Best Scanning From Canon FS4000US

[Luca Amateis]

I've got Vuescan and Filmget and trial version of Silverfast. I could
experiment but I've not got a lot of time to do that, so from others
experience I would like to know what's the best software and best way
to scan all my old slides and negs to get the best results, or the
best data to store on disk to process later? I always scan at 4000 dpi
and I've found Neatimage brilliant for removing grain with little or
no degradation of the detail and little manual input needed. I've also
found FARE brilliant at removing dust and scratches, again with no
noticeable degradation of the picture detail though some film produces
crystal type patterns in dark areas so its no use there.

Any simple tips/instructions?

Best software?
Best settings? (bearing in mind some colour/exposure changes may have
to be made)

In my opinion there is nothing better then Vuescan to drive the FS4000.
For scanning slides Filmget is useless and Silverfast is still in
development (last time I tried it infrered cleaning was not supported), at
least in my experience.
Main settings used with Vuescan were:

Light Infrared cleaning: medium and heavy settings in my opinions soften
too much the image and a few big dust spots are not a problem to correct
manually.

neutral or white balance color correction depending on the image.

Ektaspace as output profile.

For slides in need of a visible brightness correction I have always used
the 'long pass' option. This greatly helps reducing the noise in shadows.
Always check the resulting scan, as sometimes this setting gives visible
artifacts.

Are there any settings which affect how the scanner scans the film
which cannot be edited later.

Ta

If you scan and save your image at 48 bit depth I think the only setting
which cannot be corrected later is the exposure time.
I have abandoned the Canon, buying the Coolscan 5000. I must say that the
few slides I have rescanned are surprisingly similar to those scanned with
the FS4000. The main difference is the amount of time needed to achieve
such results: sometimes more the half an hour for the Canon against two or
three minutes with the Nikon.
Regards,

Luca A.

 

[John]

I've got Vuescan and Filmget and trial version of Silverfast. I could
experiment but I've not got a lot of time to do that, so from others
experience I would like to know what's the best software and best way to
scan all my old slides and negs to get the best results, or the best data to
store on disk to process later? I always scan at 4000 dpi and I've found
Neatimage brilliant for removing grain with little or no degradation of the
detail and little manual input needed. I've also found FARE brilliant at
removing dust and scratches, again with no noticeable degradation of the
picture detail though some film produces crystal type patterns in dark areas
so its no use there.

Any simple tips/instructions?

Best software?
Best settings? (bearing in mind some colour/exposure changes may have to be
made)

Are there any settings which affect how the scanner scans the film which
cannot be edited later.

Ta

 

[Paulthechef]

I have abandoned the Canon, buying the Coolscan 5000. I must say that the
few slides I have rescanned are surprisingly similar to those scanned with
the FS4000. The main difference is the amount of time needed to achieve
such results: sometimes more the half an hour for the Canon against two or
three minutes with the Nikon.

Was the scanning speed the only reason for you to switch to the Coolscan
5000, or did you expect some other scan improvements?

 

[Luca Amateis]

Was the scanning speed the only reason for you to switch to the
Coolscan 5000, or did you expect some other scan improvements?

Yes, speed was what I was really looking for. I was also expecting better
"out of the box" colors and shadow detail (which I got), but these are also
related to speed needed to obtain a good image.
Keep in mind that I switched to Nikon after a failure of the SCSI interface
of the Canon, which after the malfunction was working only in USB
mode, almost doubling the (already slow) scanning time.
If speed is not a concern I don't recommend a switch between these two
scanners, considering the price of the Coolscan.
Regards,

Luca A.

 

[John]

Thanks that was extremely useful. I added a SCSI card to my computer and it
brought scanning time down from around 5 minutes to 1 or 2 minutes at
highest DPI. I thought I was having noise problems with the Canon but
realise now its actually resolving the film grain. I'm about to test
Scanhancer (piece of diffusing plastic) but need to adapt it to fit the
scanner.

John

----- Original Message -----
From: "Luca Amateis" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scanners
Sent: 30 July 2004 09:13
Subject: Re: Best Scanning From Canon FS4000US

 

[Rhaytana]

I recommend the DayStarVisions tutorial for using Vuescan:

http://daystarvisions.com/Docs/Tuts/NegScan/pg1.html