Plustek Scanner

soupdragon

soupdragon

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Anyone using a Plustek 8200 scanner?
If so, would you care to let me know what your go-to settings are for colour slide film?

I guess I'm most interested in bit depth and dpi plus sharpening but any other advice is welcome.

I will most likely be using the Silverfast software and outputting TIFF files for final editing in a third party program.
 
8100 user here.

I set it to transparency rather than negative (IIRC).

bit depth is whatever is standard out of the box. Dpi is dependent on what resolution I want to print at so I usually click the cog wheel and set for 300dpi at A4 print size. If I really like the scan and want to go for a larger print I may push it a little higher, but rarely. 300dpi at A4 scales fine to larger sizes because of the larger viewing distance. For screen use, 300dpi at A4 is overkill, but usually a good balance of detail vs file size so I tend to use that as a minimum. Sharpening I do in Lightroom because I find I get better results and more control.

Hope that helps!
 
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There are several Plustek users on here, but relatively few Silverfast users. I have a 7500i, and used Silverfast 6 for the first few years, until MacOS changes meant it stopped working, when I switched to Vuescan Pro.

As far as I understand bit depth, you will want to use as much as you can get, particularly if you're saving to (16-bit) TIFF. I don't remember a SF setting for bit depth, but it was many years and versions ago!

The whole DPI thing is confusing. Even at scan time, it sometimes seems to refer to the print stage. As Ian says, 300 dpi is fine for most printers, although I believe some printers work best at lower settings.

To avoid confusion, I prefer to use samples per inch when referring to settings on the scanner. On 135 film, 1200 spi will give you a small file with little flexibility. 2400 spi should give you a file in the region of 8 to 9 Mpixe, 3600 pixels along the long side, that should print up to 8x12" (realistically, you can go larger if you want). 3600 spi will get you 19 Mpixels... However, you should perhaps read filmscanner.info on this scanner at https://www.filmscanner.info/en/PlustekOpticFilm8200i.html (note, not a full review), which reminds us that the maximum effective resolution of the scanner is 3250 spi (although you might have to scan at 7200 spi and downsize for that).

As far as sharpening is concerned, I do none at the scan stage, and choose how much sharpening I want in PP.

You might be interested in the Big Film Scanner Thread...
 
Thanks for the info.
Does the infrared dust removal work?
 
soupdragon said:
Thanks for the info.
Does the infrared dust removal work?
Click to expand...
With SF 6 it worked quite well on my 7500i with C41 (colour negative and XP2) and E6 (modern slide) films. I also got it to work (sort of) with old Kodachromes by using masking to restrict it to sky areas.

Just check some detailed areas like twigs etc; sometimes it can fiddle with them. But that's mostly with the algorithmic dust removal (forgotten what they call it) rather than with the infrared channel.
 
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I used to own an epson perfection v850 pro when I was a Hasselblad user but film flatness was an issue.
Regarding sampling resolution I found there was little or no benefit going beyond 3600 dpi (or whatever the term is)

As for kodachrome, I'm still waiting for them to respond to my request for the re-launch of the iso 64 version.
I live in hope.
 
Ever the optimist!!!
 
Am I right in thinking the main difference between the Plustek 7200 and 8100 is the Silverfast software?

Asking I've just bought a 7200 for circa £40 delivered and was going to get Vuescan Pro to run it.

Appreciate its not the most up to date scanner but it'll be better than my current Epson Perfection Photo 4490 I'm using to scan in my negs and slides and I'm thinking the Vuescan will control the Epson also?
 
cardiff_gareth said:
Am I right in thinking the main difference between the Plustek 7200 and 8100 is the Silverfast software?

Asking I've just bought a 7200 for circa £40 delivered and was going to get Vuescan Pro to run it.

Appreciate its not the most up to date scanner but it'll be better than my current Epson Perfection Photo 4490 I'm using to scan in my negs and slides and I'm thinking the Vuescan will control the Epson also?
Click to expand...
On your first question, as I understand it from here, the 8100 is a 7400 with updated Silverfast software. The 7200 was apparently the first of the line, and was replaced by the 7300 and then the 7400. It does appear there were hardware differences between those models, although I'm not certain.

