Back story

Canon9000F

In June I blogged about getting a new scanner (a Canon 9000F) and 3rd party software (VueScan) to use with it. Since then, I’ve scanned thousands of photo prints, lots of other paper items, a couple dozen negatives and over a thousand 35mm slides. lt’s been a huge amount of work, but I’ve completed the prints and I’m about 25% of the way into the slide collection.

Scanning services
The alternative to investing the time it will require to finish the slides is to invest money-pay one of the many (many!) places that will do the scanning for a fee. I don’t pretend it was exhaustive (though it was somewhat exhausting), but I investigated a bunch of the candidates. Essentially all will do film, prints and video tape. I only evaluated slide scanning. To greatly simplify, they fall into three rough groups:

1. Local companies, for example Wal-Mart, Costco, and others.
These have the sole advantage of being local–go to the shop and turn in the stuff, pay for it and go get it. They tend to be very basic in the service options offered and you’ll get a very basic all-automatic scan. Cost is variable but tends to be low. Most, if not all, ship the material out, there’s no way to know where but no good reason to care very much.

Pros: local, no shipping costs; cost.
Cons: by all accounts I found, scans are mediocre at best.

2. Internet big guys.
There are 3-5 on the net that seem to dominate in terms of volume of scanning they do. These include ScanCafe, Digmypics, and ScanDigitaI (in order of increasing price). All of these offer a variety of options (resolution, type of file saved, level of human involvement) and associated cost. Turnaround times vary widely from a couple of weeks to several months. All offer volume discounts (typically at 1000+). Several offer online previews of the scans and lots more. Prices start low $.22-.39 each for really basic scans, but rise to around $.75 each for scans that should equal what I normally do. Each of these places has advantages and disadvantages, all of them have lots of favorable reviews and some really bad reviews.

Pros: lots of options; scans generally rated as good to excellent; lots of satisfied customers.
Cons: turnaround; some ship your materials overseas (ScanCafe goes to India); cost can be
high; lots of ways their services can, and occasionally do, go very badly.

3. Internet little guys.
There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of shops out there of every size and type that offer these services. Each has some claim to fame: price, quality, speed… whatever they can claim to be different. Prices range from low ($.25@) to very high (well over $1@). Services range from very basic to very sophisticated. It’s hard, and probably not fair, to generalize this group because they represent such a broad spectrum.  The good news is that no matter what you want done, there’s someone out there who will do it–for a price.

Pros:  price sometimes, expert scans sometimes.
Cons: other than their ‘testimonials,’ few reviews online; price sometimes; turnaround
usually.

My experience

My scan

In doing the research I ran across one of the larger of the ‘little guys,’ Oldphoto.com in Wisconsin. Uniquely, they offer a try-before-you-buy deal: send in 10 slides (or prints or negatives) and they’ll do the scans and return a CD at no charge. The only risk is losing the 10 slides, so I sent them a selection of slides I’d already scanned, some easy ones and some hard ones, portraits and landscapes, indoor and outdoor. They were fast (10 days) and returned everything fine. The only cost to me was the cost shipping to them, they even paid the return shipping. Unfortunately, the scans were worth only slightly more than what I paid for them and would not have been worth their normal $.39@ price. Although the resolution is pretty high (3200ppi), theirs are basic, automated scans. A major issue is that they don’t use any dust/scratch processing (not an option for them at all) and that’s a killer problem on 6 of my 10 slides.

Oldphoto scan

Based on the metadata in the images, it appears they scan into Adobe PhotoShop CS2 and I’m guessing they run an automated script for sharpening and color adjustment. I suspect that script is the reason for the fact that all were over sharpened and 7/10 had increased contrast resulting badly blocked shadow details. To really appreciate the differences click on the images to enlarge them. In the example, notice how in their scan the detail in the dark blanket is missing and the lighting now has a harsh, over-exposed and contrasty look to it. Resolution is better in their scan, but there’s a lot of lint and scratch noise–possible, but time consuming to fix.

