Collette

I purchased a refurbished Epson Perfection 850 Pro from the Epson.ca website with extended warranty on it. It has the Silverfast SE8 software/license key with it and all the slide/photo trays etc.

Is Silverfast the software I should scan with for scanning old slides/photos etc.? It does come with Epson software and an xrite colour mangement CD. Of course, I have to find the same as a download. My computer doesn't have an optical drive.

OMG you are awesome! So another question, if I want to crop/sharpen image, does this get placed after I do that or before?

Good morning

I am looking to make some footprint images into a layer with transparent background. Also not sure if I got focus on this. Might have to retake the image but I would like to know how to make into a layer to subtly add to corner of photos.

Do you recommend display port over HDMI because it's not sending the audio signal? Just curious on that one.

Guess what was on my Xmas wish list and guess what I got! Now my next project, not sure if the beaches accommodate where we are staying for vacation but, I hope to catch some sunrises there. Just gotta watch and plan that tide.

Hi Brian,

I am sure you have discussed this before regarding choices for Nikon 70-200 mm lenses. You mentioned that the f4 is tack sharp at f4. What would be my benefit for going to the f2.8 lens because I thought the rule of thumb was two stops for sharpness.

I know you are a Nikon "snob" but I also see that Sigma is releasing a new version of their Sport f2.8 so I'm looking at that also.

Thanks for any advice or gotchas you can provide.

12 minutes ago, Collette said:

Dang Epson doesn't allow shipping to Canada. $279 CAD from Amazon though. I wish I could afford the v700 or v800

NM, wont work for slides better than what I already have. DMAX isnt good enough.

On 10/30/2018 at 3:25 AM, Brian said:

What?! B&H sends to Oz. Unless Epson says no. 

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/HelpCenter/International.jsp

Dang Epson doesn't allow shipping to Canada. $279 CAD from Amazon though. I wish I could afford the v700 or v800

I am looking at the Max. Right now the heaviest lens I have is the 24-70mm, no battery grip. At some point in time, I will be saving up for the 70-200 either f2.8 or the f4 that you say is sharp even at f4. I own a Manfrotto tripod (el cheapo one but can handle the weight just fine) so I have the quick release plate from that I could use and is typically always on my camera.

I would be hoping to spend $200 or less for the tripod head.

Photos - anything really. Night exposure and shots where the angle of view would make it difficult to hold the camera. take with me on vacation because oddly enough, Mexico doesn't allow tripods as carry-on going out of their country but a Platypod would be just fine and takes up way less space and weight.

Good Day Brian,

I see previously you have mentioned you have a Platypod. I was looking at them a while ago, on my Amazon wish list. Can you tell me about them and what tripod head you recommend for them? I use Nikon D810. Or do you recommend another system? I would be looking for lightweight travel gear instead of a tripod and this seems to be a pretty good piece of gear.

Cheers

Curious if it is possible to remove the fence from this photo. No editing has been done yet. They were all around but the only ones showing their feathers like this were behind a fence.

I have to upgrade my software to access 16 bit histogram. Off hand, would you know about Vuescan software? Some people are using that and I know both software applications can work with my current scanner and Epson V800.

Thanks, I figured so. Will ask on Silverfast forum and report back. Honestly not hopeful at this point but we will see.

Yes, it is set to 48 bit scanning as per the top few icons. My worry here is that I have set the densitometer to be 16 bit but my images show something else but not sure if that is the same thing.

Honestly I don't have a slide projector to do an honest comparison but this is quite dark. I am making sure the scanner histogram is a tad outside of dark and bright as per your suggestions. I can bump up the midtone brightness but it still seems dark. So this is the scan with the Silverfast histogram corrections to ensure I don't clip anything. The brighter image has some basic Photoshop correction too. Obviously I am just mucking around because the colour is way off on these old images.

One more thing about this dmax. That is the dynamic range? And the difference between 3.6 and 4.0 would be significant for slides? Just asking because I have a Plustek 8100 slide/negative scanner and the price of an Epson V800 is about $1000. My Plustek dynamic range is 3.6. I am looking at this for getting better light into slides as I am finding them a bit dark and it is hard to get brightness without washing them out with my scanner. Also thinking this would be the "do all" for slides, negatives, and prints. I can't seem to find the v700 in Canada.

Ok going bigger thanks.

2500 x 1650

I am following your scanning guidelines for slides and I wanted to know how this looks as the scanned files. I have them at 48 bit, with densometer at 16 bits, ensuring I leave a bit at each end of the histogram and saved as a psd file at about 11 or 12 MB for file size but that is only 8 x 5 for print size. They are a bit grainy for some. I am unsure how to correct colour on these. They are old, most from the 1960's but I want to do a reasonable job of creating images for my parents.

1 minute ago, Damien Symonds said:

It worked, then? 

Most definitely!

Have a beer on me!

Have you come across this? I have two monitors of which I have calibrated one. For the longest time, things were OK, print images match perfectly. But today I had to hard reboot my computer and I see that the profiles are backwards. My calibration profile is stuck to the wrong monitor. Now I do intend on doing a full calibration from new tomorrow with a new calibrator (Spyder 5 Elite) but I was wondering how one would go about correcting this for future.

In case you are wondering, I have 302 GB free of 476 GB on the local disk but I don't actually use that for image storage. I have a second internal storage of 1 TB that I use. Have rebooted several times today. Not run a cleanup in a long time.

Good point. I would have to research if it will run on Windows 10. I'm not going to rush into this one.

Would this be worth it? https://www.vistek.ca/store/ProPhotoScanners/246675/epson-v600-perfection-photo-scanner.aspx

It is an older one for sure.

Thanks Brian! I think I will start with the CP filter. One thing at a time.