Scanner Recommendations?

[LizEF]

8 hours ago, Astronymus said:

Basicly all old scanners used fluorescent tubes. Those age over time. Getting darker and shifting their light temperature.

Oh, I'll bet mine is.  I wonder how old it is, checking...  Yep.  So, new scanner and new software, unless I decide to quit doing scans (don't like stopping something once I've started, and it sometimes does color better than my camera, but we'll see).  Thanks for mentioning this!

 

7 hours ago, OCArt said:

You reminded me of how I, err, adjusted one scanner.  The glass was very dirty from scanning flowers so I liberally sprayed a well-known blue window cleaner on it. Unbeknownst to me some dripped down onto the scanner's light tube. All of my later scans had a light blue tint!

 

I've since learned to spray a bit of cleaner on my cloth and *not* on the glass itself!

Well, I know I've never done this, but there's no telling whether my husband ever did this.  But I appreciate the reminder!  Scans don't seem to be overly blue, just to have weird color patches sometimes and to not pick up accurate color other times - Diamine Salamander, for example, was completely brown, and nothing like any brown your eyes might see in it - more reddish, nothing green - just wrong as wrong can be.  It was bizarre.

[LizEF]

8 hours ago, A Smug Dill said:

I use GIMP for post-processing. Some scanner drivers supposedly allow for automatic colour correction before saving the image, but I don't really trust that when I can see the before-and-after comparison and expressly approve before the corrections are committed.

OK, that's what I figured.  Lately I've been capturing both the default scan and the "adjusted by scanner software" scan and playing with those in GIMP and PaintShop Pro to see which one yields a more accurate image.  I think @Astronymus hit on one of my problems - fluorescent tube in 10-year-old scanner.

[LizEF]

19 hours ago, OCArt said:

You might try different scanner software. I've used Vuescan for many years without a hitch. It has color adjustments available and the author does very frequent software updates for free.  There is a free 30 day trial available

https://www.hamrick.com/?keyword=vue scan&gclid=Cj0KCQjwytOEBhD5ARIsANnRjVgzA052qB9JW6MBx66jLREXrgyocAK80hqhcUWwi2BR2Rzgnt-UqikaAs9GEALw_wcB

 

Thank you!  I tested this today and it did the best job of all my image capturing tools (for today's ink)!  I'm going to test it on some more colors, and if it does as well, I'll be buying this.  I emailed to clarify that all the features in the trial are available in the standard version (or if I need pro).  Later, I'll see how it does with Diamine Salamander.

[alexwi]

On 5/7/2021 at 3:48 PM, LizEF said:

No longer made, but I'll keep researching for a modern equivalent.

 

I suggested you get a used one. If you're not comfortable on ebay, B&H happens to have one available: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/802278904-USE/canon_6351b001_powershot_s110_digital_blk_.html

 

If you want to get a new camera, Canon's ELPH 180 ($150), and Sony's DSC-W830 ($130) let you adjust white balance as I explained. These are far more basic, though. As a photographer, I can tell you that the S110 (and the others from that series) is quite an awesome camera. In the current line-up, the equivalent would be either the G7 or the G9, which are in the $500 range.

[LizEF]

6 minutes ago, alexwi said:

 

I suggested you get a used one. If you're not comfortable on ebay, B&H happens to have one available: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/802278904-USE/canon_6351b001_powershot_s110_digital_blk_.html

 

If you want to get a new camera, Canon's ELPH 180 ($150), and Sony's DSC-W830 ($130) let you adjust white balance as I explained. These are far more basic, though, as a photographer, I can tell you that the S110 (and the others from that series) quite an awesome camera. In the current line-up, the equivalent would be either the G7 or the G9, which are in the $500 range.

Sorry, missed the "used" part.  Thanks for the B&H link! Appreciate the additional detail.  I think I'd be OK buying used from B&H.  I'm still doing research, haven't completely decided.  I need to test the software OCArt recommended - if it's as good with other inks as with today's that'll be my cheapest option.

 

And you prompted me to charge the battery for my old Canon PowerShot SD1300 IS, and it'll do white balance like you described too.  I'm going to do some test shots with it to see how they go.

[cunim]

Color management can be simple (do a white balance on a camera), or complex (you don't want to know).  Just what do you want to do with the scans?  If you want to view them on your monitor with approximately the same colors as original, that's pretty simple.  If you want to make prints that faithfully reproduce what your original piece of paper showed, that's more complex because you also have to calibrate the printer.

