From: Michael Healy (mjhealy@kcnet.com)
Date: 02/27/03-01:56:27 PM Z
Thom, I am not an expert. Only an opinion-holder. So how about I dish up
some Opinion onto your plate for you?! These are general thoughts about your
approach, not recommendations for specific equipment.
You want two things. These are not exactly going to work in tandem. From one
corner of the ring, you need an office printer, which you would sneak photo
work onto. Good for you, it is a resourceful solution. But from another
corner, you also want the equipment with which to get a working scan and
then a tolerable print or neg. You will not like what I am going to say. I
think these are two woefully divergent trajectories which certainly do cross
as one eventually; but where they finally cross is at some stratospheric
level of your bank account that will look like meteors in the night sky if
you're standing at an altitude of fifteen $20 bills. Especially in Rhode
Island. You ARE at sea level, aren't you? Bad.
You say you need a scanner for normal purposes. Your mention of Burkholder,
though, suggests that by "normal purposes" you mean "normal
alternative-process photographic purposes". For normal alt-proc photographic
processes, you are going to need a good scan. Period. Spend the money
getting it from a service bureau, get it from Kinko's, or get it from your
own scanner, but get a good scan. If your scan sucks, then the rest of your
process will too. In fact, it may be pointless unless your sole intent is to
fill webpages or print Christmas cards for photographically-impaired
relatives. For that, you probably don't need to bother getting Dan
Burkholder involved.
A major problem I faced when I started scanning was that prolonged agony
which currently goes by the name "learning curve". What makes a successful
scan - out-on-limb time here, but this is opinion - is not only statistics
and histograms and equipment, but an intuition that you develop from doing
this enough times with your own hands (mouse, sorry), from messing it up and
looking at it, and trying again, and circling it, and sleeping on it. In its
way, exactly how we learn to print well. So sinking the money into a good
printer, and then working lousy home-brew scans will be a little like
thinking that you're going to emulate John Sexton because you own a
state-of-the-art 4x5 enlarger and a case of single-use point-and-shoots. Two
very painful drawbacks will be yours to taste: (1) cost. Soon, you will have
spent enough to have bought that unaffordable Epson 2450 **at least** one
time. (2) Delayed development of your personal, intuitive understanding
about what makes a good scan AND what things do and don't help to make it.
Me, I would reevaluate the situation. A passable printer and a cheap scanner
intended for documents probably will add up to nothing worth printing.
You do also need to get the stuff printed, I know. My opinion trails off
here. It isn't even good enough to call uninformed. I did just buy a C82 a
couple months ago myself. It isn't bad. It is more than enough printer for
an office. It seems to do a fairly nice job of printing scanned images (my
pinhole swap image was printed on this printer). At US$150, it is remarkably
inexpensive. I have done several negs from scans with it, but I can't yet
say how good they are. One isn't so great, but I think it's because I
scanned at only about 300 ppi. Another looks really nice as a 5x8" cyanotype
scanned from a 6x9cm neg. Arizona's 40 days of Noah rain have forced me to
spend all of my time working on the Ark, so I have been unable to try it on
an argyrotype. This would (I think) make a better test of the neg's
resolution and possible banding. But I have to tell you that this good
digital neg came from a 2400 ppi scan in 16-bit b&w. And I spent time
scanning and rescanning it with manipulated gamma and highlight exposures
until I got one that worked just right. I'm not sure I would have known what
to do with a file that size (275 mgs) the first time I got Kinko's to do it
for me. Plus, I don't know how I would have known to convey my expectations
about the "type" of scan. So I think the challenge you face is about the
scanner to a far greater degree than you suspect.
If you must buy a printer, and can't live w/o a scanner due to office
considerations, perhaps buy a very inexpensive document scanner. They can
cost as little as US$75. For our purposes, probably useless, but it would
enable you to avoid the painful discovery that all that money you spent
needs to be spent all over again on a second scanner. Or hold off on the
scanner until you can afford a good one.
You don't say what format you use. The consensus seems to be that a film
scanner is better, but OTOH most are for 35mm only, so they won't be of much
use for 4x5 or 6x9cm. The Epson 2450 (the 3000 is a new version? is that
right?) is pretty awfully good for both. All the right things: high
resolution, fair-to-good dMax, SLOW at 2400 ppi on a 4x5. That's your whole
budget right there, I know; but I will say it again: if you spend $150 on a
printer and $150 on a scanner, then there is a very real possibility that
you made a mistake to think you can make digital negs.
End of Opinion. Hope this gives you more to think over. And good luck!
Mike Healy
----- Original Message -----
From: "Thom Mitchell" <tjmitch@ix.netcom.com>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@skyway.usask.ca>
Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2003 11:35 AM
Subject: Off list advice wanted for scanner and printer, please
My wife has decided she needs a new scanner and a new printer. I would like
to get something for her general use that I could use for digital negative
making, and other alt-process work. We have a home network so I plan to scan
it in on her computer and then process, tweak, scream, yell, rant on my
computer and then print it back out via network share on hers.
I am choosing this venue because frankly I am hoping a for some succinct
useful advice without starting an arcane religious war about minutiae that
means little to a digital printing novice like myself. And frankly I'm a
little intimidated by both the amount and the detail of the information on
other lists.
My question is for about $300 total or so (some room, but it needs to be
justified) what would the best flatbed scanner and best printer for
WinXP/2000. I've heard so many things about epsons that I am leaning towards
the C82 ( 4 ink) or a Epson photo printer (6 ink). The printer needs to be
able to handle general home office printing duties and some normal photo
printing as well as being able to be utilized for Digital Negatives. (I am
ordering Mr. Burkholder's book).
The scanner would be used for normal scanning. Not sure which brand or
model would be best since the apparent consensus, Epson 2450, is out of my
budget range for now. My thoughts are for about $150 each or $300 total
with some flexibility on each one, I should be able to get items that far
exceed the performance of items when Dan's book was first published 7 years
ago. So although my budget precludes an Epson 2200 whatever I buy should
work just fine once I invest enough time, ink, paper, film and patience, I
hope.
Thanks ahead of time for the advice and please respond off-list so as
not anger the benevolent master of list management. (thanks for your work
Gordon). Thanks, Thom
Thom Mitchell
Providence, RI
tjmitch@ix.netcom.com
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