EPSON and loooong Digital ICE

[RobertoR]

I purchased Silverfast AI Studio + IT8 and i am very happy ....

I use the cheap epson 4990 to acquire 4x5 slide (provia 100f or Velvia 100). The output is 320MB (48bit 1800dpi)

My only concern is about the drammatic scanning time with ICE enabled. Unlucky SRD (much much faster) isn't so good. It may be i had to learn to use better this tool, but ICE seems really superior

I work with iMAC G5 2GB RAM 20".

Any idea? Is possible for programmers to optimize the speed?

Regards,
Roberto

[RAG]

Roberto,

320MB is a huge file, and the larger the file the longer all scanning will take. This is especially true with Digital ICE because it does both RGB and Infrared scans, and then after running an algorithm, produces the final RGB output.

What is the reason you are scanning such large files, is this for a bus size poster? If you are scanning the image to make an 8X10 print your output size should be 30MB or less.

[RobertoR]

Hi Rag,

final prints are (generally) 20x24 inches and sometimes larger (24x30")

By the way .... if i select multisample 4x and ICE is enabled why is not sufficient to make only 1 infrared scan ? (If i remember well Silverfast makes 4 infrared scan)

Another little question: epson 4990 is good, but it has a lot of limits with strong contrast, dark areas (noise, color fringing, blooming, real Dmax much lower than advertised). Could you suggest me a better scanner to use with Silverfast ? (It may be Microtek 1800F ?) My budget could be max 2000 U$ and i need only to acquire 4x5" (and sometimes medium format 6x9 cm)

Thanks for your feedback and regards from Italy,
Roberto

[RAG]

Roberto,

If your prints are going to a desktop printer you should only need to scan at 240 dpi and if they are going to press 300 dpi.

If you are only scanning slides and negatives I suggest looking at film scanners Vs Flatbed scanners. A number of people seem to like the Nikon film scanners.

degrub might be able to give you good advice on a film scanner, I mostly scan reflective images. You can look him up on the forum member list and send him a private message, or wait for him to see this thread and respond.

[RobertoR]

Thanks a lot. I'll write a little mail to degrub

90% of my scanning are slides 4x5" and i don't know film scanner that manage this format (sometimes ago Polaroid, Nikon and Microtek had one for 4x5, but now discontinued). Of course is i get an Imacon ...... nut unlucky not for 2k US

Yes i need 300 dpi.

Roberto

[RAG]

Roberto,

I forgot to comment on the Digital ICE part of your question. Digital ICE is built in to the hardware/firmware of the scanner. With ICE enabled during a scan it always does two passes, one infrared, and one RGB. The only way LaserSoft would be able to limit the number of infrared scans would be to turn off the Digital ICE feature. It might actually be programmatically possible for them to do the first or better the last scan with ICE on and turn it off during the other scans when in multi-scan mode, but only LaserSoft can answer that question.

Maybe you should put this in the "Wish list" forum.

[Stubb]

90% of my scanning are slides 4x5" and i don't know film scanner that manage this format (sometimes ago Polaroid, Nikon and Microtek had one for 4x5, but now discontinued). Of course is i get an Imacon ...... nut unlucky not for 2k US

Yes i need 300 dpi.

I also use my Epson 4990 to scan 4x5 transparencies for 16x20 prints and larger. I tell myself that I'd rather wait on the scanner to finish the ICE processing than to manually remove all the dust in Photoshop. What dust does get thorough usually only takes me a few minutes to remve.

Cheers,

Andreas