Problem using Epson Film Adapter

[Ted Kerin]

I have an Epson Pefection 1200U scanner, and the add-on Film Adapter, model
EU-33.

I had no trouble making acceptable scans of mounted film slides with this
combination on my old, Win98SE computer. But, for my WinXP computer, Epson
tells me to use a different driver, ver 5.53A, which seems to be causing a
problem.

Now, when I scan positive film slides with the film adapter, the software
cuts off parts of the slide if there are clear "gaps". For example, if the
slide includes a 2-line caption at the bottom, with "white space" between
the 2 lines of text, the scanner refuses to scan the bottom line of text --
the scanning stops at the white space, and assumes it should not continue.
Similarly, if there is a white (clear) "border" around an image in the
slide, the scanner will not scan the border. (Most of the slides I have to
scan are made from book pages, that my wife uses in academic presentations.
So it's a problem when the software won't let me scan the whole image.)

Can anyone please suggest how can I get this driver to scan the entire
contents of a slide? There seem to be very few options to change Settings
when the source is a film.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Ken Weitzel]

I have an Epson Pefection 1200U scanner, and the add-on Film Adapter, model
EU-33.

I had no trouble making acceptable scans of mounted film slides with this
combination on my old, Win98SE computer. But, for my WinXP computer, Epson
tells me to use a different driver, ver 5.53A, which seems to be causing a
problem.

Now, when I scan positive film slides with the film adapter, the software
cuts off parts of the slide if there are clear "gaps". For example, if the
slide includes a 2-line caption at the bottom, with "white space" between
the 2 lines of text, the scanner refuses to scan the bottom line of text --
the scanning stops at the white space, and assumes it should not continue.
Similarly, if there is a white (clear) "border" around an image in the
slide, the scanner will not scan the border. (Most of the slides I have to
scan are made from book pages, that my wife uses in academic presentations.
So it's a problem when the software won't let me scan the whole image.)

Can anyone please suggest how can I get this driver to scan the entire
contents of a slide? There seem to be very few options to change Settings
when the source is a film.

Thanks for any advice.

Hi David...

I have a 3200 - similar, but not the same as yours, so use
different software version.

I recall that when originally started up, the twain driver
defaulted to "find the picture" itself.

If they're the same, you need only draw the mask (marching
ants" around your slide after preview, zoom to fine tune
it, and from then on it will scan anything and everything
within that mask. For subsequent slides, the mask may need
just a hair of moving, but not re-sizing.

Hope that gets you started in the right direction, at least.

Take care.

Ken

 

[Ted Kerin]

Hi David...

I have a 3200 - similar, but not the same as yours, so use
different software version.

I recall that when originally started up, the twain driver
defaulted to "find the picture" itself.

If they're the same, you need only draw the mask (marching
ants" around your slide after preview, zoom to fine tune
it, and from then on it will scan anything and everything
within that mask. For subsequent slides, the mask may need
just a hair of moving, but not re-sizing.

Thanks for answering, Ken.

Problem is, when I tell the scanner that the source is film, even the
preview scan uses (as you describe it) "find the picture". And then, the
cropping tool is gone -- there is no option to change where the edges are,
before the final scan.

It does no good to set the source to flatbed (instead of film), as a way to
let me set the scanning area, because then the film adapter won't provide
the back-lighting that's needed. I even tried doing the preview in flatbed
mode, then selecting the area, then setting to film -- but, this last step
throws away the preview and cropping, and leaves me back where I started.

So unless I'm failing to spot something in the interface, it seems that when
I'm scanning film, I am stuck with the software's funky auto-cropping.

If I get a reply from Epson support, I will post it here.

 

[ljlbox]

Ted Kerin ha scritto:

[...]

Thanks for answering, Ken.

Problem is, when I tell the scanner that the source is film, even the
preview scan uses (as you describe it) "find the picture". And then, the
cropping tool is gone -- there is no option to change where the edges are,
before the final scan.

[...]

I've got an RX500. My version of Epson Scan has got a small arrow near
the "Preview" button, which lets you choose whether to "find the
picture" in the preview or just display the film strip as scanner.

In this second mode, I can then crop to whatever I like, and then press
"Scan".

by LjL
(e-mail address removed)