Fair warning:

[DrEntropy]

Just got an Epson V600 yesterday, not connected yet. Relatively inexpensive and is supposed to work with my Linux boxes. Primarily for film scanning, 35mm and medium format are touted in ads but I'm expecting it will be easy enough to make a mask for 4x5 as well. Up to now we've been using an older, early Pacific 3600 film scanner, a PITA and limited to 35mm.

If it works as advertised, expect to be inundated with some OLD film images. If it gets painful, just let me know.

 

[DrEntropy]

For comparison: 1978 record. Nikon FM, MD-11. 135mm Soligor ∱2.0. No clue about settings!

 

[GregW]

I've had the V550 for a while now and it can usually get a good 35mm scan. This picture however had a weird gradient problem with her chin. It think I scanned it as a grayscale instead of the full 48 bit color. That may have been my downfall. The pain for me with flatbeds is the prep work. I clean the glass, backlight and the negs before scanning to remove as much dust as possible. The digital ice feature is supposed to help with that but I don't know if anyone wrote a routine for that on Linux.

At one point in my past, I tried using a scanner with Fedora (I think?). The Sane frontend had about 80 different adjustments vs the 4 or 5 for Windows. The problem was I had no idea what each adjustment did. Couldn't really find a help file for it. I believe that is the real downfall of Linux, crappy help files and instructions.

 

[DrEntropy]

Haven't put a good B&W neg in this one yet. Still just finding the capabilities. Grabbed up a bunch of color slides and strips, NO prep (as evidenced in the self-shot), found the V600 thinks it's smarter than I am, too. A lot of the E-chrome has shifted magenta (lax storage protocols ) but the K-chrome held up well.
As scanned, the E-chrome:



K-chrome (culled from a job for "Uncle." Bracket shot. Good exposures went to DoD):

 

[DrEntropy]

Quick-n-Dirty run through GIMP just to dial out some magenta:

 

[DrEntropy]

Portable fuel bladders. Same job.

 

[GregW]

I played around with this for 10-15 minutes in Darktable.

 

[DrEntropy]

Unmounted shot, found on a strip of E-chrome. GIMP'd to shift out the magenta.

 

[DrEntropy]

Thanks, Greg! Looks much better.

I installed Darktable but haven't learned the ins-n-outs. Looks like I'll be doing some OJT with it soon.

 

[Basil]

I've had the V550 for a while now and it can usually get a good 35mm scan.

That's the scanner I have. Has served me well over the years as I work to scan all our old negatives, slides and prints.

By the way, when I upgraded to the new iMac I had to go get updated Epson Apps and, when I went to the Epson download section, they had the ability to download (free) a program called SilverFast, which is similar to Epson's ICE but better (I think). It's for making scans and eliminating dirt and scratches from the final scan. It's pretty amazing. Doc, you should try it on that self-portrait above.

 

[DrEntropy]

This first "batch" of scans was just to see if the V600 would serve to digitize film. I'll putz around with software more as the shots I consider worth keeping are scanned. As I mentioned earlier, the self-portrait thing was done as a sort of diary, a self reminder that I'm getting older every year.

 

[GregW]

a self reminder that I'm getting older every year.

I would be very willing to remind you (on a monthly basis).

 

[DrEntropy]

Doc, you should try it on that self-portrait above.

I should have scaled that down before posting, but here's a better balanced and retouched version using GIMP. The retouching to clean it up is akin to a digital version of "Spot-Tone".

 

[GregW]

Just curious Doc, did you load epson's own driver with iscan? Looks like you can access scanning from within GIMP. iscan becomes a plugin. I haven't tried it since my scanner is attached to a Win10 machine.

 

[DrEntropy]

No, the scanner is so far attached to Herself's Win 10 box. The images are accessed across the LAN to use GIMP on this machine. I've downloaded the CentOS driver from Epson's support section but haven't loaded it yet. Path of least resistance, y'see.

I'll soon do the Linux install but wanted to see how the scanner performs first. Now She thinks it's gonna stay in Her office...

 

[GregW]

There's a storm brewing...

 

[DrEntropy]

There's a storm brewing...

That's precisely why there are two D7500's here now.

Even back In '78 she would snipe one of my Nikons:

 

[DrEntropy]

Just curious Doc, did you load epson's own driver with iscan? Looks like you can access scanning from within GIMP. iscan becomes a plugin. I haven't tried it since my scanner is attached to a Win10 machine.

Just read the readme text file. Funny. Headed with: "For the impatient" with the command line instructions.

 

[GregW]

I saw that and made the "ward off evil spirits" symbol with my fingers.

 

[DrEntropy]

I saw that and made the "ward off evil spirits" symbol with my fingers.

I'll do that first and let ya know how the install goes.