Archival scans, 48bit, Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED, ? Gamma 1.0 ?

Hi All,

I wish to scan ~3-4000 slides, for two reasons, one to have the images
available electronically but mainly to have a safe archive/backup of the
images (most of these slides cover the period when I used to work for the
British Antarctic Survey, are c20 years old and I would be gutted if I lost
them...).

I've had a Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED for a couple of months, and have spent the
time becoming familiar with it.... and colour management. On the colour
management issues I am now just starting to get a good overall idea of how
things work (and I must admit it was not simple, and I am speaking as a
lapsed physicist!).

I would like to scan these slides ONCE - i.e. I would like to get it right
the first time. I intend to scan at 48bits and 4000dpi (i.e. the max
resolution of the scanner).

Can anyone comment on the scenario below:

---------------------

* 16bits/channel / 4000dpi
* Raw scanner RGB at - gamma 1.0 - (Nikon colour management turned off).
* Only processing performed by the scanner being digital ICE
* Scanner calibrated using it8 targets and resultant icc profiles used to
perform conversion to the working colour space (presently Wide Gamut RGB)
on import of the raw gamma 1.0 files to Photoshop

----------------------

I am aware that there is a somewhat heated discussion on the subject of
gamma 1.0 editing, which is not what I am proposing here. My concern is
complete retention of the data delivered by the scanner. My reasoning is:

* The scanner sensor has a 16bit resolution.
* I acknowledge the sense in outputing a higher gamma file when using 8
bits/channel in order to space the resultant resolution perceptually.
However when performing such a transform on the full bit data all I see is
an increase in spacing of the scanner resolution at the shadow end at the
cost of lost information in the highlights. I.e. I see no gain.
* The scans are archival - I might wish to use the data in a couple of
decades, with display technologies that may be completely different from
today (i.e. why gamma encode the data with a value that derives from
today's display technology).

I would be particularly interested to hear from people in the high gamma
camp(!), since I would guess from the gamma 1.0 camp I am going to hear "Go
for it". The only potential problem that I can see here is whether the
application of a gamma 2.2 curve through Photoshop/icc profile is any less
accurate than in the scanner itself. I acknowledge that there may be
others I have missed....

Cheers,

Gary Whitehead.



N.B. I too fought with the colour management on the scanner, and gave up in
near disgust. Wolf Faust's targets, and resultant ICC profiles gave the
best results I had seen within minutes of generating them!

"Gary Whitehead" wrote in message
...
Hi All,

Can anyone comment on the scenario below:

---------------------

* 16bits/channel / 4000dpi
* Raw scanner RGB at - gamma 1.0 - (Nikon colour management turned off).
* Only processing performed by the scanner being digital ICE
* Scanner calibrated using it8 targets and resultant icc profiles used to
perform conversion to the working colour space (presently Wide Gamut RGB)
on import of the raw gamma 1.0 files to Photoshop

This seems to me to be the preferred method. Create a profile of your
scanner with color management turned off. You then take the resultant
output to whichever program you prefer, apply the profile, and convert to
whichever working color space you desire. It works for me.
Jim

Sounds good ... but jus to be sure include a raw scan of a well-known target ... such as
an IT-8 target for which you have the data, or an image of an Macbeth color checker ...
with your archives.





"Gary Whitehead" wrote in message
...
Hi All,

I wish to scan ~3-4000 slides, for two reasons, one to have the images
available electronically but mainly to have a safe archive/backup of the
images (most of these slides cover the period when I used to work for the
British Antarctic Survey, are c20 years old and I would be gutted if I lost
them...).

I've had a Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED for a couple of months, and have spent the
time becoming familiar with it.... and colour management. On the colour
management issues I am now just starting to get a good overall idea of how
things work (and I must admit it was not simple, and I am speaking as a
lapsed physicist!).

I would like to scan these slides ONCE - i.e. I would like to get it right
the first time. I intend to scan at 48bits and 4000dpi (i.e. the max
resolution of the scanner).

Can anyone comment on the scenario below:

---------------------

* 16bits/channel / 4000dpi
* Raw scanner RGB at - gamma 1.0 - (Nikon colour management turned off).
* Only processing performed by the scanner being digital ICE
* Scanner calibrated using it8 targets and resultant icc profiles used to
perform conversion to the working colour space (presently Wide Gamut RGB)
on import of the raw gamma 1.0 files to Photoshop

----------------------

I am aware that there is a somewhat heated discussion on the subject of
gamma 1.0 editing, which is not what I am proposing here. My concern is
complete retention of the data delivered by the scanner. My reasoning is:

* The scanner sensor has a 16bit resolution.
* I acknowledge the sense in outputing a higher gamma file when using 8
bits/channel in order to space the resultant resolution perceptually.
However when performing such a transform on the full bit data all I see is
an increase in spacing of the scanner resolution at the shadow end at the
cost of lost information in the highlights. I.e. I see no gain.
* The scans are archival - I might wish to use the data in a couple of
decades, with display technologies that may be completely different from
today (i.e. why gamma encode the data with a value that derives from
today's display technology).

