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Professional Photographers Using Linux?
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)."
I don't know what to tell you, other than my uncle is a professional photographer and he uses a Mac. Says it's a dream.
I took some slides for a yearbook production in town, and try as I may: Windoze, Linux, BeOS, anything, they all came out terrible. Using a flatbed scanner with Slide Adapter just doesnt produce great results. Period.
print 'Hello world!';
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Back when I was using a film scanner, I was using VueScan with good results - I think you would be fairly pleased, as it gives you a number of advanced options for scanner control. I am pretty sure that it works with flatbed scanners as well.
They do sell a Linux client in addition to OSX and Windows, and the program has been around a long time.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://www.linuxprinting.org/
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
A 10 second bout of googling and I found The Gimp color manager which lets you use ICC color profiles. You'll find the relevant profiles on your Epson driver disk.
I'm sorry if I haven't offended anyone
I've never gotten good results scanning slides using an adapter on a flat bed scanner. This could be your main problem. There are some lower priced slide scanners these days that produce good results. Canon makes a rather affordable slide scanner. Mid-hundreds, but not thousands. Another suggestion would be trying it under windows and seeing if that produces any better results. I think your hardware is more of a problem than your software though.
...is a joke. If you want any kind of decent results, you need a REAL film scanner. Check eBay.
I wound up buying a Nikon LS30 for the several negatives images in my collection.
The specs on a real film scanner as opposed to a flatbed are night and day. When a film scanner says it does X resolution, it's real. When a flatbed says it, it's probably some kind of interpolated crap marketing hype.
The ratio of black to white on the scanned image is also vastly larger with a film scanner - this makes a big difference, particularly with slides. You're going to lose a lot of data if you don't have as wide a bit lattitude as you can get.
In short, you're going to put a lot of time into scanning those slides. Don't sell short the value of your time. It's stupid to spend 500 to 1000 or more hours of your life using a piece of junk. Better off just not doing it until you have access to the proper equipment.
Ask around. There may be people who can lend you a proper scanner. I've lent mine to several friends, since it's not like I use it all the time; I'm now completely digital. My scanner sits in its box for 6 months to a year at a time. It's possible you could find someone similar who might let you borrow it for a few months.
Until GIMP receives more power (features, interface) under the hood, or Adobe or Jasc start porting their products, professional photographers CAN'T use Linux. Whatever Linuxies may claim, those of us generating 2000+ images per month can't make any sacrifices in our workflow. Die-hard Linux users are well advised to use a little Wine http://www.winehq.com/ with their photo processing...
As for scanning - I agree with the above - Vuescan is great on Macs.
There's a famous quote that gets thrown around quite a bit:
"Linux is free only if your time has no value" - Jamie Zawinski
If you are truly a pro photographer than you time is worth a lot more than the purchase price of a decent iMac You charge for your time, it's your most valuable resource. Why waste it trying to do things the hard way?
Why use the wrong tool for the job?
Linux (and other free unices) have their time and place, but as a professional photography scanning and retouching system it's just not ready yet.
Does the GIMP even use ICC profiles?
Cheers...
Specialist Mac support for creative pros, Melbourne
The parent is not off-topic, but there are problems with processing transparencies this way. It's very difficult to match contrast for a start.
The best thing to do is send your transparencies out to a repro house to scan on a drum scanner. This can be expensive, but it's what professionals do, and they don't do it just so they can put it on their tax return.
Be prepared for some pain in manipulating the scans on Linux; there's a reason so many graphic artists use Macs.
The focus and color problems you're having are not related to your choice of operating system or software, but with your scanner. If you can't get the slide adaptor to hold the slide so it's in focus, there's no chance of getting good scans regardless of the software you choose.
s .html. You should be able to find some of the older ones are more affordable used (check eBay) and even though they're not cutting edge will still generate much better results than an adaptor on a flatbed.
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.
Sadly, you're mistaken about what it means to be a "professional." You are correct in thinking that a "professional" gets paid for their services. You are incorrect in thinking that all professionals are knowledgeable and know what they're doing in return for the pay they are receiving. I have seen wedding photographers who actually arranged and took worse pictures than even I would take - and I would hardly even consider myself an amateur at this point because not all of my pictures turn out well.
The person that wrote this "Ask Slashdot" may just be in the camp of those who get paid for services they're not qualified to perform. Or they may just be getting started. In any case, they did preface the question by mentioning that they were not willing to pay for the high quality stuff that many professional photographers use, so I don't see why you're so up in arms with their lack of desire to use "real" equipment. Just answer the damn question!
