HP S20 vs. Minolta Dimage Dual Scan
Tony and Arlene Sanchez
Any opinions on these 2 scanners? I'd like to get one of these and would
like pros and cons.
Can the HP scan 6x6 medium format negatives?
Thanks in advance.
- Tony
Matt Joerin
5x7 prints. It also handles slides. If you are considering this either of
these printers, check out a post I made about two days ago titled HP S-20.
I mention a software program that is an absolute must if you choose the HP,
it also handles the Dual Scan.
-Matt
Tony and Arlene Sanchez <ton...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:7ujcl6$n7q$1...@nntp8.atl.mindspring.net...
David Kates
have a flatbed scanner, the HP ability to scan photos didn't really matter
to me. I guess the only two points that made me decide against the HP were:
USB only, and the fact that you take your negatvie strip and feed it into
the scanner - it grabs the strips and pulls it in.
I like the Scan Dual process of putting the negative strip in a film holder
and then feeding the holder in. Just a preference. I've read very good
posts about both scanners. Scan DPI is very close with HP at 2400 and Scan
Dual at 2438 - so that won't make any difference.
David
Tim O'Connor
> I'm quite happy with the Scan Dual. Remember the S-20 is USB only. Since I
> have a flatbed scanner, the HP ability to scan photos didn't really matter
> to me. I guess the only two points that made me decide against the HP were:
> USB only, and the fact that you take your negatvie strip and feed it into
> the scanner - it grabs the strips and pulls it in.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ Timothy O'Connor, RMIT. All opinions expressed are my own. ~
~ You can find yourself a lover, you can make yourself a home, you can ~
~ want no other ever, but its never to late to be alone...[Del Amitri] ~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tim O'Connor
> No the HP cannot scan a 6x6 negative. It maxes out with 35 mm negatives and
> 5x7 prints. It also handles slides. If you are considering this either of
> these printers, check out a post I made about two days ago titled HP S-20.
> I mention a software program that is an absolute must if you choose the HP,
> it also handles the Dual Scan.
use that in preference to the S20 software. YMMV though.
David Kates
machine is on the dull edge of technology (unfortunately). Pentium Pro 200
with not an IRQ left. I would have added USB but felt it wasn't worth the
hassle of reconfiguring my whole PC. Next machine, I'm looking forward to
USB.
David
Tony Galt
<rn...@minyos.its.rmit.edu.au> wrote:
>David Kates <rune....@home.com> wrote:
... I guess the only two points that made me decide against the HP
were:
>> USB only, and the fact that you take your negatvie strip and feed it into
>> the scanner - it grabs the strips and pulls it in.
I don't see the way the HP handles film as a disadvantage at all.
First of all, there's no chance the film is going to get trapped in
the scanner (if that is the worry implied above), you can open it up
easily. I've scanned hundreds of slides and negatives and had no
problem with scratching and film flatness seems excellent, unlike a
Nikon scanner I have used (LS-1000) where the film did not lie flat
and I would get softly focused sides to my images. In fact, working
with film holders becomes fiddly and there is more chance of
accidentally fingerprinting or scratching a frame. They also mask the
edges of the film frame so that you can't scan it in its entirety. The
HP can be set to scan right out to the edges of the frame, so that if
you use a pro-level camera that shows 100% in the viewfinder you can
scan and print what you see. It scans up to five frames at a time, and
is even capable of scanning panoramic film from the new Hasselblad and
other 35 mm panoramic cameras.
I really shines for scanning color negative film. The new model S20
still, in my opinion, has some trouble with noise in deep shadow
detail when scanning slides. This can usually be manipulated out. I've
gone over to color negative film almost totally (Reala mostly) and
find the increased latitude of the film allows prints with a very full
range of tones, including excellent shadow detail. The Minolta may do
a better job with slides, but for color negatives the HP is really
excellent (I've never used one.) Also the HP S20 software is simple
and excellent (although I wish it allowed a larger preview image). The
sharpening facility is wonderful--I set it at 60 for color negatives
and do no further sharpening in Picture Window my image processing
program.
Tony Galt
Ed Hamrick
would
> use that in preference to the S20 software. YMMV though.
I just released VueScan 5.0, and it produces results that many
people say are better than those produced by the HP software on
the S20. It's a significant improvement over VueScan 4.3.
I spent many, many hours comparing scans from VueScan with
actual Kodak prints, and am quite happy now with VueScan's
color fidelity and image contrast.
Regards,
Ed Hamrick
Joe Doupnik
Following up Ed's request today to provide information on my
comment that Vuescan 5.0 goes to extremes about clipping and contrast.