I would be particularly interested to hear from people in the high gamma
camp(!), since I would guess from the gamma 1.0 camp I am going to hear "Go
for it". The only potential problem that I can see here is whether the
application of a gamma 2.2 curve through Photoshop/icc profile is any less
accurate than in the scanner itself. I acknowledge that there may be
others I have missed....

Cheers,

Gary Whitehead.



N.B. I too fought with the colour management on the scanner, and gave up in
near disgust. Wolf Faust's targets, and resultant ICC profiles gave the
best results I had seen within minutes of generating them!

Go for it.

The scanner hardware, I believe, *always* scans with a gamma of 1, with the
gamma adjustment
being performed by software.

The *only* reason I don't use a gamma of 1 is that the profiler I use (the
Little CMS scanner profiler)
will only use 8-bit scans. If I feed the profiler higher bit depth target
scans, the profiler definitely
does not make use of the extra resolution. So, I use a gamma of 2.2 to get
around this problem.

I think your workflow makes complete sense, and aside from the difference in
gamma, it's
the same as my workflow for all intents & purposes.

Greg.

"Gary Whitehead" wrote in message
...
Hi All,

I wish to scan ~3-4000 slides, for two reasons, one to have the images
available electronically but mainly to have a safe archive/backup of the
images (most of these slides cover the period when I used to work for the
British Antarctic Survey, are c20 years old and I would be gutted if I
lost
them...).

I've had a Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED for a couple of months, and have spent
the
time becoming familiar with it.... and colour management. On the colour
management issues I am now just starting to get a good overall idea of how
things work (and I must admit it was not simple, and I am speaking as a
lapsed physicist!).

I would like to scan these slides ONCE - i.e. I would like to get it right
the first time. I intend to scan at 48bits and 4000dpi (i.e. the max
resolution of the scanner).

Can anyone comment on the scenario below:

---------------------

* 16bits/channel / 4000dpi
* Raw scanner RGB at - gamma 1.0 - (Nikon colour management turned off).
* Only processing performed by the scanner being digital ICE
* Scanner calibrated using it8 targets and resultant icc profiles used to
perform conversion to the working colour space (presently Wide Gamut RGB)
on import of the raw gamma 1.0 files to Photoshop

----------------------

I am aware that there is a somewhat heated discussion on the subject of
gamma 1.0 editing, which is not what I am proposing here. My concern is
complete retention of the data delivered by the scanner. My reasoning is:

* The scanner sensor has a 16bit resolution.
* I acknowledge the sense in outputing a higher gamma file when using 8
bits/channel in order to space the resultant resolution perceptually.
However when performing such a transform on the full bit data all I see is
an increase in spacing of the scanner resolution at the shadow end at the
cost of lost information in the highlights. I.e. I see no gain.
* The scans are archival - I might wish to use the data in a couple of
decades, with display technologies that may be completely different from
today (i.e. why gamma encode the data with a value that derives from
today's display technology).

I would be particularly interested to hear from people in the high gamma
camp(!), since I would guess from the gamma 1.0 camp I am going to hear
"Go
for it". The only potential problem that I can see here is whether the
application of a gamma 2.2 curve through Photoshop/icc profile is any less
accurate than in the scanner itself. I acknowledge that there may be
others I have missed....

Cheers,

Gary Whitehead.



N.B. I too fought with the colour management on the scanner, and gave up
in
near disgust. Wolf Faust's targets, and resultant ICC profiles gave the
best results I had seen within minutes of generating them!

Have you considered the practical realities of creating files this large,
about 100mbs per file?

Have you considered the real world utility of 16 bit color vs the ideal
(i.e. no monitor or printing method can utilize that much color information
and will in some way arbitrarily truncate it anyway)?

I hope your are a very young man so that you may live to complete this
project.

Good point - I forgot to mention that I use JPEG 2000 to archive my scans.

Gary - I suggest you look into JPEG 2000 as a possibility for storing your
achives. JPEG 2000 supports greater than 8-bit per channel encoding, whereas
standard JPEG doesn't.

Yes, I use JPEG 2000 in lossy mode, but it does have a lossless mode as
well.

Greg.
"bmoag" wrote in message
m...
Have you considered the practical realities of creating files this large,
about 100mbs per file?

Have you considered the real world utility of 16 bit color vs the ideal
(i.e. no monitor or printing method can utilize that much color
information
and will in some way arbitrarily truncate it anyway)?

I hope your are a very young man so that you may live to complete this
project.

DAT tapes!

Having the disc space for this is not a problem nowadays, but I certainly
would not be doing it without backup. The entire collection should fit on
around 30 tapes (12GB), at a cost of about 150 euros.

I'm also reckoning on us being at a cusp, i.e. in a few years the amount of
data that this will produce will fit easily into normal spec machines.

Cheers,

Gary.

bmoag wrote:

Have you considered the practical realities of creating files this large,
about 100mbs per file?

Have you considered the real world utility of 16 bit color vs the ideal
(i.e. no monitor or printing method can utilize that much color
information and will in some way arbitrarily truncate it anyway)?