Of the 10 slides, color was significantly off for 3, 5 were okay and 2 looked nice. Overall, of the 10 scans, 7 failed to make my acceptable level and only two compared favorably with the scans from my Canon flatbed.

Lessons learned
Getting some slides done elsewhere showed me that I’m not going to be satisfied with the basic, automated scans. As in many things, good and cheap appear to mutually exclusive in this. The other thing this showed is that getting the most out of these services will still require a fair amount of time sorting through the slides to eliminate the hopeless ones and organize them before sending them. More time is then needed to organize the resulting scans so they have meaningful file names and metadata. Yes, the scanning service will save time, but not as much as I’d hoped–the time doing the actual scans is significant, but the time I spend before and after the actual scans is also large and much of that is required no matter who does the actual scanning. And getting another 4-5 thousand slides scanned is going to cost roughly $3000 to get scans I have a reasonable chance at being happy with.

Conclusion
For now anyway, I’ve decided I’m going to press on myself. I’ve gotten “the hang” of doing the scans so I’m getting the close to the best results the combination of user, software and equipment will allow. I’m finding that I’m a value-added step here by adding metadata and identifying a few really nice slides for special handling. Maybe l’ll change my mind later but after doing about 1500 slides, I at least know what I’m signing up for. >sigh<

Final thoughts
If you want to try one or more of the services, my advice would be to avoid the Wal-Mart type of place for this and I’d try one or more of the ‘big guys.’ None of them are without issues, but there are at least three that seem heavily used and generally well reviewed. But the Venn diagram of quick, cheap and good is a null-at best, you might get two out of three.

One place I’ll probably use one of the services is getting digital transfers of a few 8mm video tapes (late 1990′s era) I’ve got in the closet. The fees seem reasonable and I’ve no experience there, so l won’t be a “value added” step and don’t want to bother–none of the tapes are all that important to me, but it would be nice to have digital copies for the kids.

Squares A & B are the same color!

There are many books, articles and video available all talking about visual perception. A  fun corner of that science is the area of visual illusion and what they can tell us about how our brains actually work.

There are many great sites on the ‘net full of material like this, search for “visual illusion.”

There are also several excellent TED talks on the topic of visual perception and visual illusions. Some of them that I like are:

• Al Seckel says our brains are mis-wired
• Keith Barry does brain magic
• Dan Dennett on our consciousness
• Beau Lotto: Optical illusions show how we see

I find the final illusion that Lotto does simply mind-blowing. Right in front of our eyes, he constructs an illusion, describing exactly how it works and both what we expect to see and what we will actually see. He knows that we’ll see the illusion regardless of what we’ve observed or been told, because he knows we can’t help it. He also has a great comment:

The brain didn’t actually evolve to see the world the way that it is, no it can’t, instead it evolved to show it to us in a way that is useful…

Our brains have evolved in specific ways to deal with the fact that our senses can send more information per second into the brain than it actually has the ability to deal with.  It has to prioritize what to process and what it ignore.

We’re actually pretty darn good at it–after all, we survived in a very hostile world with few natural defenses, except that marvelous brain.

But the shortcuts we’ve developed can lead to strange things like visual illusions. It can, in the modern world, also lead to traffic accidents where one driver will swear he didn’t see the other car–and be right.

John Medina’s Brain Rule #10: Vision trumps all other senses, covers some of this and is the specific piece of his book that really helped get over my initial obstacle with Art of Possibility. Neuroscience tells us that we literally don’t know what’s real around us–we can only know what our brain builds as the picture it has decided we need. In other words, our brains invent this stuff we call reality–our senses can be fooled.

As a kind of extension of that idea, the Zanders’ point out, our perception of reality is not only just an invented-by-the-brain picture, it’s also emotional–how we feel about what we perceive. Indeed, “It’s all invented” and if we want, we can take charge of it, or at least how we react what we perceive.

