[photo-3d] Re: Fw: Scanner

[rvh13@xxxxxxxxxxx]

I just got an Epson Perfection 1240U Photo scanner (cost 
around $300).  It is the same as the 1240U but comes with the 
transparency adapter for scanning slides and negatives, and so 
far I am disappointed in the results.  It does a good job scanning 
photos, and the slides I have scanned look pretty good, but my 
negative scans look terrible - they have a very heavy blue tint.  It 
seems like the color calibration is screwed up somehow for 
negatives.  I assume that either I am doing something wrong, or 
there is a hardware problem with this scanner, because it is 
unusable for scanning negatives.  If anybody has any experience 
with this, or insight into my problem, please let me know!  I am 
awaiting a response from Epson Tech Support on this.

This is the third scanner I have tried.  At first I tried a Primefilm 
1800u (cost around $180), which is a dedicated film scanner.  I 
liked the compact size, and it did pretty well with my slides, but I 
had that same problem with heavy blue tint on my negatives.  
Next I tried a CanoScan 1220 (cost around $150 with built-in 
slide adapter), which did a nice job on both my slides and 
negatives, but took more than five minutes per scan (600 dpi at 
375% - appropriate for scanning a Realist format slide for the 
purpose of creating a 3" x 3" image)!

I thought that the software for the Primefilm was really awful  - I 
am using a Macintosh G4, and I am sure that the software is a 
bad port from the Windows version which is marginally better.  
The Canon sofware was way better, but as I mentioned before, 
rather slow, and the slide adapter was only wide enough to scan 
one slide chip or negative at a time.  The Epson software is by 
far the best of what I've tried so far.  And the transparency holder 
is big enough to scan three stereo slides or six Realist sized 
negatives at one time, which is a tremendous advantage.  Now if 
I can just get it to work!