Get The Most From Your Slide Or Negative With These Scanners

By George Lepp And Tim Grey
Photography By George Lepp

One of the most important tools in a serious digital darkroom is a desktop film scanner. Serious to us means making high-quality, photo-realistic prints up to 13x19-inches and sending out high-quality digital files for publication. The scanners we reviewed are quite impressive in their capabilities, but it's important to realize that they're not magical devices, either. They require some time to master their "craft," the skills needed to get the most out of any tool. They provide the raw material to work with, but you still need a certain amount of knowledge and practice to use these tools to best effect.

MICROTEK ARTIXSCAN 4000T The Microtek ArtixScan 4000t is the newest of the five scanners, and features a resolution capability of 4000 dpi (50 to 60 MB files), with a rated dynamic range of 3.4. While the final scans were of high quality, the preview was not. The blacks in the preview were especially poor. The software (Scan Wizard Pro 1.01) gave us numerous options to make changes to the prescan before the final scan. The scan times, including the prescan, were average compared to the others in the test. The software supports a batch scan of four slides or six filmstrip images with the included carriers.

Special Features Large files with 4000 dpi resolution Software with numerous options to improve image before the final scan Ability to batch scan four slides or six filmstrip images at a time Other Comments Poor resolution on the prescan image (including excessive noise in dark areas) Not as noise-free as expected from a dynamic range of 3.4. Other scanners with the same dynamic range had cleaner dark areas

MINOLTA DIMÂGE SCAN ELITE The Dimâge Scan Elite scanner is Minolta's best for 35mm. With a high dynamic range and Digital ICETM technology, Minolta has given us a package with more value than earlier scanners. The least expensive of the scanners in this review, the Scan Elite supports a resolution of 2820 dpi. Digital ICE cleans dust and surface scratches from the image, saving hours of potential clean-up work on images that haven't been treated carefully, yet doesn't affect the sharpness of the scan. The scanner software also offers a useful "variation correction" for color balance, brightness and contrast and saturation. This allows those less familiar with making these types of adjustments to simply choose the best image from a matrix of variations. The corresponding adjustments are then made behind the scenes.

Special Features A dynamic range of 3.6 when multiple scanned Low price when considering features such as a high dynamic range Digital ICE technology The software is user-friendly for photographers without experience with digital imaging Final scans are true to the original in color and saturation Other Comments slow scan time for the 16-pass high-dynamic range scan and slower overall than the other scanners in both previews and final scans A slide carrier that isn't as convenient as the other scanners in the group, and the inability to do batch scans

NIKON COOLSCAN LS-2000 The Nikon CoolScan LS-2000 has been around longer than the other scanners in the group. This is a very competent instrument, with a number of features that make it well worth its price. It produces high-quality scans, especially when its multiple scan feature is used. A dynamic range of 3.6 is slightly higher than the range offered by the two 4000 dpi scanners. The scans are so clean that we could easily blow them up to 4000 dpi in our image-processing software. The included Digital ICE technology is truly magical in its ability to remove dust and scratches from the image. Nikon also offers an optional 50-slide feeder that makes batch scanning a breeze.

Special Features Exceptionally clean scans due to the multiple scanning that removes noise from the dark areas of the image Digital ICE technology A small footprint that takes up very little desk space The optional 50-slide batch feeder (additional $499) is a must for production work of any real volume, allowing for unattended batch scans of 50 slides at a time. Other Comments A resolution of only 2700 dpi results in file sizes that are a little small for larger prints and may not meet the requirements of some stock agencies The time to scan an image at the highest quality (3.6 DR) was long at nine minutes, 16 seconds; the scanner samples the image 16 times, comparing the areas for noise and eliminating those areas that change from sampling to sampling; these differences are noise, and are eliminated by the software

POLAROID SPRINTSCAN 4000 The largest print we've produced with images scanned using the Polaroid 4000 was a 52-foot composite panorama consisting of six 35mm images scanned and merged into a total file of 176 MB. The resulting image was featured at the Canon booth at this year's Photo Marketing Association convention. The latest software (version 4.0) allows batch scans of four slides or six filmstrip images while you tend to other work. The new software is very intuitive and allows considerable image manipulation before the final scan. Although not TWAIN-compliant, the driver software does allow the resulting file to be automatically opened in the image-editing program of your choice, which works great for us. The dodge and burn feature in the scanning software increases noise and, therefore, isn't very useful. However, it also includes dust reduction, which helps to clean up images, though not to the extent of Digital ICE. The images were only slightly softer than the original.

Special Features The fastest of these scanners when it came to large final scans Having a larger file for publication and big prints is a real advantage The batch scanning feature is helpful, even if it's for a few images at a time Other Comments The lack of a more substantial hardware/software package like Digital ICE meant a lot of time cleaning up images, even with the included dust reduction It would be helpful to have a multiple image feeder for production work when using a scanner for professional imaging A dynamic range of 3.4 didn't allow the scanned images to match the clean dark areas possible on the Nikon LS-2000, which has a 3.6 DR

IMACON FLEXTIGHT PHOTO When image quality is paramount and money is no object, the Imacon FlexTight series of scanners is an excellent choice. These scanners start at $9,995, but the quality of scanned images is very impressive. The FlexTight Photo, Imacon's entry-level film scanner, boasts a dynamic range of 3.9 at an optical resolution of 3200 dpi. The FlexTight scanners are very similar to drum scanners costing upwards of $60,000. The media to be scanned must be removed from its mount and placed in a special carrier. The carrier is then fed into the scanner, but the film is still visible as it's being scanned. The scanning software is very thorough, allowing a good deal of adjustment before the final scan. Scanning wasn't fast: a 35mm image at 3200 dpi with the 3.9 dynamic range required five minutes, 19 seconds for scanning. The FlexTight Photo is also capable of scanning medium-format film up to 6x17cm. For those pros who want to get the most from digitizing medium-format film, this scanner may be a necessary investment. The resulting images were of superb quality, lacking any evidence of the noise that was seen with other scanners. This provides a very clean image that can be interpolated up for very large prints. For those who demand the best quality in digital imaging, it doesn't get much better than this—provided you can pay the price. Contact: Imacon, (510) 651-2000, www.imaconusa.com.