Flad bed scanners vs. film scanners

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Imaging Resource Discussion : One Thread

I shoot color negatives and get very good prints from my lab. Now I want to work these further in the computer. Should I buy a flat bed or film scanner ? I have an Epson stylus photo printer and Mac.

-- Bjorn Valdimarsson (vdm@isholf.is), August 16, 1998

Answers

A film scanner will always give you sharper results than scanning from the photos themselves, since the resolution of typical photo prints is only about 200 lines/inch. If your work with the prints would involve cropping and enlarging them further, the film scanner is almost a must.

If you want to do both, you might consider the HP PhotoSmart scanner, which we're about to review. (Hope to have some sample images up within a week.) The HP scans prints up to 5x7, slides, and negs. Best of all, it's only $299 right now, with HP's $100 rebate offer. Check back the end of next week and see if we've got the images posted yet...

Oops- just noticed you're a Mac user (like me, but I have to have both platforms around here for review work) - the HP scanner is Windows-only. You might consider instead the little Olympus ES-10 which we've already reviewed - it works great on the Mac and while not quite as cheap as the HP is still a good deal, and works very well. At a higher price point, the new Nikon SuperCoolscan III (and for even more money the '2000) have outstanding specs. We'll be reviewing these "soon", but probably not until sometime in September. Both of these work with the Mac, and both have excellent specs. The CoolScan III retails for about $999, the '2000 for about $1,900.

Good luck, hope this helps!

-- Dave Etchells (web@imaging-resource.com), August 20, 1998.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