35mm slides scanner clarification questions

"All Things Mopar" <nunofyour RemoveThis @beez.wax> wrote in message
news:Xns97709E9AF4643ReplyID@216.196.97.131...
> Today rafe b commented courteously on the subject at hand
>
>>>PSP 9 still goes out-to-lunch on things like DCNR, which is
>>>highly CPU dependent. Even with 3 gig of memory available
>>>after Bill the Gates steals the top gig, PSP 9 still takes
>>>time to write undo files to HD because writing those to
>>>memory is riskier.
>>
>> A 300 Mbyte TIFF opens in about 9 seconds in Photoshop.
>
> That's fantastic performance to me, rafe. I just stop-watched a
> 92NB BMP into PSP 9 and it took about 14 sec. Is your HD SCSI?
> Mine is a SATA-connected 7200 rpm Maxtor 300 gig with two FAT32
> partitions. I rebuilt them as FAT32 with Partition Magic because
> XP SP2 would go 10-7 for several minutes on me just accessing
> the folder tree.


Hitachi (?) "DeskStar" 160G drives. SATA.
7200 RPM. They cost me about $100 each,
about 15 months ago.

The motherboard supports RAID-1 using a Silicon
Systems 3112 chip. So, there are two drives "posing"
as one, in a RAID-1 configuration.

You have to do a bit of careful setup of the
driver to make sure it's using UDMA properly.


>> Scans of 6x7 cm @ 4000 dpi take around seven or eight
>> minutes with ICE on. Most of my scanners and printers
>> are hooked up with Firewire nowadays.
>
> What part of the 7-8 minutes is the scanner and what part is the
> image processing and transfer to your PC? I don't know, and
> really don't need to as it isn't relevant to me, but I strongly
> suspect you entire system is has a more efficient data path than
> mine. I forget, again, what O/S are you on? If Linux, that'd
> explain a whole bunch of the speed you see. If Windoze XP, I
> would guess SP1 and not SP2.


Windoze 2K, with all the latest service packs and security
patches.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com
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Today rafe b commented courteously on the subject at hand

>>> A 300 Mbyte TIFF opens in about 9 seconds in Photoshop.
>>
>> That's fantastic performance to me, rafe. I just
>> stop-watched a 92NB BMP into PSP 9 and it took about 14
>> sec. Is your HD SCSI? Mine is a SATA-connected 7200 rpm
>> Maxtor 300 gig with two FAT32 partitions. I rebuilt them
>> as FAT32 with Partition Magic because XP SP2 would go 10-7
>> for several minutes on me just accessing the folder tree.
>
> Hitachi (?) "DeskStar" 160G drives. SATA.
> 7200 RPM. They cost me about $100 each,
> about 15 months ago.
>
> The motherboard supports RAID-1 using a Silicon
> Systems 3112 chip. So, there are two drives "posing"
> as one, in a RAID-1 configuration.

I understand RAID.

> You have to do a bit of careful setup of the
> driver to make sure it's using UDMA properly.
>
You done good, Dwight! I think the biggie is Win2K. You
running FAT32 or NTFS on your 2nd drive? My 250 has 3
partitions: Windoze, non-graphics data, and graphics data.
And, my external has 2, non-graphics data and graphics. I keep
them defragged but performance sags fairly quickly.

I can't verify this, but I think the overall slowness is my
bud Bill's attempt at security. You know, "Microsoft
Security", about the same as "Military Intelligence" or
"Postal Service".

I'm faster than my previous Win XP SP1 box by some, but not a
lot. It has an AMD 1600 and 5600 (?) rpm IDE, but only 512
mem. If I had it to do over, I'd have never had my nephew put
SP2 on top of the SP1 retail license I bought while I still
could. Bloated POS.

--
ATM, aka Jerry
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"All Things Mopar" <nunofyour.DeleteThis@beez.wax> wrote in message
news:Xns9770ADAAA65ADReplyID@216.196.97.131...

> I'm faster than my previous Win XP SP1 box by some, but not a
> lot. It has an AMD 1600 and 5600 (?) rpm IDE, but only 512
> mem. If I had it to do over, I'd have never had my nephew put
> SP2 on top of the SP1 retail license I bought while I still
> could. Bloated POS.


