My Minolta Dimage Scan Speed is so much sharper then my old Nikon LS-20, but the enclosed software/firmware does not allow calibration. I am getting tired or correcting EVERY scan in Photoshop for the dark scans. I have already gone through all the gyrations of monitor and PS calibrations, etc., with no help.

What's my best alternative? I'm concerned ref the Nikons due to sharpness, but the Minolta scan module blows, BIG TIME!

Any advice would be appreciated...

-- MikeB (airlinestuff@yahoo.com), March 13, 2000

Answers

Mike,

There are ways you can compensate for a dark scan outside of the scanning software, but the root of the problem sounds like you have not used these calibration tools for your monitor and PS correctly.

I routinely use the Scan Speed on a PC platform with little trouble. I find the software to be suitable, with the only problem being the missing ability to use ICC profiles directly. But this is a color management issue, not a Darkness/Lightness issue.

If you are using PS5, try this. (I am assuming you have followed the instructions on setting up Adobe Gamma?!) In the RGB setup, check to see what color space you are using, and what the gamma value is set at. For PC monitors, the white point is around 6500K, and the gamma should be about 2.2. I use the Adobe RGB space (formerly SMPTE-240M) with a gamma of 2.2.

If these values are correct to begin with, then there are actions you can set in PS to do the necessary comensations while importing each image from the scanner.

-- Jason M. Kirk (jasonkirkphoto@hotmail.com), March 14, 2000.

That is interesting because I have no problem correcting for dark slides when scaning with my scan speed and I have scanned hundreds of slides. What part of the software are you having trouble with? On the PC, the minolta scanner seems to be set up for a gamma of around 2.20. If you use a different gamma on your monitor, you will get a shift in brightness when you import your scan. You should also be using the levels control in your scanner software rather than the brightness and contrast levels I rarely use the minolta software for running this scanner. Most of the time I use ed hamricks software because it allows me to do multipass scanning which gives me shadow detail. With that software, I do all my correction in Photoshop with 16 bit tiff files. This reduces shadow noise to a minimum and gives me the best scan.

-- jonathan ratzlaff (jonathanr@clrtech.bc.ca), March 14, 2000.