Illusions are fascinating things created by our amazing brains. Equally amazing is the realization that if we choose to live in the world of possibility, those perceptions don’t have to control us, we can choose how we react to what we perceive and in doing so, we create a new reality for ourselves.

In my life there have been a handful of books that made a major, lasting impact on me.  A couple of them truly changed my life-they altered my thinking at fundamental levels.  This is one of them.

Is this a book for you?
In the introduction, the authors state their belief that this book could benefit virtually everyone. I agree with that, but I don’t think it will work that way. It came close to doing nothing for me and explaining why might help you judge whether it should be on your reading list and, perhaps, also help you better appreciate what you’re getting into if you do read it.

The first issue with this book is that it’s hard to put a category label on it. You’re likely to find this book on the “Self Improvement” shelf and while I don’t have a better label, that’s an uncomfortable fit. As Roz puts it, “This isn’t any of the usual kinds of self-improvement books.”

Perhaps that’s part of why I found it so hard to get ‘into’ this book. On my first attempt, I got through the introduction and the first chapter. I didn’t get much out of it and put it down. Weeks later, I threw it in my bag because I had nothing else to read on a cross-country flight. On the flight I started over. This time I connected with the first chapter, parts of the rest, and finished the book. One big difference was the fact I had just finished Brain Rules (Medina). Suddenly, the first chapter, It’s all invented, made complete sense.

Roz Zander

The Zander and Medina were, in different ways, making the same point:  we don’t experience reality, we can only experience the version our brain constructs for us. Two authors making essentially the same point but from very different perspectives really helped me. Having read Medina’s neuroscience angle moved my reaction to the Zanders’ perspective from “I don’t get it” to “It’s obvious.”  Yes, it was that dramatic.  Now, I cannot imagine how I couldn’t connect with that 1st chapter.

Once I’d connected with that piece, somehow that stretched my brain enough that most of the entire book hit home. The Zanders’ It’s all invented contribution is, in essence, this: not only do our brains construct that experience-the thing we call reality–but we can be in active, conscious control of our experience and how we feel about it. Perception really is reality and you have the ability to alter that perception. That’s one aspect of the ‘possibility’ in the title—opening your world view up to see possibility in the world, not limitation; doors, not walls.

The point of the above isn’t that you have to read Medina’s book before this one (it wouldn’t hurt though), or that this is an esoteric, hard-to-read volume. No, just that if you choose to read this book, don’t be surprised or discouraged if you have difficulty getting “into” it. I did, and so have others I’ve talked to. Stick with it, some of the concepts are likely to take some “brain stretching” to fit.

What can you expect in the book?
So, what can you expect if you do set off into this realm of possibility? Structurally, the book is set up as a series of 12 practices–Roz uses that word both in the sense of ‘habit’, something you do that’s a normal part of your life, and in the sense that these are things that you’ll need to practice, i.e., consciously do until they become a part of you. They are:

1. It’s all invented
2. Stepping into a universe of possibility
3. Giving an A
4. Being a contribution
5. Leading from any chair
6. Rule number 6
7. The way things are
8. Giving way to passion
9. Lighting a spark
10. Being the board
11. Creating frameworks for possibility
12. Telling the WE story

In a post on my other blog, I talked about one of them: Rule #6: Don ‘t take yourself so $#% seriously.  I briefly described the first:  It’s all invented above. Each practice represents an aspect of living, a way of looking at life, and a context for viewing yourself and those around you.

Possibility
The common thread running through all twelve is that powerful word in the title: possibility. It’s hard for me to easily explain it, but the essential element here is being able to be mentally and emotionally open to the world, and to see it as a world of abundant opportunity. Each of these 12 practices is a facet of that, a specific way of looking at things that opens up possibility in ways, places and circumstances you might not expect it.

