Professional Photographers Using Linux? 724
thesun asks: "I'm a freelance writer and photographer and I'm wondering what Pro Photographers have done in regards to color matching and scanning under Linux, especially when going from slides to digital. I just can't get anything close to a good image when I scan a slide. They're blurry and the colors are so off that doing anything with my thousands of slides is proving to be prohibitively time-consuming. Are other Pros (or talented amateurs) having similar problems? Are there solutions out there I haven't found? (Sorry, I can't dump thousands into a piece of hardware---I'm looking for a way to make the most of my Epson Perfection 2400 with transparency adapter)."
Sorry, Your screwed. (Score:5, Informative)
Have you tried VueScan? (Score:5, Informative)
They do sell a Linux client in addition to OSX and Windows, and the program has been around a long time.
This may help (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.linuxprinting.org/ [linuxprinting.org]
Google is the answer, my brother (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Sorry, Your screwed. (Score:5, Informative)
Flatbed scanners suck for slides (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Hole in Open Source (Score:3, Informative)
Ok, maybe I should've done a bit more reading before posting the parent...scribus is apparently open source. I found a few other links too...
Hope there's something useful in all of that...
Reinvent the wheel (Score:2, Informative)
Slide scanner alternative (Score:3, Informative)
Project your slides onto good screen with an overhead projector and take pictures with a digital camera. You'll want to disable the flash for this. Are the results as good as a dedicated slide scanner? No. Will it look better than what comes out of your scanner attachment? Absolutely.
slide adaptor is your problem (Score:5, Informative)
Like many folks here have said, you'll have a much better time using a real slide scanner. There's a good number of such devices supported by SANE - see http://www.sane-project.org/sane-supported-device
Failing that, rent or borrow a good slide scanner, or have a service bureau scan your slides on their equipment.
Re:Slides? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Google is the answer, my brother (Score:4, Informative)
Nope, not really.... (Score:5, Informative)
1) Linux based RAW to TIFF converter
2) Linux monitor calibration
3) ICC support for printing
I was able to find a free tool to do the RAW conversion, but I was disappointed with the output. Color's were washed out because it didn't understand colorspaces and there were no controls for adjusting exposure (one of the big selling points of using RAW).
I was unable to find any Spyder (hardware to calibrate your monitor) which worked with Linux. If you have *really* good eyes, you might be able to do it via software, but I found the results were completely inconsistant for generating prints.
There was some limited ICC printer support in Gimp, but Gimp is no Photoshop. Don't get me wrong, Gimp is a great tool and is of commerical quality, but PS is *much* more advanced and has a much larger user community around it providing free and commerical plugins as well as help on retouching photos.
Basically, if you're only interested in posting on the web in sRGB @ 72dpi, then Linux is probably good enough for your needs. People who are viewing the images won't have their monitors properly calibrated anyways, so it won't really matter. But once you want photo quality output, your best platform is still a Mac (I ended up getting a G5 1.8 and Cinema HD LCD) with Windows a close second.
Canon FS4000 & Vuescan (Score:1, Informative)
Any hints about that?
Re:Flatbed scanners suck for slides (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Flatbed scanners suck for slides (Score:2, Informative)
Get a Nikon slide scanner, they rock.
But again, Linux drivers don't hold a candle to drivers written by Nikon for Windows or Macs.
For example there's no way in Linux to utilize the Nikon fingerprint/dust removal feature. That right there has kept me from doing any serious scanning in Linux.
Never mind color matching. That's not much better in Windows or the Mac.
Anyone who's honest will tell you that. At a studio recently I saw a very nice custom profiling system. I asked the Art Director if it really worked, and she said "sometimes".
less than $400 from Costco (Score:5, Informative)
I'm sorry... (Score:5, Informative)
There's nothing Linux (or any other OS, for that matter) can do to allow you to get a good-quality image out of a half-assed trans adapter on a flatbed scanner.
I have seen ok images come out of a trans adapter... but those were large-format negatives, and they were still only really good for comps.
Repeat after me:
There's no replacement for a slide scanner.
There's no replacement for a slide scanner.
There's no replacement for a slide scanner.
