Epson V750 vs Imacon 949

[Joanna Carter]

He doesnt have a website but I have a phone number if you want me to pm it across (I'll post here if allowed by the forum rules).

If David gives you permission, then you can post the number here.

[Joanna Carter]

Do you mind, Tim? I have just coughed tea all over the monitor. Don't NEED to take pictures; don't NEED to use large format?!!? What planet are you from? Are you normal?

I would totally agree with you Charles. Perhaps its time to bring out the Comfy Chair™

[timparkin]

I believe that David Meunch on the IOW will do drum scans for around the £15.00 mark (last time I checked). He does scan and print for the 'Wardian' clan I think (Anna Booth, David Ward and a few others) - all the work exhibited at the Oxo gallery in their recent exhibition was scanned & printed by David. He doesnt have a website but I have a phone number if you want me to pm it across (I'll post here if allowed by the forum rules).

I'd really like to get David Meunch to do some drum scans for me but I think you'll probably end up getting David Whistance instead..

I think the price I got quoted was £17

Out of interest, I'm going to start doing 'raw' drum scans for £12 for colleagues (starting offer - still working out break evens) - that means you do the spotting yourself but get a 16bit 4000dpi file.. Would anybody be interested?

Tim

p.s. Personally - I need a drum scanner. .. then again I also need an 8x10 camera, a Cooke 945, a red dot Artar, a darkroom for playing with platinum prints and gravure and an assistant to carry all my gear

[joolsb]

that means you do the spotting yourself but get a 16bit 4000dpi file.. Would anybody be interested?

Might be....

< whistles nonchalantly >

[timparkin]

that means you do the spotting yourself but get a 16bit 4000dpi file.. Would anybody be interested?

Might be....

< whistles nonchalantly >

Of course I'm no David Muench ... *



* - sorry Mr Tolcher, I couldn't help myself

[Dave Tolcher]

Did I mean Whistance...... I think I did now that you correct me so politely. Will check my email when I get home !!

[Dave Tolcher]

Out of interest, I'm going to start doing 'raw' drum scans for £12 for colleagues (starting offer - still working out break evens) - that means you do the spotting yourself but get a 16bit 4000dpi file.. Would anybody be interested?

Tim

I was hoping that you might be.....

[DJ]

Being a somewhat pedantic person I would question the logic behind this, as the pixels in the image are square but the inkjet dots are (approximately) round(ish). No matter what the "native resolution" of a printer, it still has to make a best guess as to where to place the relevant dots to make up the square pixels. There is also the question of how the printer driver would render a pixel of a colour that requires a mixture of the five/seven/nine colours that make up the cartridge set.

It's not the native resolution of the printer so much as the driver and their screening algorithm.

The ink dots in Epson printers are laid down in a grid format of 4x2 dots to each "pixel" ( at least they were, they recently unveiled a new screening algorithm so it may/maynot still be the case ). The size and colour of the dot in each position of the grid is determined by the screening algorithm, which is quite clever and accounts for things like dot gain, dithering ( adjusting based upon surrounding elements ) etc etc. So it's not so much a case of where the printer places the dot, but which size and colour and combination of both will achieve the look of a certain colour. As you might imagine, this screening is quite complex, so these screening algorithms operate on a set resolution, the prospect of coding something that complex to work with any abitrary resolution the user might choose is prohibitive, so they have a defined "operating" resolution, if you send it an image that does not have enough data to print, it will interpolate up to it's working res.

I actually wonder if you are simply replacing one magical number with another

My magical number came from the Epson Engineer Fairy Seriously though, this information is the best I have been able to obtain from years reading up on this stuff and going through the Epson Developer manuals and talking to Epson engineers, I find this kind of thing interesting so I enjoy finding out how it works.

[Thingy]

I seem to recall that Ian was offering this service on his Imacon and that a Scovell scan cost £12.... but the price may have increased

[scovell001]

Well, as usual the post has gone off topic!

My mate David Whistance has become a German Pornstar called David Meunch! Tim's pedalling 'is wares! and DJ is havin a session about inkjet printer resolution. On the subject of inkjet resolution, (this sounds like a really obvious thing to say) I've found the paper thats printed on directly effects the resolution far more than screening algorithms and DPI.

Oh yeah, my scanning prices are still the same. I think things might have to change next year as the VAT changes and the post office increase their prices yet again, I've tried to swallow it until as much as I can to give as best value for money as I can. I spent the best part of £2,000 on postage last year (think of all that beer!).

Anyway, Joanna hasn't come back to me regarding this collaborative comparison (I have PM'd her). We're therefore looking for another volunteer with a V750/betterlight etc etc set up who can do the business. Volunteers anyone.

In the meantime, next week I'll get a tran/instructions out to Absolutely N first.

[Joanna Carter]

Anyway, Joanna hasn't come back to me regarding this collaborative comparison (I have PM'd her)

Sorry, I've been working away and haven't had a lot of spare time. Reply to PM in the works.

[DJ]

I'd also be glad to participate in the scanning test, Tim and I are chatting behind the scenes about his new drum scanner, and whilst we have the same scanner we're both using vastly different software to drive it, so even from our own point of view it would be interesting to compare the difference between our two software platforms. Tim is going to be using the DPL software on his Howtek, I'm using Silverfast AI Studio on mine.

Moving the debate away from sharpness/detail ( which is a done deal AFAIC ), the other main benefit is shadow detail. Whilst my Epson may be a true 16-bit device and my Howtek only 12-bit, the drum scanner can still pull out significantly more shadow detail than the flatbed. By way of example, here is a small section of a transparency I recently scanned, just too much dynamic range that morning and whilst I held the sky, there was lots of dark shadow.



Howtek on the left, Epson on the right. The Howtek scan was done at 2000ppi and the Epson at 2400ppi and downscaled to 2000, so it may have gained some sharpness from this. The screenshot was downscaled 50% with sharpening, just for the pedantic . The reason for the slight difference in colour balance is something I did, the point is to illustrate the shadow detail, which is unchanged.

[timparkin]

Howtek on the left, Epson on the right. The Howtek scan was done at 2000ppi and the Epson at 2400ppi and downscaled to 2000, so it may have gained some sharpness from this. The screenshot was downscaled 50% with sharpening, just for the pedantic . The reason for the slight difference in colour balance is something I did, the point is to illustrate the shadow detail, which is unchanged.

Digging into the shadows with a hard curve...

[AbsolutelyN]

Shadow differences very nicely highlighted. Which version of DPL did you go for Tim?

[timparkin]

Shadow differences very nicely highlighted. Which version of DPL did you go for Tim?

Just the standard for now - I would have liked the custom CMS but can't justify £700 extra for it

Tim