Ben Zander on the web

Ben at TED 2009

Ben’s profession and passion is music, but he also does powerful talks on leadership, creativity and communications in the workplace (link). A search using Ben’s name will turn up videos of some of Ben’s talks to various groups. All I’ve seen were worthwhile, but I’d especially recommend his TED talk.

In fact, both authors have given TED talks, but so far as I can find, only Ben’s is available on the web site.  And what a talk it was! Independent of the book, it’s a favorite on the site and well worth your time. Personally, I think it’s a “must see.” Ben’s topic for the TED talk was music, but you’ll get a unique insight into this book by listening to him–we’re watching him put the lessons of this book to work and show us what it’s about. In a way, Ben’s talk is a better way to understand the book than anything I can write, unforgettable really does apply.

Bottom line
So, am I recommending the book?  Well, so far I’ve purchased 14 copies and given away 12 (I’m keeping the one I marked up and the one they signed for me) to friends and family. Get it, read it, stick with it to the end.

Possibility and change
Unless you’re Roz or Ben, I suspect that you’re not going to live all of these–I know I can’t. But that’s not the point, this book will be of huge benefit if you truly absorb and adopt even one of these. Let some of this book sink in and change you. Live the possibilities and it will change your life and the lives of those you touch.

________________________
(Note: in the TED video the woman in front the camera frequently pauses on is Roz.)

Happy new year to one and all.
Hope you and yours have a happy
and healthy one.

Click to view slideshow.

Harrisburg, PA. 1901 Postmark.

Genealogy and the Knisely name

Until I got interested in genealogy a some years ago, I’d  always thought that my family name, Knisely, was uncommon–maybe even rare. It was also pretty frustrating having to spell it every time and having most people get it wrong even then. But once I got started with the genealogy research I discovered that my name is in sort of a “sweet spot” for research.  It turns out that it’s not common but certainly not rare, and if you count the more common spelling variants, it’s pretty easy to find.

The US Census site has some simple spreadsheets available, I’m using the 2000 data here. In that it shows my name at #15,700 out of the over 151,000 surnames in the sheet (which is any surname appearing more than 100 times).  It shows that 1,709 families reported that name–not a lot in all of the US.  Considering the dominance of the top 20 or so names, it’s pretty clear that the name is uncommon, but hardly rare–and both of those turn out to be a good thing for genealogy.

I’ve found researching a truly rare name can be extremely frustrating, because there’s not that much information out there and it’s hard to find anyone else who’s also researching that name. That’s the situation with my wife’s family name, Bobbe, which is #80,248 with only 220 reports. But the opposite seems just as bad–there are a couple of Smiths in my ancestry and researching them is equally frustrating to me because I immediately drown in duplicate names.

Anyway, while my name is still going to get spelled wrong everywhere, it does seem to be just about right for the genealogy research. 

Canon 9000F

A couple posts back I compared 35mm slide scans made with my Nikon Coolscan film scanner and my Canon 9000F flat bed scanner. I mentioned that my normal workflow was 3000ppi scans on the Canon and I concluded that the Canon optics weren’t good enough really compete with the Nikon. But I still thought the Canon scans were just fine for my purposes. After reading Steinhoff’s book I learned some things that seemed to mostly confirm my experience, but also made me wonder if the user (me ) might be part of the problem.

New information
In The VueScan Bible Steinhoff makes these points that prompted me to do another experiment:

1. “A scanner can scan properly only at its optical resolution (e.g., 4800 spi) or  parts of it (e.g., 2400, 1200, 600, or 300 spi).”
2. He mentions that a scanner’s effective optical resolution can be dramatically lower than the advertised capability and he specifically mentions the Canon8800F (a direct, close ancestor to mine) saying “The Canon CanoScan 8800F has a nominal optical resolution of 4800 spi. The effective optical resolution is roughly 1600 spi–quite a big difference.”
3. Using a Nikon similar to mine as an example, he also writes “…for maximum image quality, you should use output size reduction… Configure Input > Scan resolution a 4000 spi and Output > size reduction at factor 2.  This will convert the 4000 spi scan into a 2000spi file-effectively, the file size will shrink from 160 MB to 40 MB! But the main reason for using output size reduction instead of scanning directly at 2000spi reducing image noise. Shrinking a 4000spi scan to a 2000spi output file has a positive effect on image noise–there is simply less of it left. That’s the reason why can be justified to scan 4000 spi, even when your desired output size is only 2000spi.”