I bought a dimage slide scanner, and I haven't looked back. If you're serious, $250 is not expensive. [bizrate.com]
I'm sure there are people who consider GIMP to be completely usable, better than photoshop, etc etc. I can't really speak to that. I use photoshop about 5 hours a day, and on those occasions where I have tried GIMP, I was not favorably impressed. It struck me as being a program designed by people who have never actually had to use that sort of software. I'm not denigrating the project, but I won't sacrifice speed, flexibility, quality and my own sanity in order to make some point about open source.
m-
Linux is not your problem... (Score:4, Informative)
I have an Epson 2450 Photo and I've found that scanning any type of film, positive or negative, is abysmal at best. The problem lies in the focal plane of the scanner. Becuase the scanner does not refocus properly on the image it cannot get a crisp scan. What I did to *improve* my film scanning was to build a little test rig out of thin cardboard like the kind off of the back a notepad. Basically, I stacked overlaping layers ranging from directly on the glass to 3-4 millimeters above the glass so I could figure out where the focal plane was on the scanner. If I remember correctly, the film adapters hold the film about 2mm off the glass, but I discovered I got crisper scans at 3mm. Consequently, I had to build little 1mm shims to hold my film adapter up a little higher.
Aside from that, the *unsharp mask* is your best friend. Any digitally acquired image should have an unsharp mask applied to it to help reduce the digital artifacts. In fact film is often treated the same way to reduce the appearance of the film grain. Don't set it and forget it, different photographs will need different values in the unsharp mask. Experiment and you'll get the hang of it.
I have to point out, if you want to be a professional then you need to invest in a true film scanner. That's the only way you're really going to get crisp scans. You don't need to drop $10,000 on an oil mount drum scanner. Read Epinions or some other review site. Check ebay for some used models. Get the highest DPI you can afford (or the lowest you can tolerate). Also, make sure you buy something with a fast interface. USB v1 sucks, SCSI is ok, USB v2 is better, Firewire (IEEE 1394) is the best.
Hope that helped! If you need more deatils on how to build the cardboard test appaeratus let me know and I will post in more detail.
Slide/Film Scanners (Score:2, Informative)
I downloaded the GIMP [gimp.org] for free.
Grokking the GIMP [gimp-savvy.com] is available online.
HTH
Re:P.S. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sorry, Your screwed. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The Linux version is free, actually (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sorry, Your screwed. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:linux not there yet (Score:5, Informative)
I agree that GIMP isn't the tool for a professional photographer (and I'd argue that a Beseler and a Swiss 4x5 are the main tools, still), but my understanding is that GIMP has been 24-bit in RGB and 32-bit in RGBA for quite some time, and that the coming version will be 48-bit Float in RGB, and 128-bit Float in RGBA.
What he means is that the GIMP is 8-bits per component == RGB8 == 3 Components * 8-bits == 24-bits per pixel. Or RGBA8 == 4 Components * 8-bits == 32-bits per pixel. One of the bigger gripes among professional users is that the GIMP doesn't support 16-bits per component (RGB16) which is more common when converting RAW images to TIFF. Since professional photographers are probably shooting exclusively in the RAW formats for anything that they would sell then the GIMP is a tool that they cannot use.
As to the "48-bit Float" comment I assume you mean 96-bit Float for RGB (3 components * 32-bits = 96-bit) since the "float" type is 32-bits.
--
Sounds like a scam, but it works. [wired.com]
Free Flat Screens [freeflatscreens.com] | Free iPod Photo [freephotoipods.com]
Re:Sorry, Your screwed. (Score:5, Informative)
"Using a flatbed scanner with Slide Adapter just doesnt produce great results."
Indeed. I've used both flatbed and slide scanners, and the differences are pretty clear. Here's a photo [goofalicious.com] taken with a Nikon F80 using a 70-300 zoom lens that I scanned with a fairly expensive HP flatbed scanner and slide attachment.
And here's one [moodindigo.ca] that I took using the same camera and lens, but scanned using a CanoScan FS 2710, a slide scanner that I got on sale for less than USD 400.
Note also that the FS 2710 scans at very high optical resolution, meaning that I can print a 20" x 14" print at 300 dpi without enlarging the image. All these 150+ MB files do make storage an issue, but I'm happy to live with that in exchange for significantly better quality.
Re:linux not there yet (Score:3, Informative)
-bill!
Re:Sorry, Your screwed. (Score:3, Informative)
For a professional photographer, 4x6 is barely galley. I'm a decent amateur, and I've had people asking me for 24x36 blowups of some of my images (It was really more of a question of "How big a print can you give me?").
8x10 inches is the smallest end result that a pro photographer is going to be expecting to produce. Some pros end up producing 8x10metre results (think billboards), but I figure that if it gets to 2x3feet without noticable grain, you'll probably be getting into the comfort zone of most pro photogs.