 

Scanners can be just as accurate at color reproduction as cameras.  Photo scanners usually have the ability to read a reference card with a whole range of known colors on it, and then they calibrate themselves pretty accurately from that.  Some scanning software will give you the same capability on a broad variety of scanners.  Here's a random example of how to do all this.

www.booksmartstudio.com/color_tutorial/scanners.html 

 

If you are using a monitor to view your scans, remember that needs to be calibrated as well.  For example, jpg images are usually in an sRGB format while high quality scanner files might be in TIFF or other more capable formats with larger color spaces (they can show more colors).  That means a TIFF file may look weird on a typical office monitor - unless you calibrate.  Here's another random sample about this.  https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-online-tools-calibrate-monitor/

 

To summarize, your scanner, monitor and printer all need to be using the same calibration and same color space if you are to get good color fidelity.  Or just accept that red is red and don't fuss the carmine vs scarlet distinctions.

[alexwi]

46 minutes ago, LizEF said:

I need to test the software OCArt recommended - if it's as good with other inks as with today's that'll be my cheapest option.

 

And you prompted me to charge the battery for my old Canon PowerShot SD1300 IS, and it'll do white balance like you described too.

You're in luck! Your camera does have custom white balance. Can't believe I didn't think of asking you if you have a camera and then taking it from there. I'm glad you didn't run to buy another one.

 

All you need is on page 71 of the manual:

 

https://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/6/0300003266/01/PSSD1300IS_IXUS105IS_CUG_EN.pdf

 

I've never used Vuescan. I use GIMP all the time, but never scanned with it, however it does have what seems like a white balance function under Color->Levels.

 

Good luck with your experiments!!!

[LizEF]

10 minutes ago, cunim said:

Just what do you want to do with the scans?

This is all for my Extra Fine Nib Ink Reviews here, the goal being to create images for the review that are reasonably close to the actual ink color.  Obviously, there will be many viewers with many screens (phones, monitors, tablets, maybe even projectors), so monitor calibration isn't an issue.  Something reasonably close on my own monitor is about the best I can hope for.

 

I also really don't have much of a budget, so at this point, I'm exploring scanners, the camera mentioned herein, the software mentioned herein, and just continuing on without changes...   After experimenting and gathering more info, I'll decide whether it's worth spending money, and on what.

 

The profiling link you provided is something the software suggested in this thread supports, so if I decide to get the software, I'll also look into getting a "target".  Thanks for this - knowledge is power!

[LizEF]

1 minute ago, alexwi said:

I use GIMP all the time, but never scanned with it, however it does have what seems like a white balance function under Color->Levels.

Yes, I've been using this with an 18% grey card in the images and that has indeed helped quite a bit.  Just looking to get as good as I can without spending money I don't have.   I really appreciate your help and the link.

[OCArt]

1 hour ago, LizEF said:

Thank you!  I tested this today and it did the best job of all my image capturing tools (for today's ink)!  I'm going to test it on some more colors, and if it does as well, I'll be buying this.  I emailed to clarify that all the features in the trial are available in the standard version (or if I need pro).  Later, I'll see how it does with Diamine Salamander.

One nice thing about Vuescan is the frequent free updates.  I can't remember how many years ago I got my original copy-- at least ten years. So that's a lot of free updates to match Apple's various OS.

 

[LizEF]

17 minutes ago, OCArt said:

One nice thing about Vuescan is the frequent free updates.  I can't remember how many years ago I got my original copy-- at least ten years. So that's a lot of free updates to match Apple's various OS.

Nice.  It failed the Diamine Salamander test (apparently, this ink is un-scannable - at least, with my scanner), but I'll see next week how it does with some other colors (I still have all my review pages).

[alexwi]

2 hours ago, LizEF said:

The profiling link you provided is something the software suggested in this thread supports, so if I decide to get the software, I'll also look into getting a "target". 

One trick I use when I need others to "see" the color I'm seeing is to include a $1 bill in the image, whose color is very familiar and (I think) doesn't vary. This tricks the eye of the viewer into "white balancing" itself. This works, of course, only in the US.

[LizEF]

28 minutes ago, alexwi said:

One trick I use when I need others to "see" the color I'm seeing is to include a $1 bill in the image, whose color is very familiar and (I think) doesn't vary. This tricks the eye of the viewer into "white balancing" itself. This works, of course, only in the US.