Interesting points, and if he’s right on all counts, some of my choices might be contributing to the issues I’ve seen and there might be hope to get better results from my scanners.  So, I devised an experiment to see if I could find out whether it mattered or not.

Bottom line is that it does seem to matter and I’m adjusting what I do because of it.

Comparison experiment

I picked 3 slides and scanned each in both scanners at the scanner’s optical resolution, saving them at full resolution and with output size reduction factor 2 (4000ppi-to-2000ppi or 4800-to-2400ppi). I also repeated my scans at 3000ppi which isn’t a match for optical resolution on either scanner. In all cases the sharpen filter was ‘off’ and the scratch/dust filter set to ‘low.’ The results confirmed his points:

1. The difference between the 3000ppi scans and the optical resolution scans was subtle but real. The difference was much more pronounced with the Canon-both the scan saved at 4800ppi and the one at 2400ppi were better than 3000ppi (ouch!).

2. This experiment and all my experience with the flat bed is 100% consistent with what he says–limitations imposed by the Canon’s optics made them less sharp than the Nikon. But…

3. In all three cases, the difference between full resolution saves and the size reduced saves was negligible unless viewed full, pixel-for-pixel on the screen.

In fact, for two of the three slides the best looking scans were Canon scans at 4800ppi saved at 2400ppi. These were a portrait (samples below) and a landscape. Only with a high contrast, close up of a flower, did the 4000ppi Nikon scan look better. Yes, the Nikon scans were consistently sharper, but for normal viewing or printing, the Canon output colors had an edge and the Canon’s infrared dust/scratch removal seemed a bit better.

Canon scan 4800-to-2400 with ICE on.

Examples
I thought about posting all the slide scans but doing the test created over 2o scans, some are really big files and some of the differences were difficult to see in the post. Instead I decided I post a few examples so you can get a feel for just what the Canon is, and is not, capable of.

This pair is the crucial result, the Canon scan on top and the Nikon scan below. In both cases the scan was done using the VueScan software, at optical resolution with a down-sample of x2, scanned 4800, saved at 2400 in the case of the Canon

Nikon scan 4000-to-2000ppi, ICE on.

and 4000, saved at 2000 in the case of the Nikon. This pair can be examined full size and I think you’d agree that there are subtle differences but I found both of them to be nice.

Indeed, the differences here are interesting and consistent with what I saw before and during the experiment. The Nikon’s scans are sharper (look at the eyelashes), slightly less saturated in color and a bit cooler in color. Which one is right? I don’t know–looking at the slide with a loupe on the slide sorter I’d say neither is what I see there but both are close. Neither example has had post-scan editing, but with just a little tweaking either could look like the other or how ever I decided was “right.”

Although the scratch/dust processing was on in both examples the experiment included on and off. The two scanners use different technologies for dust/scratch removal and each has its advantages. The VueScan software knows how to get the best out of the Canon’s hardware in that regard and I liked those results better.

Down-sampling pros and cons

Nikon scan 4000ppi, full res, ICE on. (Big file!)

Purists may object to the idea of the x2 down-sampling approach and with some justification–why throw all those pixels away? I thought that way, too, until I’d read Steinhoff’s book and checked him against another author as well. The truth is that you’re not merely throwing them away but using the information in all the pixels to construct a better, and smaller image. The experiment confirmed what they were saying which is that yes, you’re giving up a something in one way, but you’re getting some processing gain which results in less noise in the output–better images. And the reality is that with the Canon I’m losing nothing since its optics can’t actually do 4800ppi anyway. The image above is the full resolution version of the Nikon scan (all 14MB of it) for comparison with the down-sampled version. The other benefit is smaller file size:

The JPEG files were saved with the minimum compression setting (highest quality) in VueScan. The results were essentially identical for the Nikon scans: the down-sampled files were just about 25% as big and the TIFFs were 2-4x the size of the higher resolution JPEG file.