I just set up such scanner at my dad's linux box (Score:2, Informative)
-SuSE 9.0 (distro does not matter)
-Gimp 1.2
- a matching sane along with xscanimage (though now used)
-iscan package installed and linked as a gimp plugin, from epkowa: http://www.epkowa.co.jp/english/linux_e/index.htm
-littlecms library from:
http://www.littlecms.com/ [littlecms.com]
-gimp color management plugins from:
http://www.freecolormanagement.com/color/gimp.htm
(do not give a damn for the "alpha" status)
- grab some scanner drivers for Windows from the Epson site. The EXE Files are self extracting Zipe-Archives, so you can simple do an unzip
- look for the *.ic_ files
- install msexpand (package mscompress) from your distro (or from here: ftp://ftp.penguin.cz/pub/users/mhi/mscompress [penguin.cz]
- then do an expand
- alternative
+ if no *.ic_ files found, look for *.cab files
+ install cabextract from your distro (look here http://freshmeat.net/projects/cabextract/ [freshmeat.net]
+ look for *.icm file
- the file program should tell you that the icm-file is a:
# file Per317_r.icm
Per317_r.icm: Kodak Color Management System, ICC Profile
First I installed a icm for the scanner for prints mode and a seperate icm file for slides/negatives mode. Per317_r.icm for prints (r=reflective) and
Mine were Per317_t.icm (t=transparent) -- that made the most sense.
If you have access to a Windows Box or do run wine you can grab the following windows program (ran under wine pretty flawlessly):
iccinspect.exe from: http://www.littlecms.com/iphoto/inspect.htm [littlecms.com] (Open Source !)
This program enables you to closely examine the contents of the icm files. It prints shows all the stuff like vendor and color-space infos and whatnot
Second I scanned a picture with the scanner and applied the input icm to the scan with using the gimp (There is a command line tool for non-gimp users).
Then I adjusted my monitors settings, resulting in my setting the color temperature to 9300K since that resembled the picture the best.
I tossed in the Windows own icm file "sRGB Color Space Profile.icm" that I found under C:\Windows\system\color (Windows 98) as sRGB.icm and monitor.icm into
If you do have a disk with the correct icm file on it, use that file instead. Only use sRGB.icm if you want to exchange files with others.
Third I send a icm file for my dads printer (an epson
I keep on ignoring slight color glitches while working on the pictures since I beleive the correct colors will come out of the printer anyway
---------
There is plenty of more reference out there:
http://www.efg2.com/Lab/Library/Color/index.html [efg2.com]
---------
But feel free to ask if nessecary.
Re:P.S. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.h
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/S/STF
A nicer alternative is GIFY.
http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/G/GIYF.htm
Re:linux not there yet (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not sure what you mean by 8 bit here. 8x3 (RGB) maybe and an alpha channel. But gimp is far beyond 64 colors.
Re:Pro photographer? Using Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
Are you nuts?!? Pro photographers can't use Linux? What can't they do? I guess I haven't really been a professional all this time.
We average 3500 photos a month with the max of 16000 and ALL of it has been on Linux (SuSE in particular) for nearly 3 years.
What exactly do I need to run on windose or a mac? iPhoto is a nifty tool, but not needed, Photoshop...The GIMP works just fine.
Now, I no longer futz with chromes and haven't scanned anything in quite some time, so maybe you got me there. I also don't do any MF work. Been shooting with the Canon 1D for over 2 1/2 years.
Now I do admit that NeatImage and NoiseNinja are great products and I do use them when I have to shoot in ungawdly dark venues that I can't strobe. Work fine under wine, you're right on that point. It would be great if those products could run natively, but until then, the once every 2 months that I need it... wine it is.
The workflow that I use, gets me through a rough edit of 100 images in 4-5 minutes(cull, rotate, rename, watermark, IPTC keywords, resizing for web display, and copyrighting). http://actionathletics.com/actionimage/ [actionathletics.com] ActionImage moves through images fast!
Prepping images for printing or submition... looking at a recent folder, 1-2 minutes per image, I'd say that's not bad.
So, what exactly is it that makes you say "professional photographers CAN'T use Linux"? What else do I need?