I have placed two scans of the same four frame negative strip in
http://netlab1.usu.edu/vuescan/
Actually you will see the readme.txt file there, and the individual scan
results in the vuescan43 and vuescan5 subdirectories. The readme.txt file
has vuescan setup details (pretty vanilla), and you can tell apart the
two sets because the vuescan43 image crop size is set larger than that
shipped with vuescan.
I viewed these with Photoshop v5.5, the full product, on a decent
system. Notice the greatly different contrast, and how dimmer material
is turned completely black in vuescan5 processing. Punch there is, a tad
excessive however.
Last night I stumbled onto this, and I did some rescanning with
vuescan5 set to just levels and so on backwards, and the results were
basically the same as with the "intensity" setting. Thus something
appears to be stuck in the code while Vuescan remains running.
This is not a web page presentation, just the files and nothing
else, and for Ed's benefit. Sorry about the dust and the low res.
Joe D.
Ed Hamrick
> Following up Ed's request today to provide information on my
> comment that Vuescan 5.0 goes to extremes about clipping and contrast.
> I have placed two scans of the same four frame negative strip in
> http://netlab1.usu.edu/vuescan/
I downloaded the scan0001.tif file. I used VueScan 5.0 to
process it with all default options. I also processed it
using the Gold 400 Gen 6 film type.
The images look completely different than the ones on
your web site. Are you sure you used all default options?
Try pressing the "Defaults" button, then press the "Re-crop"
button.
The cropxxxx.tif files look quite good with VueScan 5.0.
Regards,
Ed Hamrick
Joe Doupnik
> In article <940527371.16974.2...@news.demon.co.uk>, "Ed Hamrick" <ham...@primenet.com> writes:
>> Tim O'Connor <rn...@minyos.its.rmit.edu.au> wrote:
>>> If your talking about Vuescan, then I disagree. There is no way I
>> would
>>> use that in preference to the S20 software. YMMV though.
>>
>> I just released VueScan 5.0, and it produces results that many
>> people say are better than those produced by the HP software on
>> the S20. It's a significant improvement over VueScan 4.3.
>>
>> I spent many, many hours comparing scans from VueScan with
>> actual Kodak prints, and am quite happy now with VueScan's
>> color fidelity and image contrast.
>>
>> Regards,
>> Ed Hamrick
> -------------
> comment that Vuescan 5.0 goes to extremes about clipping and contrast.
> I have placed two scans of the same four frame negative strip in
> http://netlab1.usu.edu/vuescan/
> results in the vuescan43 and vuescan5 subdirectories. The readme.txt file
> has vuescan setup details (pretty vanilla), and you can tell apart the
> two sets because the vuescan43 image crop size is set larger than that
> shipped with vuescan.
> I viewed these with Photoshop v5.5, the full product, on a decent
> system. Notice the greatly different contrast, and how dimmer material
> is turned completely black in vuescan5 processing. Punch there is, a tad
> excessive however.
> Last night I stumbled onto this, and I did some rescanning with
> vuescan5 set to just levels and so on backwards, and the results were
> basically the same as with the "intensity" setting. Thus something
> appears to be stuck in the code while Vuescan remains running.
> This is not a web page presentation, just the files and nothing
> else, and for Ed's benefit. Sorry about the dust and the low res.
> Joe D.
Supplementing this note with a quick observation.
If I bring up the same frame from both scans, using Photoshop 5.5
then I can make them look very similar if the vuescan4.3 image is changed
under "levels" to move the black point (the left triangle for Photoshop
users) to the 128 mark. That discards the lower 7 bits of information (a large
amount of imagery resides at and below that level) and makes the results
appear very very contrasty and badly clipped from below.
I hope this will be a useful observation for Ed.
Joe D.
Joe Doupnik
> Joe Doupnik <j...@cc.usu.edu> wrote:
>> Following up Ed's request today to provide information on my
>> comment that Vuescan 5.0 goes to extremes about clipping and contrast.
>> I have placed two scans of the same four frame negative strip in
>> http://netlab1.usu.edu/vuescan/
>
> process it with all default options. I also processed it
> using the Gold 400 Gen 6 film type.
>
> The images look completely different than the ones on
> your web site. Are you sure you used all default options?
> Try pressing the "Defaults" button, then press the "Re-crop"
> button.
>
> The cropxxxx.tif files look quite good with VueScan 5.0.
>
> Regards,
> Ed Hamrick
Thanks Ed. For a quick response right now let me include vuescan.ini
for both experiments.