I hope your are a very young man so that you may live to complete this
project.

External Hard drive or CDR or even the new DVD data recorders.

Tape has the disadvantage of having to play the tape until you find the
selection you are looking for. Also Tape is slow in transfer rate.

For 150 Euro you can get a 120 GB external hard drive and case. USB 2.0 or
Firewire. In the USA a external hard drive case is about $40 USD and 120 GB
hard drive is about $90 USD.

--
CSM1
http://www.carlmcmillan.com
--
"Gary Whitehead" wrote in message
...
DAT tapes!

Having the disc space for this is not a problem nowadays, but I certainly
would not be doing it without backup. The entire collection should fit
on
around 30 tapes (12GB), at a cost of about 150 euros.

I'm also reckoning on us being at a cusp, i.e. in a few years the amount
of
data that this will produce will fit easily into normal spec machines.

Cheers,

Gary.

bmoag wrote:

Have you considered the practical realities of creating files this
large,
about 100mbs per file?

Have you considered the real world utility of 16 bit color vs the ideal
(i.e. no monitor or printing method can utilize that much color
information and will in some way arbitrarily truncate it anyway)?

I hope your are a very young man so that you may live to complete this
project.

On Tue, 17 Aug 2004 15:29:10 GMT, "CSM1"
wrote:

External Hard drive or CDR or even the new DVD data recorders.

And here I'm up to something on the order of 2 sets of 60 DVDs plus a
complete backup on a second computer. I have about 3,000 to 4,000
negatives left to scan and about a 100# worth of *old* prints all the
way back to tintypes and the "petrified cardboard" prints.
The unedited TIFFs run about 60 megs each.

All slides and negatives are indexed in notebooks.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Tape has the disadvantage of having to play the tape until you find the
selection you are looking for. Also Tape is slow in transfer rate.

For 150 Euro you can get a 120 GB external hard drive and case. USB 2.0 or
Firewire. In the USA a external hard drive case is about $40 USD and 120 GB
hard drive is about $90 USD.

--
CSM1
http://www.carlmcmillan.com

You have an excellent film scanner there. Though I may not know much about
that type of scanning, at 4000dpi x 3-4000 scans, I'm assuming you have a
terrabyte server handy

I can only assume that if you scan at a default 1.0 gamma, you still have
more than enough information to change it to a better gamma/icc profile
through photoshop, possibly even through using a repetitive action. But I
also think that not all pictures will be the same, therefore a pic that
looks decent with a gamma 1 may not be applicable to another pic. But
that's just my newbie thinking

Good luck anyway in whatever you choose to do.

Al

in article , Gary Whitehead at
wrote on 17/8/04 6:52 AM:

Hi All,

I wish to scan ~3-4000 slides, for two reasons, one to have the images
available electronically but mainly to have a safe archive/backup of the
images (most of these slides cover the period when I used to work for the
British Antarctic Survey, are c20 years old and I would be gutted if I lost
them...).

I've had a Nikon Coolscan 5000 ED for a couple of months, and have spent the
time becoming familiar with it.... and colour management. On the colour
management issues I am now just starting to get a good overall idea of how
things work (and I must admit it was not simple, and I am speaking as a
lapsed physicist!).

I would like to scan these slides ONCE - i.e. I would like to get it right
the first time. I intend to scan at 48bits and 4000dpi (i.e. the max
resolution of the scanner).

Can anyone comment on the scenario below:

---------------------

* 16bits/channel / 4000dpi
* Raw scanner RGB at - gamma 1.0 - (Nikon colour management turned off).
* Only processing performed by the scanner being digital ICE
* Scanner calibrated using it8 targets and resultant icc profiles used to
perform conversion to the working colour space (presently Wide Gamut RGB)
on import of the raw gamma 1.0 files to Photoshop

----------------------

I am aware that there is a somewhat heated discussion on the subject of
gamma 1.0 editing, which is not what I am proposing here. My concern is
complete retention of the data delivered by the scanner. My reasoning is:

* The scanner sensor has a 16bit resolution.
* I acknowledge the sense in outputing a higher gamma file when using 8
bits/channel in order to space the resultant resolution perceptually.
However when performing such a transform on the full bit data all I see is
an increase in spacing of the scanner resolution at the shadow end at the
cost of lost information in the highlights. I.e. I see no gain.
* The scans are archival - I might wish to use the data in a couple of
decades, with display technologies that may be completely different from
today (i.e. why gamma encode the data with a value that derives from
today's display technology).

I would be particularly interested to hear from people in the high gamma
camp(!), since I would guess from the gamma 1.0 camp I am going to hear "Go
for it". The only potential problem that I can see here is whether the
application of a gamma 2.2 curve through Photoshop/icc profile is any less
accurate than in the scanner itself. I acknowledge that there may be
others I have missed....

Cheers,

Gary Whitehead.



N.B. I too fought with the colour management on the scanner, and gave up in
near disgust. Wolf Faust's targets, and resultant ICC profiles gave the
best results I had seen within minutes of generating them!