LaserSoft Imaging

greetings..

I'm trying out my new plustek 7500i and i'm not quite satisfied yet. there is a lot of noise in the scans and they seem to take a long time.

I've still got the option of returning the plustek and have one a couple of general questions (that I should have asked before buying.. )

1. what's the best option for scanning negatives. Flatbed scanner or film scanner. I've got 2-3000 old pictures that needs to be scanned for future use
2. What kind of quality can I expect to get from scaning negs. I've been working with my plustek for a few days and the best result i've got was using the iSRD and 4 scans, using 3200 dpi. The picture was not to bad but much worse that the original paper copy
3. The best scan so far, using 4 scans and iSRD produced a jpg of about 18mb and lasted more than 1 hour (!). But it's on an old computer (only P4) with usb 1.1. Is it the scan itself that is slow or is it because of a slow computer ? I've got a "state of the art" laptop, it's just more convenient to have the scanner connected to the old desktop.

.. that's all for now..

Dear noob,

So far you are not satisfied with your Plustek 7500i

noob wrote:there is a lot of noise in the scans and they seem to take a long time.

All film scanners are slow, It really takes a while to scan such a small surface and its tiny details to be enlarged afterwards. The noise, is dependent not only on the scanner itself but on the the picture itself. Picture noise is an effect produced on digital photography on dark areas. All scanners produce some noise, some models more than others but no scanner is free of this effect.

noob wrote:1. what's the best option for scanning negatives. Flatbed scanner or film scanner. I've got 2-3000 old pictures that needs to be scanned for future use

A dedicated film scanner is better than a flatbed scanner. Negatives are film.

noob wrote:2. What kind of quality can I expect to get from scaning negs. I've been working with my plustek for a few days and the best result i've got was using the iSRD and 4 scans, using 3200 dpi. The picture was not to bad but much worse that the original paper copy

That is a relative question, however its hard to believe that using those settings your outcome was better on paper. Perhaps you can appreciate better all the film imperfections on the scan than on the film copy, hence you are prone to perceive the paper copy to be better than the scan.

noob wrote:3. The best scan so far, using 4 scans and iSRD produced a jpg of about 18mb and lasted more than 1 hour (!). But it's on an old computer (only P4) with usb 1.1. Is it the scan itself that is slow or is it because of a slow computer ? I've got a "state of the art" laptop, it's just more convenient to have the scanner connected to the old desktop.

Well probably if you use a USB 2 port you might get to save some time. but still your settings require the scanner and SilverFast to work a lot for a long period of time. You might want to try to get a USB card for your computer (they are very cheap nowadays) and put it to the test.

Cheers

When I say that the paper copy is better, i'm talking about the actual paper copy produced when the film was processed by a photolab...

Is it possible to send a picture to you guys and get an evaluation of the result so that I know better what to expect ?

one more litle corection..

what's the best option for scanning negatives. Flatbed scanner or film scanner. I've got 2-3000 old pictures that needs to be scanned for future use

what I meant was what's the best option for scanning photos. A flatbed scanner and scan the processed paper copy or a film scanner and scan the negative.

Dear noob.

noob wrote:what I meant was what's the best option for scanning photos. A flatbed scanner and scan the processed paper copy or a film scanner and scan the negative.

The paper for chemical process has a far smaller dynamic range than the film does or than your computer monitor, this means it can not really portray all details and shades of grey or colors registered by the emulsion of the film.
That is also the reason why your prints seem to be "better" than the scanned film. Because you are not actually watching all details contained in the film whereas on the computer monitor, the scanned film portrays much more details than the paper.

Scanning the paper copies is hence much faster than scanning the film.

Cheers

film scanners are pretty slow and sometimes it produces noise depending on its model. but in spite of these, i still prefer this one.