RE: Scanner suggestions

["Paul D. DeRocco" <pderocco@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

If things look great on the screen but not on the printer, your problem may
not be the scanner. It's important to get the display properly calibrated,
so that when you adjust an image to look right, you're not inadvertently
misadjusting it to compensate for errors in the display. However, a
colorimeter calibration package is a few hundred bucks, which may be out of
your price range. (Too bad you can't rent these things.) The alternative is
to laboriously learn what tweaks you make to the images in order to get them
to come out right on the printer. In addition, you didn't say what printer
you've got--you may need a better one.

But if you decide you really do need a better scanner, the news is good for
flatbeds, not so good for film scanners. For flatbeds, since you're starting
with large images that have no color, you'd probably be happy with any
current Epson model.

For film scanners, however, the cheaper models give pretty awful results,
and a decent one will cost in the high hundreds. (Pricewatch shows a factory
refurbed Nikon LS-2000 for $679). If you have lots and lots of slides to
scan, the cost of a scanner becomes less significant, but your time becomes
more so. You might want to weigh that against the cost of having someone
else scan your slides. As is being discussed in another thread, Kodak Photo
CDs are sometimes a good approach, depending upon how careful the operator
is. Personally, unless cost is no object, I don't think film scanning is
really worth it for archiving all your images, and only really makes sense
for scanning those particular images you want to print (or otherwise use).

--

Ciao,               Paul D. DeRocco
Paul                mailto:pderocco@ix.netcom.com

> From: Gene Merritt
>
> I'm in a quandry about flatbed acanners. I know there were
> postings regarding this in the past, but I'm now in a place of
> real dissatisfaction with my current 'cheapo'  $79 flatbed Umax.
>
> It's the old problem of lack of funds yet the need for high
> quality...sigh. I've boxes (100s) of 8x10 b&w photos from my ten
> year stint as a news photog. Plus a ton of color slides. All of
> these mostly from the 1980s.
>
> I've been putting these into this G4 Mac via  that 'crummy'
> scanner and the PrimeFilm 1800i film scanner. I believe it was
> Fred who, earlier said something about these looking great on the
> computer but printed out...ugh! I now know that's true.
>
> Any suggestions on various scanners to handle this large amount
> of material. One of the probs is I'm now disabled, and $$$ is
> also a consideration.

-
Turn off HTML mail features. Keep quoted material short. Use accurate
subject lines. http://www.leben.com/lists for list instructions.