I suspect a 7200 with Vuescan Pro will do a pretty good job for you. No infra-red dust removal, of course (that's reserved for the i models).
 
Plustek 8100i here and using Silverfast 9 SE Plus. I did read up on the 8200 and decided to save my money and manually de-spot in post... Doesn't take too long...

Seems fine though I do tend to use it with the multi exposure setting which doubles the scan time.
As I haven't used any other software with it I can't comment on how it compares, but once you get the settings dialled-in it seems fine...
I scan at 3600ppi which gives me an 18Mb file which I edit in Lightroom then crunch down to about 650kb for web use.
 
When scanning slide film on my Plustek 8100 I use Vuescan rather than Silverfast. I set it to make 2 passes and have the multi-exposure box ticked. This seems to produce nice and bright scans, although I do notice artefacts sometimes where a slide has bright highlights.

Shame I can't seem to get the same results when scanning medium format slides on the Epson V550.
 
FishyFish said:
When scanning slide film on my Plustek 8100 I use Vuescan rather than Silverfast. I set it to make 2 passes and have the multi-exposure box ticked. This seems to produce nice and bright scans, although I do notice artefacts sometimes where a slide has bright highlights.

Shame I can't seem to get the same results when scanning medium format slides on the Epson V550.
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Are the respective D max ratings the same?
I originally bought the V850 as Epson brag about a D max of 4.0.
 
soupdragon said:
Are the respective D max ratings the same?
I originally bought the V850 as Epson brag about a D max of 4.0.
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I think filmscanner.info make the point that DMax claims are largely just that: bragging. There's no independent comparative testing, not even any agreed technical approach.
 
Anyone using silverfast for scanning.
I'm struggling very badly.
I processed my first roll of velvia out of my new camera with reasonable success.
My first attempts at scanning files to TIFFs has resulted in creating files but when I try and open them in any third party editor the software returns a message "Unknown File Format"

I have now fiddled for days with the settings but no luck so, my next question is, can the software be reset to default levels?

Thirdly, is vuescan a more user friendly package?
 
soupdragon said:
Anyone using silverfast for scanning.
I'm struggling very badly.
I processed my first roll of velvia out of my new camera with reasonable success.
My first attempts at scanning files to TIFFs has resulted in creating files but when I try and open them in any third party editor the software returns a message "Unknown File Format"

I have now fiddled for days with the settings but no luck so, my next question is, can the software be reset to default levels?

Thirdly, is vuescan a more user friendly package?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure that Vuescan is any more user friendly (I don't know what half the features do!), but I have found that I get far better results with it for 35mm slides than with Silverfast.

Download the trial and give it a go. I'm happy to share my slide scanning settings if you do.
 
FishyFish said:
I'm not sure that Vuescan is any more user friendly (I don't know what half the features do!), but I have found that I get far better results with it for 35mm slides than with Silverfast.

Download the trial and give it a go. I'm happy to share my slide scanning settings if you do.
Click to expand...
I might just try that.
What's a bit irksome is that silverfast 9 is out but it's not a free update. Typical, 1 month after buying the 8200i. :banghead:
 
FishyFish said:
I'm not sure that Vuescan is any more user friendly (I don't know what half the features do!), but I have found that I get far better results with it for 35mm slides than with Silverfast.

Download the trial and give it a go. I'm happy to share my slide scanning settings if you do.
Click to expand...
I used silverfast for a time ( a cut down version came with my pro scan 10t ) then I had problems so switched to vuescan.

In my biased opinion, vuescan is much easier to use, it’s better and it’s cheaper
 
FishyFish said:
I'm not sure that Vuescan is any more user friendly (I don't know what half the features do!), but I have found that I get far better results with it for 35mm slides than with Silverfast.

Download the trial and give it a go. I'm happy to share my slide scanning settings if you do.
Click to expand...
Deleted member 89409 said:
I used silverfast for a time ( a cut down version came with my pro scan 10t ) then I had problems so switched to vuescan.

In my biased opinion, vuescan is much easier to use, it’s better and it’s cheaper
Click to expand...
Agreed, I much prefer Vuescan, and you can use one copy for life on all and any scanners, including your all-in-one printer-scanner if you have one!
 
Vuescan is on my shopping list.
I'm using silverfast as it was bundled with the hardware.
 
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