Getting more out of Nikon Coolscan II (LS-20)

[Carson Wilson]

Hello, SilverFast! Here are quite a few hard questions for you:

1. When are you going to answer the question I raised over 3 weeks ago about sharpening's relationship to downsampling at viewtopic.php?topic=73&forum=4&6 ?

2. I currently own a Nikon LS-20, which SilverFast has helped me get a lot more out of. But now you've raised my expectations and I'm trying to get even more performance. I've used SilverFast's "lamp brightness" control to push my negative scans as dark as possible (-5) and still find my highlights are clipped (per SilverFast's histograms). Can we give this control a greater range? Also, it appears from SANE source code that "exposure time," "brightness," and "contrast" codes can all be sent as SCSI controls to the scanner. I really would like to increase the contrast also, as most of my scans are bunched up in the middle of the scanner's 8-bit range, prior to SilverFast image manipulation. Have you considered implementing this?

3. Do CCD's "age" and does this result in lowered performance after a few years?

4. What does the "limit gamma" checkbox in the (LS-20) rightmost option menu do?

5. The demo of Silverfast 5.5 for the LS-20 I downloaded (SFTWE-5.5.0D17(Nikon).exe) does not pop up a NegaFix menu when I select "negative" as the input type. Why not?

6. I ask as a favor: do you know where one can obtain the "spec" for the LS-20. It's quoted in the SANE source as recommending that "analog gamma bits 5, 4, and 3 be set to 1 (OFF) when the object type of byte 48 is positive and the gamma specification of byte 51 is linear, and to 0 (ON) in all other cases." I would really like to see this information to get a complete understanding of what the LS-20 is and isn't capable of.

Thanks in advance,
Carson Wilson
cw@carsonwilson.com


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Carson Wilson on 2001-12-29 16:03 ]</font>

[LSI_Support]

1. When are you going to answer the question I raised over 3 weeks ago about sharpening's relationship to downsampling at viewtopic.php?topic=73&forum=4&6 ?
-- is answered

2. I currently own a Nikon LS-20, which SilverFast has helped me get a lot more out of. But now you've raised my expectations and I'm trying to get even more performance. I've used SilverFast's "lamp brightness" control to push my negative scans as dark as possible (-5) and still find my highlights are clipped (per SilverFast's histograms). Can we give this control a greater range? Also, it appears from SANE source code that "exposure time," "brightness," and "contrast" codes can all be sent as SCSI controls to the scanner. I really would like to increase the contrast also, as most of my scans are bunched up in the middle of the scanner's 8-bit range, prior to SilverFast image manipulation. Have you considered implementing this?
--- unfortunately SilverFast cannot do much in such cases, as this LS20 model cannot output "uncorrected" raw data, when SilverFast must deal with "bunched up values" this is the "source information" that SilverFast can deal with.
SilverFast can perform best with scanners that can output uncorreced (as is) raw data information.

3. Do CCD's "age" and does this result in lowered performance after a few years?
--- it is rather the light source that ages before the CCDs.

4. What does the "limit gamma" checkbox in the (LS-20) rightmost option menu do?
--- it limits the automatic image correction of SilverFast (auto-correction button). It basically tell the auto correction not to correct as strong as usual - the mid tones of gradation curve should not bend (up or down) too much.

5. The demo of SilverFast 5.5 for the LS-20 I downloaded (SFTWE-5.5.0D17(Nikon).exe) does not pop up a NegaFix menu when I select "negative" as the input type. Why not?
-- because of the lack of 6bit raw data information. The scanner cannot deliver this kind of data, but the NegaFix algorithm is based on such data.

6. I ask as a favor: do you know where one can obtain the "spec" for the LS-20. It's quoted in the SANE source as recommending that "analog gamma bits 5, 4, and 3 be set to 1 (OFF) when the object type of byte 48 is positive and the gamma specification of byte 51 is linear, and to 0 (ON) in all other cases." I would really like to see this information to get a complete understanding of what the LS-20 is and isn't capable of.

[Carson Wilson]

Thanks, LSI_support_Kohler. You've answered all but a few of my questions:

On 2002-02-27 11:22, LSI_support_Kohler wrote:
1. When are you going to answer the question I raised over 3 weeks ago about sharpening's relationship to downsampling at viewtopic.php?topic=73&forum=4&6 ?
-- is answered

Where is it answered?

6. I ask as a favor: do you know where one can obtain the "spec" for the LS-20. It's quoted in the SANE source as recommending that "analog gamma bits 5, 4, and 3 be set to 1 (OFF) when the object type of byte 48 is positive and the gamma specification of byte 51 is linear, and to 0 (ON) in all other cases." I would really like to see this information to get a complete understanding of what the LS-20 is and isn't capable of.

I've seen rumors that this is available from Nikon if a non disclosure agreement is signed. Can you confirm this?

Thanks again,
Carson

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Carson Wilson on 2002-02-27 17:53 ]</font>

[LSI_Flyvbjerg]

Carson,

Yes, the spec for Nikon scanners (including the LS-20) is available if you sign a NDA, but you have to contact Nikon directly.

Eric.