I'd like to ask a question regarding Nikon LS-30 scanning speed. I'm satisfied with it in most cases except situation if both maximum resolution and "Clean Image" function are set on. In this case scanning speed increases about 5 times up to 10 minutes! (compared to the same resolution with "Clean Image" off). So, my questions are: 1)Is the scanning speed depending on the PC speed (I've got old 120MHz Pentium with 48MB RAM)? Could faster PC solve the problem? 2)Where is the "Clean Image" function being processed? Inside scanner, or in PC using data from scanner?

Thanx for answers. Zdenek

-- Zdenek SARA (zsara@iol.cz), March 02, 2000

Answers

With only 48Mb of RAM I'm surprised you can get it to work at all. The bottleneck is definitely with your computer. You see, scanners don't actually do any of the image processing themselves, all they do is convert an analog signal from the CCD sensor to a digital one that the computer can read. Any ICE, colour correction, curve correction, etc. must be done by the computer, so aquisition time will always be more dependent on the computer than the scanner's hardware.

As a first step, I would suggest you get (much) more RAM. If your motherboard takes modern DIMMs, then you can always use it later if you upgrade further. If not, then I would seriously consider a new motherboard and processor as well.

-- Pete Andrews (p.l.andrews@bham.ac.uk), March 02, 2000.

I would agree--I have an LS-30 operating with a Pentium III 600MHz/256K cache and 256MB RAM. Doing a scan as you describe takes about 90 seconds.

-- Andrew Atton (aatton@snet.net), March 02, 2000.

Dear Zdenek,

I have an LS-20 for three years now and I'm not so satisfied anymore on this machine. I want to know if is worth buying an LS-30. I'm having problems with exessive noise especialy in dark areas and scanning slides is often a prolem. Can you tell me how the Siverfast scansoftware for the LS-30 is functioning.

-- Jan Copier (jenh.copier@planet.nl), May 19, 2000.