Railfan Technology > Slide scanner questions

Hello.  I recently purchased a Pacific Image  Prime Film XA scanner.   I have some questions as to what the machine should be set at to get the best image from the slides.  Specifically, in advanced settings the choices are : Auto Exposure, Auto Contrast, Multipass Exposure, Multiple Sampling and Digital Noise Reduction.  These are all check boxes and the digital noise reduction, if selected has a scale from 0-200   The scanner also has an option for Magic Touch and Auto Correct   Should those be off or on?  Finally, the few scans I have done show a bit of black border around the image.  Currently, the default scanning area is set to 3.64 X 2.42   What do you guys usually set yours at?   Also, I would assume I should scan at 10000 DPI instead of 5000?

Thanks for any help offered!

Dave

I have the Prime Film 7200 also known as the Reflecta 7200 or ProScan 7200.  It is similar to your model.  I operate it with VueScan software.  VueScan is worth the small investment of about $80 for a lifetime site license with upgrades.  Most professional scanner users, regarless of the scanner's make and model, use VueScan.

Although your scanner boasts a resolution of 10,000 ppi, in actual tests it delivers 4800 ppi.  So there is no point in setting it higher than 5000 ppi.  The test results and useful info about using your scanner are on a German website at:

http://www.filmscanner.info/en/ReflectaRPS10M.html

KG


 

I tend to scan on the low side as far as resolution, what I feel is reasonably necessary and looking to see if I will need to crop..  Anything above the optical resolution and the software is adding pixels and then when you resize it down you are throwing pixels away.  I tend to be a little sceptical on optical resolution claims. Save as a TIFF to process and while editing, only use jpg in final versions. If I am scanning for a particular purpose then I scan a little above what I think the most I might need.

I do little adjustments to the scanner and instead load the TIFF into the latest version of PS RAW where for example I can handle noise and do color adjustments.

Bob