[geeks] What has replaced Kodak PhotoCD Pro?

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Thu, Jul 07, 2005 at 04:39:47PM -0500, Mike Parson wrote:
> The one I used was SCSI, but these days, they seem to come in USB2 and
> IEEE1394 (firewire) models too.  Plus having the built-in hardware
> DigitalICE/ROC/GEM, you can get some extemely nice scans, even out of
> older negatives.

A note to those who may be reading this and want to buy one and scan their
entire negative collection. The automatic cleanup systems such as Digital ICE,
ROC, GEM, only work on color negatives and slides. If you have silver based,
(regular) black and white negatives, they don't work.

The modern black and white films that are processed as if they were
color will work. Many people are dissapointed with the results from
them in general.

Since this is the "geeks" list, I'll explain why. A color negative or slide
has layers of dye to make up the colors. Red, green and blue, which some
Japanese slide film having an extra color layer. It is transparent to
near infrared light. Dust and dirt are not as well as black and white film.

The digital enhancment modes do a fourth scan in infrared and use that
information to remove the dust, dirt and scratches.

I purchased a cheap HP flat bed scanner with a slide/negative adaptor
built in. It did a nice job ax 1200x1200 dpi however the software did not
have any settings for black and white negatives. I had to scan them as 
slides and invert them in gimp. Too much effort and I gave up.

Geoff.


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