Scanning kodachromes

[kevinma]

I have hundreds of kodachromes that I would like to scan and I am thinking of purchasing a scanner for this. Have tried scanning on a Nikon Coolscan with poor results - scanned images very blue. Anyone have any suggestions on scanners and technique?
Kevin.

[robertwgross]

I have never used any Nikon scanner, but my Canon scanner has built-in profiles for different film types. That helps get it right for Ektachrome, Kodachrome, Velvia, or whatever. Are you using the correct profile for your film?

---Bob Gross---

[kevinma]

Thanks Bob. Are you using the FS4000? If so, do you recommend it and have you scanned kodachromes? That scanner doesn't have a firewire connection I don't believe, which has put me off it. I have heard that Nikon scanners typically have a "hard time" with kodachromes whatever that means.
Kevin.

[J Rabin]

I have the Nikon 5000 scanner and have so far done about 600 Kodachrome 64s with excellent results. I bought this after getting good results with a Nikon 4000 at work.
The Nikon software has a special Kodachrome positive setting, because Kodachrome's old black emulsion was always unique in the industry.
Quality depends on how good the original was. I just did a batch from 1969 that were still fine. Needed some analog gain, as noted below. Other than ICE4, 16-bit, multipass scanning, I do not use other Nikon software features, doing all color/contrast/sharpening/noise corrections in PSCS. I do use analog gain with old Kodachromes to reveal shadow detail lost in the old black emulsion with great success.
The only time I get blue color is if the Kodachromes were originally mistakenly shot under tungsten lighting.
All other slides just use the regular positive setting on the Nikon. All my old Ecktachromes have faded to blue/yellow. Mostly crap. Sensia and Provia scan good for me, but Velvia is TOUGH. Maybe because the emulsion saturation is so dense, but they are far more challenging than K-64.
The newer Nikon 5000 uses USB2 which runs as fast or faster than FireWire. A good 16-bit, ICE4, multipass sample slide takes about 5-7 minutes. After a while I bought the Nikon auto slide feeder, so when no individual adjustments are necessary, and it doesn't jam, I put in a roll of slides, walk away, come back in a few hours. It's done. When it hasn't jammed on old paper corners!

I suppose the Minolta scanners are equally good. I imagine all manufacturers make decent stuff these days.
Enjoy
Jack

[robertwgross]

Canon FS4000US has USB and SCSI connections. I'm not aware of any Firewire version. USB and SCSI connections work fine, so I don't need much more.

I scan mostly Velvia and some Ektachrome (when I am not shooting digitally, of course). It's hard to beat a well-exposed Velvia slide.

This thing was pretty good when I got it slightly more than two years ago. Since then, I believe that other products have entered the market.

---Bob Gross---

[scottbergerphoto]

As previously mentioned Kodachrome slides require a special setting. I use a Coolscan IV which was replaced by the V (4000dpi). The Nikon Scan software has a special setting for Kodachrome.

Two helpful web sites:
www.hamrick.com (http://www.hamrick.com)
www.scantips.com (http://www.scantips.com)

Happy Holidays,
Scott:)

[J Rabin]

Another very good scanning web-site. More photographer than geeky equipment oriented:
http://www.sphoto.com/index.php

J

[GPR1]

I have a Minolta Scan Elite 5400 and get excellent results, though I am mostly scanning Velvia.

Greg

[flash]

I just received a Nikon Coolscan V ED as a present. I've so far only scanned a few dozen old Kodachrome slides so far (mostly experimenting) and so must reserve judgement about most of the features (and I have no other slide scanning experience so I really can't compare). But what I can offer is that the software has a Kodachrome setting, and the colors seem OK if a bit faded. I should compare the slides with the scanned images... I have noticed that using the included image correction software really slows down the process. Without the software it takes 28 seconds to scan a slide. Using the features can add many minutes to the process. According to the documentation that came with the thing, exposure is done with LEDs! And there are 4 colors used, the forth being IR! I wasn't expecting that. I wonder what that's for. The autofocus feature seems to work fine, and there is a feature described that allows manual focus adjustment. If you have any specific questions I can try to answer them...

[robertwgross]

I don't know about that particular scanner, and I don't know what resolution you are scanning. However, LEDs are often used as the light source because their light does not fluctuate as much as an incandescent bulb. The IR LED might be used to scan the film surface for dust or scratches. If it sees dust or scratches, it can "fix" up the image a little.

I find that sort of feature is good if you have dusty or scratched film, but you'll be better served by wiping clean your film to begin with. That feature will probably eat up time. In some cases, you might find it to be destructive of the final image. In other words, the "fix" is worse than the dust spot.