I'll add it to the list of options!

[Astronymus]

6 hours ago, LizEF said:

(apparently, this ink is un-scannable - at least, with my scanner)

Some colors are indeed. As cunim said, you don't want to know. Colormanagement concerning the whole workflow of scanning, display and printing is a highly complex issue. All components have to be calibrated to the exact color space. There are special measuring devices and software involved. For your home use and your reviews your workflow as it is should suffice. A decent scanner is the most important part.

[Al-fresco]

Accurate colour balance is a minefield because even if you have access to a colour calibrated monitor most of the people looking at the image won’t.  That said when accurate colour balance is important (eg when photographing my wife’s patchwork quilts) my technique is this:

 

1. Using a digital camera that can produce RAW photographic images take 2 photographs.  In one of the photographs include a neutral gray card.  (You can buy these but I just use a grey divider from my camera bag.)  Both images should be taken in the same lighting conditions.

 

2. Import both files into photo editing software that can handle RAW files.  (I use Adobe Lightroom.)

 

3. Set the colour balance on the image with the neutral gray card by using the “eye dropper” tool.  (Effectively this tells the software “this is what gray looks like.”) The software works out what light balance is needed to produce a true neutral grey and applies it to the whole image.

 

4. Sync the settings of the colour adjusted file with the second file and you now have a colour balanced file without the gray card.  Export it to JPEG for uploading.

 

 

[Astronymus]

And this is just the procedure for taking the picture! 🙂

[LizEF]

Thank you, @Astronymus and @Al-fresco!  That's pretty much my sequence since learning how to do the white-balance thing in GIMP, though I just include the grey card in my original photo.  And it's helped.  I think having Japanese EF-sized lines on white paper makes things even more difficult - not a lot to work with.   Hence my continual search for new knowledge and tools that will help me make things better and better.  (Maybe eventually I'll be satisfied, but I'm not yet.)

 

9 hours ago, Astronymus said:

Color management concerning the whole workflow of scanning, display and printing is a highly complex issue.

Thank you for saying this!  It gets a bit discouraging when others present it as easy or simple, when my own experiences tell me it's actually quite complex.

[Astronymus]

I used to work in prepress for a while. My responsibility was to control and adjust the settings for the laser platesetter and the processing maschine. All prepress data was done on computers with calibrated displays (usualy once a year) and consistent use of ISO standardized color profiles. Like euroscale coated v2 for example. I would expose and develop a plate with special measurement fields and optical control markings. Now I controlled the markings I designed myself for the most part for any bad signs of quality of the plate or errors by the platesetter. Then use a densitometer to measure the density of the exposed fields (0,1,2,3,4,5,10,20,30,40,50,60,70,80,90,100%) and put the data into a program. Later this was automated via USB. If too far off you had to do it twice. The program would adjust the laser so the result would fit in the desired parameters for the printing press and send the data to the printing press as well.Which also had itself a densitometer to match the print to the data in the files. The printing press adjusts the used amount of ink to these files. The pressman would control his printouts and also match them to the proofsheet (also calibrated on an inkjet) manually. Because the color and structure of the paper/plastic/whatever you are printing on can tamper with color perception. This is done under a special - calibrated - daylight lamp.

The processing machine for the plates had to be monitored daily so the chemistry of the development solution was stable inside defined parameters.

The whole process which is called linearization would have to be done for all used color profiles and every new charge of plates or change of chemicals which also meant the whole machine had to be cleaned of gooey residues.

Sounds expensive? This was a low priced solution. But as we had recurring orders one had to look like the other according to ISO standards.

[LizEF]

13 minutes ago, Astronymus said:

I used to work in prepress for a while...

Wow!  What a job.   Complex, indeed!  Thanks for the inside story - always interesting to learn what goes on behind the scenes.

[amberleadavis]

On 5/8/2021 at 12:21 AM, OCArt said:

You reminded me of how I, err, adjusted one scanner.  The glass was very dirty from scanning flowers so I liberally sprayed a well-known blue window cleaner on it. Unbeknownst to me some dripped down onto the scanner's light tube. All of my later scans had a light blue tint!

 

I've since learned to spray a bit of cleaner on my cloth and *not* on the glass itself!

 

 

 

Laughing to myself.  I have learned similar lessons.