Digital BW, The Print

I have just stalled my order on the Minolta scanner and am considering the
Polariod 120 which comes bundeled with the silverfast software.

It is a hard decision to make! Anyone out there using the Polaroid that has
any user feed back.

Adam
  -----Original Message-----
  From: James Lerager [mailto:JLerager@...]
  Sent: 14 November 2001 21:13
  To: DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com
  Subject: [Digital BW] Minolta Multi Pro Preliminary Report


  (Cross-Posted w/ Piezo 3000 group)

  I recently purchased a Minolta Multi Pro, and have been running
  tests with it. The scan times seem excessively long, even though
  I've assigned a full gig of ram to Minolta's scan software and am
  using Firewire (on a G4 OS 9.1): 5 minutes for a 35mm B&W neg
  at 4800, 10 minutes for a 35mm color neg at 4800, 20 minutes
  for a color neg at 4800 with ICE3. These are without
  multi-sampling, which dramatically increases scan times using
  Minolta's scan software. (Digital Resources's review of the Multi
  Pro seems to indicate the Multi-Pro actually scans about 10%
  faster using a SCSI connection on a G3 compared with Firewire
  on a G4 - figure that if you can!).

  I've used a Minolta Scan Elite for the past 15 months with
  excellent results - but only by using Vuescan software. My
  positive experience with the Scan Elite - coupled with Vuescan -
  is why I purchased the Multi-Pro. The Minolta software on the
  Elite was slow, and gave mediocre scans, but Vuescan made
  the unit shine - much better than a Nikon 2000 or Polaroid 4000
  for B&W and for color neg (I tested both of them with their
  respective manufacturer's software, although not with Vuescan).
  Vuescan cut the scanning times approximately in half, with much
  better quality and wider dynamic range, when compared to the
  Minolta software. Even Ed's incorporated defect-removal
  software seems to work better than the much vaunted ICE - and
  without increasing scan times by very much - in my opinion.

  Ed Hamrick has said that he plans to create a version of
  Vuescan for the Multi-Pro, so I have my fingers crossed that he is
  successful, and releases it soon, and that it scans rapidly and
  efficiently, as Vuescan does on the Scan Elite. (Ed has also said
  he plans to incorporate a histogram in Vuescan in the future -
  which could really make it a dynamite program to use).

  Minolta has created a beautiful and intuitive user interface for
  their software, but the underlying scanning program is awful
  (again in my opinion), and doesn't allow the user access to the
  full quality - and potential speed - of the hardware (at least that
  has been my experience using the Scan Elite).

  Too bad for Minolta; they are definitely going to lose professional
  enthusiasm and sales for what may be a beautiful piece of
  hardware, which includes excellent film holders (they have even
  included glass inserts for the 6x6 to 6x9 film holder along with
  the scanner) - that is, unless they radically revise and improve
  the quality and speed of their scanning software, and soon.

  I plan to forward these exchanges to Minolta, and to Ed Hamrick.

  My 2 cents,
  James Lerager


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