Re: [Leica] Scanner Question

["Patrick G. Sobalvarro" <pgs@sobalvarro.org>]

On 27 Jan 98 at 11:10, Richard Clompus wrote:

> Dear Fellow LUGnuts,
> 
> I am really new to this digital stuff.  I just got my first slide
> scanner - the Olympus ES-10.  It scans a 35mm slide or negative at
> 72 dots per inch in less than 10 seconds.  It creates a file about
> 90K in size which is just perfect for PowerPoint lectures.  The
> images viewed directly from the scanner usually are too yellow.  I
> must export the images into PhotoShop and fine tune the image there
> so it is usable in presentations.  I have tried higher dots per
> inch but I end up with a 10MB file that is useless for lectures. 
> It takes too long to change from one image to another. 
> 
> My question:  Is is standard for scanned slide images to need touching up
> (color balance, contrast, etc.) before they can be used for publication?  I
> have checked the white balance of my new scanner and it is fine. 

Using the Sprintscan 35+, I usually need to do a little adjustment of 
color, contrast, and tonescale for best results -- from what I read, 
this is pretty much standard.

> Thanks for your help.  Overall, I am a bit disappointed in the quality of
> the image on a computer screen compared to the original slide shot with a
> Leica.  I can see that film technology is still significantly better than
> consumer quality digital output.  

A 72dpi scan of 35mm film gives you an image of about 72x108; at 3
bytes per pixel, this is about 23K, not 90K.  Are you specifying the 
dpi of the slide, or the display?  In any case, a VGA display would 
be 320x200 = 192K at 24 bits per pixel.  Barring bad software, I 
would think you would be able to put 192K up at pretty much the same 
rate as 90K, since you have to fill all the pixels anyway, and you 
would see better quality.

(But, of course, an E100S has more info in it than we can extract 
with our puny consumer scanners, just as you said...)

- -Patrick