Re:Sorry, Your screwed. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sorry, Your screwed. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sure you can. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't use linux (Score:1, Informative)
It worked for me (Score:1, Informative)
PrimeFilm 3650u $199 @ Costco (Score:1, Informative)
I have a pretty solid workflow going on Linux for my Wedding Photography business, which includes scanning and/or capturing from digital camera, editing with the GIMP and other tools, burning to CD's, and posting to website album. I have most of this automated with scripts. Sure, it might be easier in windows, and frankly, you could probably purchase a high-end editing box with windows with the proceeds from just one or two weddings if that's your thing.
Re:Don't use linux (Score:3, Informative)
For all the features that's being sought after I am aware of no tools to do that kind of quality work from the scans and slides. Linux doesn't have tools for high quality scans.
I like linux as much as the next geek, but it lacks software to support this market right now.
Re:less than $400 from Costco (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well... (Score:4, Informative)
My Nikon is a bit of a pain to get running sometimes, but it's worth the time. Sorry about your experiences, though.
slide conversion (Score:3, Informative)
A transparency adapter on an Epson 2400 or most other consumer scanners will not give you acceptable quality, not under Linux and not under Windows. If you want low-cost slide scanning that is of reasonable quality, your best bet is to put a slide adapter on a digital camera. But the only way to get good slide scans it to get a slide scanner.
For color correction, LCMS is a good bet. You can calibrate it using a digital capture of an image with known colors on (the SCARSE package helps you with that). Don't expect hand holding: you actually have to know what you are doing in order to use LCMS. The good news is that it is an excellent and flexible CMS and that batch processing is easy. (You can get a plugin for LCMS for the Gimp, but that is probably not the best way of using it.)
Getting good scans of slides is a lot of work, on any platform. Every slide will take some manual work to post-process. That's why commercial slide scanning costs so much money. One big area is dust and scratch removal, which is why scanners with automatic dust/scratch removal are so popular.
Note that the big strength of Linux is the large number of powerful and high-quality image processing software available for it (in particular, scientific image processing), and the way you can easily combine that software through scripting. A good place to start is to look for image-related packages on your Linux distribution (Debian has pretty good coverage).
Re:Pro Photographers (Score:3, Informative)
Sounds like a personal problem to me. Seriously, If I found it irrating to use Linux I would use something else - but the fact is, it gives me the least grief of any of the OSes I've seen. Sorry to rain on your parade, but I have no intention to switch to mac. Just out of curiosity, do all mac users have to bash other OSes to make themselves feel good abut their choices?
I switched from Linux to OS X because I eventually realized that desktop Linux distributions generally create far more problems than they ever solve. The reason Mac users always suggest switching to a Mac is that for a lot of desktop problems, Macs are the answer.
Like I said, I've seen and used OSX. Sure, it's cute, and it's nice that it's unix inside, but it doesn't solve anything for me, and there is no compelling reason to switch. If there were no linux, I would quite likely be a mac user, but there is Linux, and it is what it is. You mac users are just going to have to learn to coexist.
You've got the wrong problem (Score:5, Informative)
To me it sounds like he's an amateur photographer who is just starting to experiment with digital. It's quite possible that the mediocre quality of The GIMP would suffice for him. Perhaps all he knows about colour management is "use Velvia". Further, it seems that his scanner is working with Linux.
It actually sounds like his hardware is the problem. He's got a cheap scanner with a slide adapter, and it gives him blurry results. If the results are blurry, you should try software first. Check that you are scanning at realistic resolution. If the scanner resolution is too high, drop the scanner resolution or downsample. Using that scanner with slides, that won't be a problem. If the scanner resolution is ok and the results are a bit soft, an unsharp mask should fix them. You can do that with The GIMP just as well as you can with Photoshop.
More likely he needs to invest in some decent hardware in order to make the setup work to his satisfaction. Windows or a Mac might be necessary, but solve the first problem first. If he isn't a pro, he might be able to use Linux for this.
Re:I guess you mean RAW File format. (Score:2, Informative)
Raw Digital Photo Decoding in Linux [cybercom.net]
Re:I guess you mean RAW File format. (Score:3, Informative)
Why not? There are products [bibblelabs.com] available for Linux to handle RAW files.
Poster also says he's using a slide adapter - POS (Score:5, Informative)
I used to work for Kodak. I know CM (Colour Management). I also know you've got to pony up to get to at least a basic level of hardware that is capable of doing something.
Tell me, honestly, how is an Operating System going to affect how sharp your slide scanner is? Really- THINK ABOUT IT. One has NOTHING to do wit h the other. If you can't get sharp scans off your slide scanner, ebay it, throw it out, and stop wasting your time and buy something worth it.