Conclusions

Just in terms of effective resolution, the Canon or, I suspect, any flat current bed can’t compete. If I really have to have biggest, sharpest scan I can get, the Nikon at 4000ppi is the way to go. They’re sharper, but they’re more work and give big(!) image files, especially if saved as TIFFs. But I really like the results I get from the Canon now.

So, I expect that for >95% of my future slide scans, the Canon scanned at 4800ppi and saved at 2400ppi will be my choice.  That seems to be the best trade-off of time invested, file size and quality of output. I still wish the flat bed scanner’s optics were better, but by changing the workflow a bit, I think I’ve gotten to the point where I’m getting the most out of the Canon that I can and I’m pretty happy with the results.

If anyone else has similar (or contrary!) experience with film scanning I’d love to hear about it, too.

The VueScan Bible: Everything You Need to Know for Perfect Scanning

Since I’ve recommended the VueScan software, I thought I’d also mention this book.

Bottom line

While it advertises itself as “…the missing manual for new, experienced, and prospective users of VueScan” it’s really not essential as documentation for the software. However, this book is one of the best resources I’ve found for understanding how to get serious about the business of doing scans of photographic products.

Here’s an example of the many tidbits l found useful:

8.1.22. Input>> Scan dpi

This option pops up whenever you set Input >> Scan resolution to Custom. You can either type in the required scan resolution manually or use the slider for the same purpose. The maximum value is the optical resolution of the scanner. As with Input » Preview dpi, this is not really a useful feature.

A scanner can scan properly only at its optical resolution (e.g., 4800 spi) or parts of it (e.g., 2400, 1200, 600, or 300 spi).  If you choose 297, the scanner will actually scan at 300 spi and scale the image down to 297 spi. Avoid this, as image quality does usually not benefit from rescaling. Its better to choose one of the values that VueScan proposes in the Input > Scan resolution dropdown list.
(Emphasis mine.)

Nowhere else have I seen an explicit statement that says I’m better off scanning at specific resolutions. It makes sense, but it’s nowhere in the documentation for the scanners or even the documentation for VueScan.

Another resource
Before discovering this book, I sent folks to Wayne Fulton’s Scan Tips internet site. Lots of good stuff there and Wayne offers a self-published and printed version of the material on his site which I also bought a few years ago. Despite its age and the fact that Wayne doesn’t update his site very often, the site is still worthwhile and covers some things that Steinhoff doesn’t. But unlike Fulton, Steinhoff can assume you’re using VueScan which lets him focus the examples and he structures his discussion as a thorough walk-through of VueScan.

In any case, if you’re going to launch into a major scanning project, I think you’ll want to know about both this book and Wayne’s site.

This blog will be everything except stuff related to presentations. That will now include my philosophical ramblings, stuff that interests me on various science topics and photography.

To start I’m moving the photography and imaging posts over here and I’ll be expanding on that material here.

Thanks for the patience!

As I indicated that I would, I got the Nikon film scanner off the self and scanned some slides that I’d already done with the Canon. I used the Vuescan software again and, to the extent possible, I kept as the scan parameters exactly the same. The result was interesting so I thought I’d share it here.

The bottom line is that even if you can find one (and that’s not easy) you almost certainly don’t want to get the dedicated film scanner. No, it’s not that they don’t work, but it’s not worth the trouble and the large expense if you get a good one.

Nikon Coolscan V ED

Dedicated Film Scanner Market Dead?

