Digital BW, The Print

> > Just read a review of the Minolta DiMAGE Scan Multi PRO
>>in Pop. Photo.
> > (June issue) and they said a 6x7 scan at 48-bit color
>>(and I assume the
> > full 4800 dpi resolution) took 2 hours, 14 minutes.

>The only thing they say is the computer had 512 MB of RAM.

>My Win 2000 PC has 384 MB RAM and I don't get times
>anywhere near 2 hours on my Polaroid SprintScan 120....

>They do say that using ICE, ROC, and GEM will increase time
>"significantly."

Note that the Minolta with medium format film has an optical resolution of
3200 x 4800 dpi.  (The Nikon 8000 does 4K x 4K dpi with MF film.)

I have the Nikon 8000, and I agree that GEM slows it down very considerably,
but not to 2 hours.  I have 512 MB RAM on a Win 98, and I notice the hard
disk is being accessed continuously with these big, slow GEM scans.  I have
not been able to tell how much RAM would handle a MF scan with the special
programs running, but I'd guess 1 GB would not be overkill.  (Of course my
W98 machine is limited to 512, so I just take a break while it's doing its
scanning.)

I have found that, contrary to some reviewers' comments, GEM does work fine
with normal B&W, silver-based film.  I don't bother with ICE.

I also found the glass carrier to be necessary.

When I scan a B&W negative, I call it a monochrome positive, which gives
ample latitude to use the histogram in the preview for setting white and
black points.  (The monochrome negative setting will clip one of the ends.)

Paul
http://www.PaulRoark.com