Vuescan 4.3:
[Positive 20cm Image]
ColorCorrect = 5
ScanTifFile = scan0001+.tif
[Negative 24mm Strip]
FilmVendor = 5
FilmBrand = 6
FilmType = 12
[Negative 35mm Frame]
FilmVendor = 5
FilmBrand = 6
FilmType = 12
Averaging = 2
ScanTifFile = scan0001+.tif
[Positive 35mm Frame]
CropXSize = 25000
CropYSize = 36000
[Positive 24mm Frame]
DarkBorder = 0
[Positive 15cm Image]
ColorCorrect = 5
CropXSize = 102000
[Negative 35mm Strip]
FilmVendor = 5
FilmBrand = 6
FilmType = 12
CropXSize = 23900
CropYSize = 34500
ScanTifFile = scan0001+.tif
CropYImages = 4
AutomaticFeed = 1
[VueScan]
Mode = 9
CropJpgQuality = 100
Buffer = 8
AdvancedOptions = 1
ScanDpi = 8
--------
Vuescan 5.0:
[Positive 20cm Image]
Averaging = 2
Adjustments = 1
[Positive 15cm Image]
Adjustments = 0
[Negative 35mm Strip]
FilmVendor = 5
FilmBrand = 6
FilmType = 12
AutomaticFeed = 1
[VueScan]
Mode = 9
ColorSpace = 6
AdvancedOptions = 1
ScanDpi = 8
Also, just for reference this evening I included results from
HP's software as done by Twain into Photoshop. Those files are in the
hpsoftware directory, and they look similar to those from Vuescan 4.3.
I updated the readme.txt file to describe how I scanned (all defaults).
Now everyone wait a few minutes while I take Ed's advice and
do a quick defaults/recrop and look at the results in Photoshop again....
A little running commentary to pass the time of day: pushed defaults button.
Fine. Select 300 dpi to keep files small. Pushed recrop, Photoshop is
coming up, and coming up, and coming.. We have picture on my screen.
Looking at same. Much much better than before. So what is different?
The default button changed several settings:
Under "Correct for" (still at Negative) film went to Generic, Color,
Negative, Color space went to rec. 709RGB, Adjustments remain at Intensify.
I don't know what 709RGB is, and could care less about it and a few others,
because I'm trying to work in sRGB throughout. No, gamut is not the issue here.
I will put these four scans into the vuescan50 directory too, as
crop0005..8.tif so others can sneak a peek.
While I have attention of readers let me re-re-scan, using Kodak
Gold 400-6 film and Color space sRGB as originally. Back again after pressing
the buttons. These images are very close to the set just done above, and
much different than the original set. They are basically "good" rather than
"horrid."
This has not happened here before at all, and vuescan 5.0 was started
fresh a number of times. Vuescan 4.x has not done this trick either. So what's
the story Ed? It certainly looked as if vuescan 5.0 were chopping away the
lower 7 bits of pixels, as I mentioned earlier this evening.
Would someone else please try the same experiment and give us the
results? It's for our collective benefit.
Thanks,
Joe D.
Carsten J. Arnholm(sr)
Tim O'Connor wrote in message <380e...@mercury.its.rmit.edu.au>...
>I dont exactly see the USB port as a disadvantage. :-)
With NT, it certainly is !
Carsten J. Arnholm(sr)
Oslo, Norway. carn...@online.no
Ed Hamrick
> I don't know what 709RGB is, and could care less about it and a few
others,
CCIR Recommendation 709 - it's a color standard for HDTV. It's the
color space used by PhotoCD. It's now called
"ITU-R Recommendation BT.709".
> They are basically "good" rather than
> "horrid."
I found the problem. The results from "Scan" were different than
the results from "Re-crop" on the PhotoSmart when scanning film
strips. I made an error in the orange mask computation code on
the PhotoSmart film strips.
I've fixed this in VueScan 5.1, which I'll upload in a few hours.
Regards,
Ed Hamrick
Michael Blake
When I tested version 5.0 I scanned one strip of 5 negatives and then
recropped all evening as I played with the various options. I noticed that
the very first crop looked different but I thought it was me.
Joe has proven to have a very sharp eye! Good for him and good for you for
correcting it so quickly. Now I have to retest... rats! I had also better
not be so quick to assume that I have made a mistake:-)
Mike Blake
Ed Hamrick <ham...@primenet.com> wrote in message
news:940581454.4497.2...@news.demon.co.uk...
Tim O'Connor
> I just released VueScan 5.0, and it produces results that many
> people say are better than those produced by the HP software on
> the S20. It's a significant improvement over VueScan 4.3.