Trust me, you won't regret it.
I wrote imaging chains for Drum scanners (8000lpi) and custom chains for other scanners, but they all had one thing in common: They were good pieces of equipment to begin with.
Once you have a good, consistent scan, the CM is actually pretty easy- but come on back when you've got a good piece of equipment.
Re:linux not there yet (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Don't use linux (Score:2, Informative)
So you do pro graphics using GIMP?
GIMP is nowhere close to Adobe PhotoShop in terms of functionality and ease of use.
Hmmm...another comment from someone who obviously hasn't used the GIMP for any length of time any time recently.
I do not work with the GIMP (or Photoshop) professionally; I suck at that sort of thing. But I do know several people who do. Mostly they are working in electronic media...web or software development and such. But I also have a friend doing work for a lot of pro photographers who has been using the GIMP a while. She doesn't seem to miss any functionality, although she came over from Photoshop and Windows. I think the switch was for ideological reasons, though I don't really know...I'll bet she's saved a bit of money as well.
Anyway, the point is, GIMP is more than ready for real photography work and has been for a long time. Material headed for magazines and newspapers was for a while out of reach...but CMYK support is fine now, so that removes one of the last gripes.
Good News! (It's not a suppository) (Score:3, Informative)
It does look like there's not an OSS driver that's known to work with the i9900. That's too bad. However, turboprint [turboprint.de] may work for you...it's moneyware, but if you're currently using Windows you should be used to that. Anyway, that printer is supposed to be fully functional with that driver, so maybe that removes that last barrier for you.
I hope so. It would be nice to see more people in these desktop intensive industries pick up Linux. I'm not deluded at all about the nubmers; I'd imagine we're lucky to have a tenth of a percent of pro photographers......but if you've got the inclination and a bit of time, there's really not a lot holding you back any more.
I have the same equipment ... it's NOT the OS! (Score:3, Informative)
To be harshly realistic, even the highest resolution scans are lower quality than they would be if I had a $500 dedicated film or slide scanner, and everything requires some color correction, but these are headed for the web, or casual printing, not publication in any sort of consumer magazine. As placeholders and comping they would be useful.
Re:Don't use linux (Score:2, Informative)
around, and have the luxury to screw around with mediocre tools, gimp being the only exception. it is getting quite good...]
nous
Re:Don't use linux (Score:5, Informative)
Unfortunately, my job didn't allow me the time to climb that particular learning curve, and I stuck with Mac OS 9.x AppleShare (feature-poor, but fast and runs well on retired desktops) and Mac OS X Server 10.3. (It's a young business and doesn't choose to allocate IT capitol to the newest-and-bestest when we can recycle the dependable and cheap.)
None of our Apprentice or Master Printers (staff members who use Photoshop more than 80% of the day) has the time or bandwidth (or inclination) to learn a completely new set of tools for the sake of using Linux.
While the GIMP is a nice feature demo, it isn't nearly as capable as Photoshop in the areas we need it to be, like integrated color management, layer and type tools. Photoshop's feature and interface parity across platforms allow a consistent vocabulary of tools and actions for us and our customers.
I think Linux is a fine product, but the more mature systems (Mac OS X to be exact in our case) are often cabable of serving sermi-vertical markets like professional photographer and photographic printers much better.
Photography has a largely technophobic element of users; despite the photovested gear-queers and their toys, most photographers want effective, simple solutions. While Linux has made great strides in usability (no, really!), Windows and Mac OS X will continue to be the preferred operating systems for professional photographers for the forseeable future.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:linux not there yet (Score:4, Informative)
There is in fact a 16-bit float format, commonly called "half". It was developed by ILM as part of their open-source EXR image library, and is now implemented in hardware by nvidia and other graphics cards. So "48-bit float" is in fact quite possible. There is no reason to use 32 bit float for brightness information, as the brightness resolution is then about 100,000 times better than the human eye. The main reason it is used is because that is the smallest floating point format supported by Intel hardware.
However there are very very good reasons to use floating point instead of integers. They are naturally a "log" space that matches how they eye perceives brightness (ie the samples are closer together near zero) and they can cover high dynamic range (HDR) such as a light of brightness 32000 verses the 1.0 for paper, and still show details in dark shadows. They also allow the number to actually represent the brightness of the image, which makes filters such as blur and sharpen actually work.
