-levels correction (like the auto correction in
> >Photoshop elements)? If so, am I correct in assuming that this is just
> >modifying the gamma table, so it is again taking advantage of the
> >10-bit internal processing? At the moment I am manually doing levels
> >in Polacolor, because of my concerns about the 8-bit/10-bit thing, and
> >also PSE kills a little bit too much of the highlights/shadows for my
> >liking.
> >
> >Thanks,
> >
> >Jojax14
> >
> >
> >Al wrote:
> >> On 16 Jan 2005 15:43:19 -0800, jojax14@yahoo.com.au wrote:
> >>
> >> >Hi all,
> >> >
> >> >I have a lovely piece of ancient technology known as a Polaroid
> >> >Sprintscan 35 plus, which I am using to scan 126 format slides which
> >> >none of the current crop of 35mm scanners can do (at least without
> >> >chopping of the top of the image).
> >> >
> >> >I have a large number of slides to do, and I would like to scan them
> >> >with no corrections for archiving purposes. To that end, I would
> >like
> >> >to scan the slides raw (@ 12 bits) & do the levels, corrections, etc
> >> >later.
> >> >
> >> >Can anyone explain to me how I do raw scans in PolaColor? At the
> >> >moment the software is outputing 8-bit images, but I have read in a
> >> >couple of places that raw scanning is supported but I cannot see an
> >> >option to do this.
> >>
> >>
> >> Unfortunately the firmware of the Sprintscan doesn't allow a raw
> >> output. But it is possible to scan the slides at two different
> >> exposures each and combine the exposures in Photoshop.
> >>
> >> My suggestion is to just trust the Polaroid software to adjust the
> >> exposure and adjust the midtone brightness to your taste.

On 29 Aug 2005 07:52:30 -0700, "cubilcle281"
<cubicle281@mailinator.com> wrote:

>So it does look like the file is greater than 8-bits, but whether that
>is just a waste of disk space remains a mystery

It's only circumstantial evidence but for what it's worth:

On Tue, 2 Mar 2004 06:33:39 -0700,
"Ed Hamrick" <usenet@hamrick.com> wrote:

>> When an LS-30 scan is saved as RAW or, indeed,
>> "Output / TIFF file type / 64 bit RGBI"
>> does such file contain 10-bits or 8-bits of data?
>
>It contains 10 bits of data, with the low 6 bits zero.

So at least theoretically, the same should go for Polaroid.

However, considering how notoriously buggy and unreliable Vuescan is I
would take this "raw" file with a boulder or salt. It wouldn't be the
first (nor last) time that a Vuescan "raw" file is heavily corrupt.

>(Unless Ed Hamerick
>ever decides to grace us with his presence again).

Oh, he's reading this group very religiously so he can send nasty
emails to users who rightly complain about all the Vuescan bugs by
telling them they've been "blacklisted" - whatever that means...

Don.