> I spent many, many hours comparing scans from VueScan with
> actual Kodak prints, and am quite happy now with VueScan's
> color fidelity and image contrast.
Ill give it a try. Thanks for the updates Ed :-) I know you probably
dont want to do it, but have you thought of adding a quick preview option
when scanning?
Tim O'Connor
> Tim O'Connor wrote in message <380e...@mercury.its.rmit.edu.au>...
>>I dont exactly see the USB port as a disadvantage. :-)
> With NT, it certainly is !
Yes your right. Have to wait for Windows Y2K I guess.
Ed Hamrick
>
> > Tim O'Connor wrote in message <380e...@mercury.its.rmit.edu.au>...
> >>I dont exactly see the USB port as a disadvantage. :-)
>
> > With NT, it certainly is !
> Yes your right. Have to wait for Windows Y2K I guess.
Actually, the HP PhotoSmart S20 works quite nicely
on Windows NT 4.0 (I have it hooked up on my development
machine). HP has a special driver for NT 4.0 that seems
to work well.
Regards,
Ed Hamrick
FOR7
>on Windows NT 4.0 (I have it hooked up on my development
>machine). HP has a special driver for NT 4.0 that seems
>to work well.
>
>Regards,
>Ed Hamrick
>
After wasting money on the first model I wouldn't recommend the S20 either as I
have heard of there still being some people having problems with line patterns
at higher resolutions. On my original Photosmart it happens at any scans only
above 1200 dpi and ofcourse shows up on prints made with my Epson 750. Make
sure you test it thoroughly within a return period is what I would highly
recommend!
E.T.
fo...@aol.com
Joe Doupnik
> I'll move my new HP S20 question to here instead of the $500 scanner vs. digital
> camera note...
>
> I prefer to scan my transparencies PRIOR to mounting. Will the S20 do this? I
> KNOW I can scan negatives, but does the scanner know when its scanning a
> transparency? And must the transparency be in a mount or can it be a strip of
> transparencies?
>
> My experience has been that my transparencies are flatter prior to mounting
> AND
> I can get all the way to the edges rather than having part of the fram covered
> by the mount...
---------
Here is an answer:
HP's Photosmart software has the "Photo Type:" pick box listing
color negatives, of course, but a large array including faded or old
negative, B&W negative, color slide strip (your situation), ditto with
Kodachrome, and four choices with Panorama mode.
Vuescan has a box to select Scan type listing 35mm Strip, flatbed,
transparency, 24mm strip and framed, and 15cm and 20cm images. Below that
is a Scan media choice box of negative or positive. In the middle of the
screen are choices of film particulars including negative and slide film
and sundry cleaning/sharpening selections. www.hamrick.com for Vuescan.
Both have adjustable dimensions for framing; I can get to sprocket
holes here.
These products seem to cover your situation. If there is a store
near you which carries the HP S20 scanner you might try a strip of positive
film to check details. What I cannot say is the quality of scanned positives
other than an old Ektachome here came out fine (in its Kodak mount). Thin
glass mounted frames also work ok in the S20; I checked a few. The S20 has
a respectibly deep depth of focus.
Joe D.
dpe...@juno_nospam.com
Tony Galt
>KNOW I can scan negatives, but does the scanner know when its scanning a
>transparency? And must the transparency be in a mount or can it be a strip of
>transparencies?
quality mounts (glass or glassless) and chuck the rest. Processing may
be a little cheaper as well. Yes the S20 will easily scan strips of
transparencies up to five frames in length. You simply change the
setting in the software. I have found that whether mounted or not, the
S20 produces excellent flat field scans. This was not true of the
Nikon LS-1000 I used before. You can also set the scanner to scan
whole frames so that the full area is there in the file. This is
useful if you have a pro camera that gives you the whole frame in the
viewfinder. You can emulate the old 1960s style inclusion of the black
outline of the frame to show how great your composition in the
viewfinder was trick. (This is a software setting, the factory default
is to chop off a bit of the frame.)
Tony Galt
Gary Eickmeier
Joe Doupnik wrote:
> While I have attention of readers let me re-re-scan, using Kodak
> Gold 400-6 film and Color space sRGB as originally. Back again after pressing
> the buttons. These images are very close to the set just done above, and
> much different than the original set. They are basically "good" rather than
> "horrid."
> This has not happened here before at all, and vuescan 5.0 was started
> fresh a number of times. Vuescan 4.x has not done this trick either. So what's
> the story Ed? It certainly looked as if vuescan 5.0 were chopping away the
> lower 7 bits of pixels, as I mentioned earlier this evening.