I use XP at work because... well, everyone else does,
and all our (Dell) PCs have XP preinstalled.

At home, I use 2K and see no reason to upgrade.
Maybe some day a driver or peripheral will force
the issue.

Like I say, it has all the latest service packs and
security patches. New ones seem to arrive every
week.


rafe b
www.terrapinphoto.com
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Today rafe b commented courteously on the subject at hand

> I use XP at work because... well, everyone else does,
> and all our (Dell) PCs have XP preinstalled.
>
> At home, I use 2K and see no reason to upgrade.
> Maybe some day a driver or peripheral will force
> the issue.
>
> Like I say, it has all the latest service packs and
> security patches. New ones seem to arrive every
> week.

Hell, rafe, I'm hardly recommending you kill the goose that
lays your golden eggs so fast! It goes to my basic philophy
about anything at all - if it ain't broke, don't try to fix
it.

A number of my friends have stayed on Win2K indefinitely,
primarily for speed and because so many horror stories - most
true - about what bloatware even base XP Pro is, much less the
minor SP1 patches and the 90%+ rewrite of SP2.

Since I'm so good at prognosticating stuff I know nothing
about, I can categorically say that anything as large as
Windoze XP already was is virtually guanteed to be slow upon
retrofitting some arcane security scheme on top of really old
8.3 DOS file structures. Yeah, long file names came in with
Win 95, and NTFS cured the limits on HD size, and the new SP2
secutity "features" had to go into some new cubbyhole along
with both file name structures and the concept of security
mainly through accounts.

And, /nothing/ efficient has ever come out of Redmond. So,
celebrate your good fortune of being able to built a home brew
system with a supercharger on it for relatively little money.

Hmmm. Wonder if my nephew would rebuild my PC back to SP1...

--
ATM, aka Jerry
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In article <Xns976FE72BF4D18ReplyID.TakeThisOut@216.196.97.131>, All Things Mopar
<nunofyour.TakeThisOut@beez.wax> writes
>
>As to 48-bit color, maybe you can shed some light on my major
>sticking point: other than analytical tools like histograms or
>image arithmetic, how do you /see/ what you're doing? My
>Windoze XP system is only 24 bit (and another 8 for
>"transparency") and I know of no currently viable 48-bit PC,
>video card, monitor and other stuff. Or, if there are (you may
>well have it), it certainly wouldn't be within my budget.
>
What you are forgetting is that your 24-bit Windows XP system is
generally working in gamma compensated space - with a gamma close to
2.2. The scanner capture 16-bits per channel in its linear space for
48-bit source data. If you run some numbers through your calculator you
will find that the first non-zero value in the scanner's linear space
(ie the darkest non-black level) maps to 255*(1/65535)^(1/2.2), which
rounds up to 2.

So the full range from white to black is still visible on your 8-bit per
channel display, however there are finer steps within the source data
than the output can represent. You wouldn't be able to see these in any
case, even if you did have more bits in your video display, but it is
desirable to have them in the source data so that any processing you
implement on that still retains as much of the output range as possible
without introducing missing codes, which will eventually appear as
posterisation and banding.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)
 >> Stay informed about: 35mm slides scanner clarification questions 

Today Kennedy McEwen commented courteously on the subject at
hand

>>As to 48-bit color, maybe you can shed some light on my
>>major sticking point: other than analytical tools like
>>histograms or image arithmetic, how do you /see/ what
>>you're doing? My Windoze XP system is only 24 bit (and
>>another 8 for "transparency") and I know of no currently
>>viable 48-bit PC, video card, monitor and other stuff. Or,
>>if there are (you may well have it), it certainly wouldn't
>>be within my budget.
>>
> What you are forgetting is that your 24-bit Windows XP
> system is generally working in gamma compensated space -
> with a gamma close to 2.2. The scanner capture 16-bits per
> channel in its linear space for 48-bit source data. If you
> run some numbers through your calculator you will find that
> the first non-zero value in the scanner's linear space (ie
> the darkest non-black level) maps to 255*(1/65535)^(1/2.2),
> which rounds up to 2.

