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Stop procrastinating! You know you should turn those sleeves, slide mounts, and shoeboxes full of negatives, transparencies, and prints into digital image files. And if you want complete control, it's a buy-a-scanner/DIY project. But how much do you have to spend to get high quality? And should you go with a dedicated 35mm film scanner, such as the $550 (street) Nikon Coolscan V ED or a flatbed with transparent media adapters, such as Epson's $720 (street) Perfection V750-M Pro?
Microtek offers another way -- the ArtixScan M1 flatbed and film scanner combo (www.artixscanm1.com). Well priced ($550, street), it boasts glassless direct scanning of film (much like a dedicated film scanner) in sizes up to 4x5 inches at 4800x9600-dpi (actually, samples per inch) optical resolution. With a 48-bit pixel depth, Microtek claims a dynamic range of 4.4 Dmax. (Dmax is the darkest area of an image that can be captured and still show detail.) This rating is quite high.
Microtek's glassless Emulsion Direct Imaging Technology (E.D.I.T.) reads directly from the film's emulsion side, with the original held flat, under tension, and applies an autofocus system that analyzes several scans at different focal positions, and makes the final scan at optimal focus. Autofocus can zero in on the center of the film, a point you select in the frame, or be switched off.
If you're willing to flatten your originals against glass, the Microtek captures film (negatives and transparencies) as large as 8.5x10 inches and prints up to 8.5x14 inches.
The M1's approach sidesteps the limitations of traditional flatbeds, such as the Epson, which requires a secondary light source in the lid and must scan through a sheet of glass that's a dirt magnet and may not flatten the film completely. And, unlike the Coolscan V ED, the M1 isn't limited to 35mm slides and film.
Unlike the Epson flatbed and the Nikon film scanner, the Microtek doesn't include hardware-based Digital ICE scratch-reduction technology. Instead, there's SRD dust and scratch removal built into the SilverFast SE Plus software that complements the Microtek ScanWizard Pro application bundled with the unit. Like the Epson, the M1 supports wet-mounting of problematic film originals to temporarily "fill in" scratches.
The most difficult part of getting up and running with the ArtixScan M1 is finding a place to put it. Weighing more than 26 pounds, it occupies 15.2x6.1x22.3 inches of tabletop real estate. Install the included software onto your Windows 2000/XP/Vista or Macintosh OS X computer, plug in the power cord and USB 2.0 cable, reboot, and you're ready to begin calibrating (both print and film IT8 calibration targets are included) and scanning.
The $110-extra "Pro" package adds the top-of-the-line SilverFast Ai Studio scanning software and an extra set of film holders. Both ScanWizard Pro and SilverFast Ai Studio offer efficient batch scanning (a must when you have scads of originals to digitize and want to gang them together).
The upgraded SilverFast software includes multi-exposure capabilities that streamline creating high-dynamic-range (HDR) images, pulling extra detail out of the darkest areas of your film originals. There also are 120 preset negative film profiles, as well as sophisticated grain, noise, dust, and scratch elimination.
If you're in the market for a flatbed scanner that can also handle film in a variety of formats, the Microtek ArtixScan M1's glassless dual-media system is attractive -- especially if you frequently switch between prints and film originals. Just make plenty of desk space.
David D. Busch has written nine books on scanners, and is the author of the camera-specific David Busch's Guides to Digital SLR Photography for Canon, Nikon, Pentax, and Sony DSLRs.
MASTER COPIES
Scanning isn't tough. In fact, it's easy and fun. But most of us don't do it frequently enough to master (or remember) the subtleties. Here are three Very Confusing topics clarified:
1 The right resolution. To capture all the detail in a 24x36mm slide, use the highest optical resolution you can. Dedicated film scanners generally provide 4000-spi (samples
per inch) resolution, while flatbeds typically offer 4800 spi. Scanning a print? Any resolution above 600 spi will just give you a better picture of the grain, and huge files that eat up hard-drive space and slow down your image editor. (Why is "spi" more accurate than "dpi"? Because scanners don't have dots. Nor do monitors, which are described in ppi, or pixels per inch.)
2 Removing halftones. If your work has been published in books or magazines, you'll discover that moiré patterns appear when scanning halftone images. All scanners have a Descreen or moiré filter that essentially blurs the halftone dots enough to make them less noticeable. (After the filter has been applied, you might want to restore a little sharpness with a small amount of Unsharp Mask or Smart Sharpen in Adobe Photoshop.) You can also subdue halftone effects by scanning at a higher resolution and resampling to a smaller size or rotating black-and-white halftones on the scanner bed slightly when scanning. (This technique is less successful with color halftones, which typically have four different halftone screens, each at a different angle.)
3 From scan to print.
The drivers for today's inkjet printers can produce good prints from scans at virtually any resolution. But if you insist on optimizing your scans for your printer (or for output on commercial presses), there's an excellent calculator that takes all sorts of variables into consideration at www.scantips.com/calc.html.
BOTTOM LINE: Serious resolution, dynamic range, and image-fixing software without a serious financial commitment.
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