---Bob Gross---

[kevinma]

UPDATE
I rented a Coolscan 4000ED from a local camera store and have just scanned about 400 slides, about two thirds kodachromes. I used the Nikon scanning software and the "kodachrome" setting for the kodachromes and am pleased to say that the scanner worked very well. Without using the kodachrome setting, the scans were very blue but using this setting, the color balance was good, although not as good as with the fujichromes. Also, contrary to what I've read, the digital ICE had no deleterious effect on the scans, and it worked flawlessly. So all in all, I am very happy with the results.
Kevin.

[flash]

UPDATE
I rented a Coolscan 4000ED from a local camera store and have just scanned about 400 slides.
----- <snip> -----
Also, contrary to what I've read, the digital ICE had no deleterious effect on the scans, and it worked flawlessly. Kevin.I'm just curious... How long did scanning those 400 slides take? Was ICE on for all of them? How fast is your PC processor, and how much RAM...? What have you read about deleterious effects due to ICE?

[kevinma]

I'm just curious... How long did scanning those 400 slides take? Was ICE on for all of them? How fast is your PC processor, and how much RAM...? What have you read about deleterious effects due to ICE?

Except for a few, I didn't scan them at max resolution; each file ended up as 10MB, and each scan took about 3 minutes. ICE was used for every one. I read that the way ICE works, it can't deal with kodachrome because of the film structure. I tried with and without ICE and the only difference was that without ICE, the scans were quicker and the images were covered in specks. I used the batch feeder into which I loaded as many as 50 slides. Out of the 400 or so slides, the feeder got stuck only twice and there were about 10 double scans ie where the feeder took two slides in at the same time. These were easily identified and rescanned. I consider the feeder as having worked very well and I simply can't imagine scanning all these slides without a feeder. I believe that this essentially rules out some of the other Coolscans (not sure about the V) as well as the Minolta 5400 and Canon 4000. I scanned them onto my Apple Powerbook which is 2 or 3 years old now - 800MHz G4 processor and 1GB RAM. Hope this helps.
Kevin.

[kevinma]

Something else... after all my initial worries about Kodachrome, it turns out that the worst results were with Agfachrome slides. The scanned images are very grainy. Fortunately there were only about 20 of these, but in that group, were 2 of my all time favorites....
Kevin.

[J Rabin]

Kevin:
I agree with all your experiences. I've done about 600 slides so far with my Nikon Coolscan 5000 and slide feeder. For slides scanned as 4000 lpi tif files, with ICE on normal (I agree - comparison showed no point NOT using it), resulting in 48 MB scans, they take about 5-7 minutes total each.
I can't imagine the task without the feeder. That feature alone can sway the purchase decision. Many my old slides have bent corners and jam feeder. When it works, it's super. Set a roll. Walk away. Come back in three hours. Sometimes, the software just "hangs" in the middle of a scan, especially when the K-64 was dark. It does not freeze computer, just need to re-et the scan. As you note, when feeder doubles, just rescan.
With OLD K-64 slides, pre-1970, I frequently boost Analog Gain, its like moving the midpoint slider in PSCS levels, only earlier, thus better, watching the result to get a balanced histogram before final scan. Everything else is done is PS, particularly using Photokit Sharpener 35mm Capture Sharpen setting.
I've used a 400 Mhz Mac G4 with 1 GB RAM, and a Mac G5 1.8 Ghz dual processor with 2GB RAM. Not much difference in scan time. Lots difference "writing to screen" time. The dramatic differences show when using PSCS.
Old AgfaChromes faded, and turned magenta. Once I got the color cast salvaged, as best as possible, I boosted saturation in PSCS to get somehting decent back. None compare with old K-64. Provia scans beautifully.
J

[flash]

I recently tried scanning a few old, extremely underexposed Kodachrome slides.. Spent a few hours trying various settings on my Nikon Coolscan V ED to try to see what I could resurrect... (Software = NikonScan 4.02) Turns out that ICE is a bad feature to leave on for this job. I understand that it is not recommended for Kodachrome, but as others have pointed out it seems to work OK on normal exposures. But on underexposed slides, the graininess it causes is extreme. I boosted the Analog gain to +2EV and that helped, but not until I turned off ICE.

I also ran into a problem with a few slides where the preview looked ok, but when I scanned the slide, the scanned image was completely black! I can't say how I resolved this, since it seemed unaffected by anything I did, including re-booting, and power cycling everything! But I gave up, and when I tried the same slide with the same settings a few days later the can looked fine. Has anyone experienced anything similar?