If you want your entire workflow calibrated for WYSIWYG color output, I don't think you'll find it. About a year ago I bought a Canon 10D and wanted:
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.
I've got a PrimeFILM scanner from Costco. Looks great. The one I have runs about $280 now (it was on sale at the time, about $150). They have the same one used at the University of Virginia's digial media center for $390.
This is going to be said by a lot of people here...
...but like I said, photoshop pays my mortgage. I'm not unbiased.
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.
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-
You catch enchiladas by picking them up behind the head and holding them underwater until they don't kick anymore -VeGas
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 $10,000 on an oil mount drum scanner. Read Epinions or some other review site. Check ebay for some used models. Get the highest DPI you can afford (or the lowest you can tolerate). Also, make sure you buy something with a fast interface. USB v1 sucks, SCSI is ok, USB v2 is better, Firewire (IEEE 1394) is the best.
Hope that helped! If you need more deatils on how to build the cardboard test appaeratus let me know and I will post in more detail.
Although I am a diehard penguin fan, there are just some aps that ought to be ported over, but aren't.
Sigh. I do a lot of medium and large format transparencies and they get scanned in with a Canon DU2400.
For the run of the mill, knock off, transparecies they are adequate without haveing to resort to a 10K$ drum scanner, or a 20K$ digital back for the 4X5. The 2400 dpi in a 4X5 transparency is "good enough" for most interactions with the customer. IF higher definition is required well then I can send it out for a drum scan.
Such as it is, I still keep windoze around for both photoshop and premire. Sigh.
Note that my jpegs run over 100 Mbyte/image with this. And I am NOT doing 35mm images. These are full blown, commercial shots.
1. Yes, most pros use Photoshop and not the GIMP, and all of us hate the cost of Photoshop. Proof is obvious, anyone hates paying $$$$
2. We use PS because it does what we need, not because we are fenced in to specific Windows formats. Proof is that PS on Macs is used a lot in the graphics industry.
3. Gimp is able to deal with the formats, but does not have the required functionality. Proof is that GIMP does not handle print and printing, CMYK and ICC workflows well.
It seems that if it dealt with point 3, GIMP would instantly garner the support of zillions of photographers out there.
This is not a signature.
> Currently the gimp is only 8 bit color.
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.
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I also agree. As much as people want to mod the parent (as well as the two current replies) down as "off topic" or "troll", the glaring reality is that I'd bet that professional photographers are probably the least represented amongst the Linux installed base.
That said, as much respect as I have for the accomplishments of "The Gimp", you have to understand that on the Mac (and Windows), there are widely supported and understood color management systems (ColorSync, for example) and image formats that Linux currently doesn't offer analogs for.
As much as you hate to admit it, Linux isn't perfect, and photography may be one of the places that Linux doesn't quite make the grade in.
Yet...
bash-3.00$ uname -a
SunOS panda 5.10 Generic sun4u sparc SUNW,Ultra-2
this shouldnt be modded down, to many shallow minded mods about. like many others, id love to see linux dominate the OS market BUT i also strongly believe that the best tool should be used for the job and in the case of pro photography that tool is not linux. feel free to take your pick of any of the major desktop OS's that arent linux, im not going to favour one over the other
TIAEAE!
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.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
The collection of software and technologies we refer to as Linux is not for everybody. Linux suits people who prefer to scratch their own backs. It can be awkward at first, but those experienced in the process find their itches scratched faster and better than hiring someone else to scratch your back.
That said, there certainly are photographers who are interested in scratching their own backs, and professional back scratchers who take an interest in photography. The gimp is still a long way from professional tools, but Adobe has the disadvantage of having to discover new technologies while gimp merely appropriates them. There is certainly an argument to be had that the Gimp merely reimplementing a piece of software is not as useful as discovering new, different and useful ways of accomplishing simliar tasks with less work.
The best news for Linux with reguards to the whole slide scanning thing is that you're basically boned no matter what. Scanning in a slide sucks reguardless of platform, so I'd take it to the people who ARE willing to put down the big bucks required to do the job right.
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Open Source Sysadmin
Seriously- I bought a Nikon Coolscan 4000 off ebay for 500$. Slide adapter- comes free. Bulk feeder- 280$ - 390$.
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.
Please leave the Macintosh its market niche so that after Linux crushes Windows there will still be a place for Apple fanbois.
As a just-separated IT Manager at one of the best digital labs in the United States, I can say unequivocally that linux does not fulfill any of our needs, except possibly as a server.
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.