I understand that, but barely. Certainly not enough to make
practical use of it.

> So the full range from white to black is still visible on
> your 8-bit per channel display, however there are finer
> steps within the source data than the output can represent.
> You wouldn't be able to see these in any case, even if you
> did have more bits in your video display, but it is
> desirable to have them in the source data so that any
> processing you implement on that still retains as much of
> the output range as possible without introducing missing
> codes, which will eventually appear as posterisation and
> banding.

I understand banding if less than the total color space can be
represented. I also know that with 16.7 million colors
available, I'd need a 16.7MP image to have everyone different.
The real problem with 24-bit, though is that each RGB channel
can have at most 256 levels - 2 to the 8th power, thus 48-bit
theoretically gives you 2 to the 16th, so long that the top 4,
5, 6 bits aren't just so much noise left over from the A-to-D
process or simply because the hardware cannot fill up a double
word.

Please don't pick this apart. If you want to provide a 48-bit
101 mini-tut, I am certainly interested. But, I can't learn
when I'm in some sort of afraid to look over my shoulder mode.

Thanks.

--
ATM, aka Jerry
 >> Stay informed about: 35mm slides scanner clarification questions 

In article <Xns977027908875ReplyID.RemoveThis@216.196.97.131>, All Things Mopar
<nunofyour.RemoveThis@beez.wax> writes
>
>It's also true that 48-bit can help pull out more at each end
>of the histogram, but I still can't fathom how you know you've
>got it the way you want to if you can't see it on-screen.

You can't fathom it out because your original postulate is wrong. 48-bit
doesn't let you pull out more at the ends of the histogram, it just lets
you stretch the histogram further before the gaps between levels appear.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)
 >> Stay informed about: 35mm slides scanner clarification questions 

Today Kennedy McEwen commented courteously on the subject at
hand

> In article <Xns977027908875ReplyID.DeleteThis@216.196.97.131>, All
> Things Mopar <nunofyour.DeleteThis@beez.wax> writes
>>
>>It's also true that 48-bit can help pull out more at each
>>end of the histogram, but I still can't fathom how you know
>>you've got it the way you want to if you can't see it
>>on-screen.
>
> You can't fathom it out because your original postulate is
> wrong. 48-bit doesn't let you pull out more at the ends of
> the histogram, it just lets you stretch the histogram
> further before the gaps between levels appear.

You're doing it again, Kennedy. I already said I don't
understand 48-bit color, and I got my statement from people on
CNews using PSP 7/8/9/X /AND/ PS CS2, so how would I possibly
know what you just said is more "right" than my postulate? One
of the pros using both film andd digital on CNews has about
half-dozen commercial graphics editors, does all his digital
in RAW, and uses whichever app is best suited to his task du
jour. Sometimes he uses the features of different editors on
the same image. And, /he/ can't explain to newbies to 48-bit
like me how to begin to think in those terms, when they're so
used to doing their work visually.

So, without issuing a Papal Encylical, in 50 words or less,
who /do/ you know visually if a 48-bit image is going to do
what you want or not?

I simply don't understand why you want to take me on for every
little real or perceived error. People who are very, very good
at what they do, including me in certain parts of the car biz,
can have a tendency to treat people who aren't yet at their
level as not quite worthy of respect.

I know you respect me. If you didn't, you wouldn't have tried
to help me in the first place, nor would you have continued to
help me. I've got all of you excellent replies in my Xnews
Sent folder, along with David Byer-Bennet's, rafe's, and all
the others. I even save those I don't currently agree with
because I may turn around sometime later when I'm smarter. I
have learned so much in the last week it is hard to thank
people enough.

So, please, please, please give me at least some credit for
being not totally stupid, not entirely ignorant of everything,
not entirely inexperienced at everything, and having good
judgment at least some of the time.

Thank you.

--
ATM, aka Jerry
 >> Stay informed about: 35mm slides scanner clarification questions 

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 22:20:45 -0500, rafe b <rafebATspeakeasy.net>
wrote:


>I've seen many cases (some well outside photography
>or electronics) where "technically superior" products
>fall by the wayside because they simply aren't marketed
>or supported well.
>

Or everyone's favorite contra-example: Microsoft Windows

>A strong user base can make all the difference
>between a good experience and a bad experience
>with a product.

