Scanning away...

After some very nervous moments installing the Konica Minolta DiMAGE
Scan Dual IV on Friday evening, I can happily report that everything
went smoothly during the installation. Apparently some people have a
problem installing this scanner in WinXP.

So, once installed I whipped out the old slide carousels (which is where
I keep most of the slides I have taken over the past 5 years) and began
the process of scanning randomly.

The first one I scanned looked pretty soft. Then I remembered that it
was because it was from my Canon days (snark!) and was taken using a not
so hot lens. After a few more scans I started getting the hang of what
to change in the settings to get a better result.

The KM software is pretty easy to use and the speed of the scanner is
quite impressive. I remember a few years ago trying to scan slides using
a cheap flatbed with a slide attachment in Win98 - sheer agony!
Depending on what settings used you can have a decent scan out of the
machine in under 10 seconds.

During the process I became acutely aware of the benefits of having a
scanner with digital ICE to remove the dust. Man, those slides can get
dusty! The grain you find in even Velvia becomes very noticeable when
scanning at 3200dpi. I wonder what you can use to remove the dust before
scanning? Dust-off (canned air)? I tried an anti-static cloth but that
just smeared some sort of grease on one strip of film!

I eventually started using the scanners TWAIN interface with Photoshop
to produce output and I think I got my best results using that method.
The Auto Dust Brush feature is also a plug-in to PS, so it too came in
handy when cleaning up some of the output. I also ran Neat Image over a
few of them and removed the grain.

So what are my conclusions? I love the scanner and I love my film!
Despite having used a DSLR for the past 4 years I am really convinced
that they still have a long way to go before they can match the quality
of a good slide or negative film.

Thanks to all those of you who recommended this scanner to me.

Oh, there are some new shots up in the various galleries on my website
www.dallasdahms.com. Let me know what you think of the scans. They
should be easy to spot.

--
Look. See. Take pictures. Share.
.

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