[sane-devel] offtopic 35-mm scanner question

[Alan Corey]

I'd have to pretty much agree with breacher even though I'm not familiar with
the Epson Perfection 2400 and I'm a newbie with SANE.  I've got one flatbed
scanner with a transparency adapter built in, and it makes me wonder why they
bothered except as a marketing tactic.  It's about useless.

Negative/slide scanners are expensive, and probably always will be since
there's a fairly small market for them which is getting smaller with digital
cameras getting better.  I have a Minolta film scanner, and I'd say you really
want 4800 DPI or better for 35mm.

On the other hand, because of the development cycle involved with open source
software I've found it's often a good match with the used equipment market. 
Look over the SANE supported devices and research some of the models that are
well-supported that do what you want.  Then go to eBay and look around, maybe
even set up some searches by model number to email you when one becomes
available.  There are other used equipment sources as well of course.

My biggest disappointment in scanning negatives and slides my family left has
been mildew.  If these have ever been stored any place even slightly damp, take
a look at some of them with a magnifying glass before you invest in a scanner
for them.  There's about no way to remove it once it gets into the emulsion of
the film, and each speck of mildew makes a really big blob in a scan to try to
fix in an image editor like Gimp or Photoshop.  Mildew is opaque, so whatever
is behind it is totally masked.

You get what you pay for, but a cheap film scanner is no bargain.

  Alan

--- dn at offspringnet.net wrote:

> 
> I know this is off topic but please don't stop reading. I was hoping to get
> some
> advice
> on what scanner to purchase which is supported fully in linux that will do
> 35-mm
> negatives.
> 
> Looking at the supported list the most decent pricewise which is completely
> supported seems to be the epson perfection 2400 which has a builtin adapter
> for
> 35mm/slides. This seems to sell
> for a little under 200$ and it's 2400dpi.
> 
> This is for the wife for christmas so she can do her family's large library
> of
> negatives, but of course I don't want to have to deal with windows for this.
> Does
> anyone else use linux for 35mm with a scanner that is around 200$ tops which
> is
> fully supported? (Also hoping to stick with usb)
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> Don 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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