>
I don't have a scanner at all, but I have a question: Does anyone know why the scans I've been getting from the
commercial services are so contrasty? Seems they can't get all of the latitude of the negative in one scan
setting. Lowlights block up, highlights wash out. Negatives are relatively normal, print fine in the chemical
process. They tell me that you can't scan negatives and get all the range in them, because the neg's latitude is
far greater than a scanner can handle.
Is this a crock, or do you generally have the same problem?
Gary Eickmeier
dpe...@juno_nospam.com
ANYPLACE in Minneapolis that carries the HP S20. I've talked to the major
camera shops, but I haven't been to CompUSA or Best Buy or such... I'll have to
keep looking...
I'm also considering the Canon 2710, but I'm not finding any information on the
web for this scanner... Reviews? Prices? A local shop carries the scanner but
they're not recommending it for use on PCs because they've had major problems
getting the interface to work... so reviews, comparisons, first-hand knowledge
would be helpful...
Joe Doupnik
It's crock, and it lead to my spending money on a film scanner.
I get lots more dynamic range from the scanner than from the commercial
ones done for me (non-Kodak). The commercial scans I received were as you
described, and I suspect the intent was to compress things for printing
(low dynamic range, say 100:1 or less) and to add "punch" to screen pictures.
Joe D.
Joe Doupnik
Adding two things to my message.
1. Correct "lead" to "led" above.
2. Dynamic range: negatives have a lot smaller dynamic range
(Dmax-Dmin) than say Kodachrome slides (positives). A density range of 2 or
3 is common on normal negatives, slides get up to 4. We know this from
common experience too, when we try to show b/w line drawings using scenic
film and we then go around trying to find litho film for denser blacks.
Dmax-Dmin of 3 is an intensity range of 1000:1, 10 bits. A two bit scanner
could provide four levels over this range, so the range is not as important
as the number of steps in the range (which clearly is the number of bits of
resolution between brightest illumination on the sensor to the dimmest plus
sensor noise). More steps then better tonal representation and less
posterization artifacts and more detail in dark and light areas.
Joe D.
Tang Wong
enough for me.
The S20 is not bad, I am just more demanding than it can offer. I was also
strongly
influenced by the many emails and comparisons on many web sites that I
bought
a Nikon LS-30. Another factor is the rebate, which brings the price
difference between
the LS-30 and the HP S20 / Minolta Scan Dual to a manageable amount. One
other
thing, the SCSI connection is SO much better than USB.
For those who are still deciding and willing to spend another $250 or so,
the LS-30
is much better than the S20 and well worth the extra money.
<dperez@juno_nospam.com> wrote in message
news:38202902....@news.uswest.net...
Gary Eickmeier
both 35 and medium format negatives, and most of the "reasonably" priced scanners are 35mm only. So I continue to have
my pix scanned to CD at the time of processing, and get some really bizarre results. I just wonder why they can make
reasonable looking prints from the same negatives that they are scanning, but they can't get the exposure or color
right in the scans. I mean, is this rocket science or just good old PHOTOGRAPHY.
Gary Eickmeier
Mitchell Regenbogen
>After using an HP S20 for awhile, I finally decided that it was not good
>enough for me.
>The S20 is not bad, I am just more demanding than it can offer. I was also
>strongly
>influenced by the many emails and comparisons on many web sites that I
>bought
>a Nikon LS-30. Another factor is the rebate, which brings the price
>difference between
>the LS-30 and the HP S20 / Minolta Scan Dual to a manageable amount. One
>other
>thing, the SCSI connection is SO much better than USB.
>
>For those who are still deciding and willing to spend another $250 or so,
>the LS-30
>is much better than the S20 and well worth the extra money.
The LS-30 looks to be about double the price of the HP, and more than double
that of the Minolta Scan Dual considering that Insight is selling the Scan
Dual bundled with the APS adapter for $496. What rebate is available for the
LS-30?
Ed Hamrick
> The LS-30 looks to be about double the price of the HP, and more than
double
> that of the Minolta Scan Dual considering that Insight is selling the
Scan
> Dual bundled with the APS adapter for $496. What rebate is available
for the
> LS-30?
You can get the Scan Dual without the APS adapter from
www.buycomp.com for about $350. The LS-30 has a $150 rebate
from Nikon till the end of 1999. You can find links to
both of these on:
http://www.hamrick.com/vsm.html
Regards,
Ed Hamrick
Mitchell Regenbogen
That's if you want to deal with Buycomp...