Father Kodak
 >> Stay informed about: 35mm slides scanner clarification questions 

In article <Xns97709E9AF4643ReplyID.RemoveThis@216.196.97.131>, All Things Mopar
<nunofyour.RemoveThis@beez.wax> writes
>Today rafe b commented courteously on the subject at hand
>
>> A 300 Mbyte TIFF opens in about 9 seconds in Photoshop.
>
>That's fantastic performance to me, rafe. I just stop-watched a
>92NB BMP into PSP 9 and it took about 14 sec.

Jerry, you are comparing apples to oranges. PSP and PS handle the files
completely differently.

IIRC, PS only renders a small image from the file in cache, just big
enough to match the displayed size, whilst PSP loads and renders the
whole image file. Because of this, PSP has always been slower than PS
and it can't handle as many open files before falling back to disk
accesses.

Even on my ATA-100 bussed FAT32 7200rpm drives I can load a 300MB tiff
into PS in about 15seconds. PSP takes a similar time to load an 85MB
tiff.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)
 >> Stay informed about: 35mm slides scanner clarification questions 

On Mon, 20 Feb 2006 19:34:38 -0600, All Things Mopar
<nunofyour DeleteThis @beez.wax> wrote:

>You're doing it again, Kennedy. I already said I don't
>understand 48-bit color, and I got my statement from people on
>CNews using PSP 7/8/9/X /AND/ PS CS2, so how would I possibly
>know what you just said is more "right" than my postulate? One
>of the pros using both film andd digital on CNews has about
>half-dozen commercial graphics editors, does all his digital
>in RAW, and uses whichever app is best suited to his task du
>jour. Sometimes he uses the features of different editors on
>the same image. And, /he/ can't explain to newbies to 48-bit
>like me how to begin to think in those terms, when they're so
>used to doing their work visually.

Its called massive ego.
That is why I hate his sig.
Gawd, if he were only a tiny percent as big as Socrates!

Lately as I see the wonderful Usenet go down the drain I realize it is
because of the very thing you are complaining about.

So that is why I hunt down and try to smother such condescending
postings.
 >> Stay informed about: 35mm slides scanner clarification questions 

In article <Xns9770CFC90917AReplyID.DeleteThis@216.196.97.131>, All Things Mopar
<nunofyour.DeleteThis@beez.wax> writes
>Today Kennedy McEwen commented courteously on the subject at
>hand
>
>>>> A 300 Mbyte TIFF opens in about 9 seconds in Photoshop.
>>>
>>>That's fantastic performance to me, rafe. I just
>>>stop-watched a 92NB BMP into PSP 9 and it took about 14
>>>sec.
>>
>> Jerry, you are comparing apples to oranges. PSP and PS
>> handle the files completely differently.
>
> why, in the name of overcoming my ignorance,
>do you feel compelled to pick apart everything I assert?

I don't, but you are making some fairly bad assumptions.

Based on a comparison between PSP and PS it fairly obvious that the
"fantastic performance" that you rate Rafe to have achieved is only
marginally better than what you are already achieving yourself. As you
have already stated in another post (which I did not respond to, having
already pointed out the mismatched comparison you are making here) you
have even suggested making some fairly serious changes to your system
simply to recover a perceived advantage that does not exist. Drawing
your attention to the invalidity of your comparison was intended to
prevent you wasting your time - but feel free if to continue if chasing
shadows is your game.
>
>> Even on my ATA-100 bussed FAT32 7200rpm drives I can load a
>> 300MB tiff into PS in about 15seconds. PSP takes a similar
>> time to load an 85MB tiff.
>
>Back to my point, if you make your living with this stuff,
>then you can not only afford the best, you can't afford /not/
>to have the best. The rest of us have to make do with what we
>can afford. Which is why I'm clearly not interested in a $10-
>2000 lab-quality slide scanner.
>
Well, I certainly don't make my living with this stuff. Digital imaging
didn't exist outside of research labs, and precious few of those, when I
last made my main income from photography. These days it is purely for
fun and enjoyment, a hobby, and one definition of a hobby is something
which the economics don't balance if you exclude the value placed on
personal enjoyment of the activity.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)
 >> Stay informed about: 35mm slides scanner clarification questions 