I highly recommend that any future Gimp or Cinepaint other development ignore integer or fixed-point and use "half" for representing image brightness. It is the same size but vastly superior to 16-bit.
Re:Sorry, Your screwed. (Score:3, Informative)
It's kinda funny that you would comment on color management by posting a link to a photo that suffers greatly from the lack of an embedded color profile.
Re:You've got the wrong problem (Score:3, Informative)
But you're quite right about one thing: the best software in the world isn't going to rescue the images from some shitty $69 flatbed!
Did you set the "Focus Position" option? (Score:1, Informative)
I have noticed that I get much better high-resolution scans by scanning a photo instead of a negative or slide. I think it's more-or-less a limitation of the scanner. At high resolution, it seems to suffer from a prism effect from the optics (whether or not it is in slide mode). On the other hand, I think my epson is a bit older than yours, so this might not be as much of an issue on your model.
As for color correction, etc (mentioned by other posts), I haven't had any particularly bad problems under Linux. Granted, I'm not a professional photographer, but if I really care about color matching, my printer driver / scanner driver allow for manual calibration. So far, the defaults are "good enough" for me. At any rate, I don't think color correction will fix blurry scans.
Still, you won't hear me complain when it works out of the box under Linux.
Re:You've got the wrong problem (Score:5, Informative)
So sorry to break it to ya, but you need to get better hardware.
Photo tools in Linux (Score:4, Informative)
I've found that VueScan [hamrick.com] (not Free software, but it does work under Linux and there is an edition that costs nothing) gives good results, and the multi-scan feature is especially good. However, there are two problems with using Linux downstream from that point. Firstly, the GIMP doesn't support colour depths greater than 8 bits, while my slide scanner produces 14 bits of colour depth (or 8 if you don't want 14). It's a shame to have to throw away those extra 18 bits of information per pixel.
Having said this, Photoshop Elements has the same limitation, though I'm sure that the premium Photoshop product does not. The Nikon scan tools don't. I use Photoshop Elements but not GIMP. The reaon why is a bit hard to pin down but it comes down to usability. The layering and selection tools in Photoshop Elements are more suited to doing photo manipulation than the ones in GIMP. Also, if you have a complex selection, Photoshop Elements is noticably more responsive on Windows than GIMP is on Linux on the same hardware. GIMP isn't actually sluggish, but PhotoSchop is more responsive and hence certainly easier to use.
I use Linux for exerything else (except a few bits at work) and I wish this wasn't true, but I find that Windows is indeed a better platform for photo work. That's ignoring the whole area of printing, too. Finding a printer that produces high-quality results which works under Linux is easy; finding one that the vendors still sell is much harder. I don't have a lot of time to devote to that search, so I haven't bought a printer yet.
In fact, I wish there were businesses that would sell "Lilnux compatible" hardware. I wouldn't look for support, and I'd pay a premium. I'd just like to be able to buy stuff from someone who can say "I got it to work with Linux".
Re:You've got the wrong problem (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Slides? (Score:1, Informative)
'sharpness' of negative and reversal film is, of course, the same.
Try Bibble for digital slr and linux (Score:3, Informative)
It Just Can't Be Done (Score:2, Informative)
Re:You've got the wrong problem (Score:2, Informative)
That is probably overkill for most home photographers. Most people aren't taking macro pictures of flowers or publishing art collections. Most people want to blow up their slide of Mom to 8x10, which a flatbed like the Epson 3170 will do just fine. I actually just did a bunch of research about this, and purchased a 3170. Color correction is probably moot, since the best way for an amateur to make prints is to go to Wal-Mart and let them process the digital file through their regular photo process for like $0.29 each. I think in the process they basically toss your color correction anyway, but the results are mostly acceptable - and they are very responsive to reprinting problem photos if you are unhappy.
There are quite a few web sites out there that will help you do an "on line" calibration of your monitor, which is not the greatest way to do it, but good enough for the home photographer. You may find the monitor "too dark" at first, but that's because the average PC monitor is so gamma-happy that you are just not accustomed to it. Give it time, it will make your life easier when you print out.
GIMP is great - it provides the ability to do unsharp mask, color correction, and cropping - which is all most people need. Unfortunately the EPSON is capable of outputting 16-bit color, and GIMP only handles 8-bit. There is a package called CinePaint that I currently use to edit the 16-bit images, which is a hack of GIMP to allow for 16-bit. It's not as stable as GIMP, but it gets the job done until GIMP supports 16-bit.