When I bought my Nikon scanner about four years ago I gritted my teeth and paid $500 for it. The same device is now $3000 when you can find one! They’re not being manufactured anymore and the competing ones from Epson and others also appear to be gone. The consumer market for these is gone, replaced it seems by the last couple generations of the flatbeds with prices that are a lot less than this one was originally–remember, both the Canon and the Epson have MSRPs of $225.

I think the demand for the dedicated scanners stopped once the flatbeds could do transparencies at resolutions in the same range.  At the time I got it, the Nikon was near the top of the market for a film scanner.  Now, the software appears dated and the 4000ppi resolution isn’t competitive with the current flatbed scanners. Loading it is a one-at-a-time affair so the time needed goes up some more, just what I don’t need.

The comparison

So, the Nikon is bad? Nope, its scans are good–it beat the Canon scans by quite a bit, I think, in large part due to the focus adjustment it has. My testing shows the problem with the Canon is definitely hardware related–but maybe not just with the focus. Based on the experience of a friend using an Epson, this kind of limitation may be an issue with any flatbed in large part due to not having a variable focus.  So, yes, the Nikon does a better job but read on, because I don’t think the difference is going to justify the huge amount of money required to get one now.

Below are small cropped sections from one slide I scanned. The crop is roughly 1/3 of the slide in each dimension, 10% by area, so these are big enlargements. These are JPG files and there are some compression artifacts, but the comparison is still valid because it’s the same slide, same resolution and the same software writing the file.

Nikon scan (click to enlarge)

Canon scan (click to enlarge)

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I love the shot, it’s our son at age 2 caught looking at a book one day.  This image is problematic because it’s dark, high in contrast and it’s a “grab shot” so the focus wasn’t perfect to start with.

The issue here isn’t which one looks better, just which one is crisper and that’s clearly the Nikon scan–the lines in the shirt are obviously better. The critical feature is the face and that’s not particularly good in either one, so when the full version is seen, the Canon scan actually ended up looking nicer in part because of the softness.

Resized version of the slide scan

Another comparison is here.

First here’s the basic image scan of the flower.

This is a resized version (50% in each dimension) and it’s a JPG, the original is a TIFF.

Closeup of the Nikon scan

Canon scan closeup

On the left are closeups of the Canon 9000F scan and the same area in the Nikon scan.  Pretty revealing isn’t it–the Nikon scan clearly has crisper edges. Enlarge each of them to see the differences better–they’re even more dramatic on the full-sized, 30MB TIFF saves.

My experiments included various tricks like changing the height of the slide or flipping it over to see if I could improve the focus. Maybe it can be done, but I didn’t get there.  I could make things worse, but after a lot of experiments I still never got something dramatically better.

You ask, “So the Nikon is good and the Canon is bad?”

Maybe and maybe not.  Judged by my experiments, if you want the sharpest scan it won’t come from the Canon. In that regard I’m disappointed in the Canon which is higher resolution than the Nikon (9600 vs. 4000 ppi) but the limitation associated with focus and/or other optics issues mean it can’t benefit from that. On the other hand, the one-slide-at-a-time loading for the Nikon would drive me crazy doing hundreds or thousands of scans. Plus, the Canon software’s dust & scratch removal seemed much better.

For me, I’ll just keep the Nikon handy and use it for that one-in-a-hundred slide that deserves the extra work. For most of you that’s not an option because buying a real film scanner these days is prohibitively expensive. But the good news is that the Canon still does a job that’s good enough for all but the most critical purposes.

One more comparison
In the past, the way we viewed slides was with a projector shining on a screen or the wall. Having done it recently I can tell you the Canon scans will look a lot better than the slides do that way. There are lots of  limitations that way and going back there certainly won’t make our slides look better at all!

Over to you

So, get busy and get scanning all those pictures in the shoe boxes and elsewhere. The current generation scanners will work great for prints and negatives. Slides are a challenge, but you’ll get scans that will look good and make good prints up to at least an 8×10 size.

But if you’ve got experience or ideas on improving the slide scans I’d love to hear about it.