In article <Xns9770D15FA4313ReplyID DeleteThis @216.196.97.131>, All Things Mopar
<nunofyour DeleteThis @beez.wax> writes
>Today Kennedy McEwen commented courteously on the subject at
>hand
>
>> In article <Xns977027908875ReplyID DeleteThis @216.196.97.131>, All
>> Things Mopar <nunofyour DeleteThis @beez.wax> writes
>>>
>>>It's also true that 48-bit can help pull out more at each
>>>end of the histogram, but I still can't fathom how you know
>>>you've got it the way you want to if you can't see it
>>>on-screen.
>>
>> You can't fathom it out because your original postulate is
>> wrong. 48-bit doesn't let you pull out more at the ends of
>> the histogram, it just lets you stretch the histogram
>> further before the gaps between levels appear.
>
>You're doing it again, Kennedy. I already said I don't
>understand 48-bit color, and I got my statement from people on
>CNews using PSP 7/8/9/X /AND/ PS CS2, so how would I possibly
>know what you just said is more "right" than my postulate?

Again, it is simple enough. In 8-bits per channel (8bpc) black is
represented by 0 and white is represented by 255 (ie. 2^8-1). In 16bpc
black is still zero and white is represented by 65535 (ie. 2^16-1). The
black is the same blackness in both cases and the white is just as
white. So there is nothing extra at either end of the histogram in
8-bits for 16-bits *to* pull out. 16bpc, however, has 255 levels
between 0 and 1 on the 8bpc scale and another 255 levels between 1 and 2
and so on. So, if you want proof that what I say is true just examine
how black and white extremes are represented in the two file systems.
There is nothing extra at the histogram extremes, the extra is in
between the histogram samples.

There are plenty of 12/14/15/16 bit images available on the web for you
to download and see there is no more info at either end of the
histogram, but lots in between the levels of the 8-bit you display.

>
>So, without issuing a Papal Encylical, in 50 words or less,
>who /do/ you know visually if a 48-bit image is going to do
>what you want or not?
>
You don't - just as you don't know that 24-bit imaging is good enough
for the job until you encounter a situation where it isn't.

Its surprisingly like the old carpenters tale - how do you know when to
use a nail and when to use a screw? If you use a nail and the wood
splits then you know you should have used a screw.

Seriously, the only reason for using higher bit depth than 24-bit colour
is to prevent those splits between histogram levels occurring when you
modify the image. As I am sure you know from your work with PSP, those
splits in the histogram eventually appear as posterisation of the image.
More bits in the original image simply increases the threshold before
posterisation appears, but you don't need more bits on the output
because even 24-bit colour exceeds the range of colours you can see.

>I simply don't understand why you want to take me on for every
>little real or perceived error.

As I said, I don't - just the ones that I think are relevant to your
original inquiry. When you start using the scanner that you asked
advice about buying you will have to know the difference between these
sort of things - otherwise you will start asking questions that are much
more complex and based on these strange misconceptions that have been
reinforced in your mind because nobody has corrected you.

As I am sure you appreciate, giving you sensible answers at that stage
will be much more difficult and time consuming for all involved, due to
the amount of unpicking of reinforced misconceptions that will need to
be done.
>
>So, please, please, please give me at least some credit for
>being not totally stupid, not entirely ignorant of everything,
>not entirely inexperienced at everything, and having good
>judgment at least some of the time.
>
If I thought you were entirely ignorant of everything, or without the
capability to understand then I wouldn't be responding to your posts at
all. You have asked some questions in a thread I was interested in
reading and I offered advice both on the original question and in some
of the issues that flowed from the subsequent issues raised. You don't
have to take that advice if you don't want to, but it seems rather
churlish to complain about it being provided.
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's pissed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)
 >> Stay informed about: 35mm slides scanner clarification questions