Scanning with Lightroom?

[nortstudio]

I recently bought an Epson V500 photo scanner. I am wondering if it is possible to scan using Lightroom, or if I need to first scan using the included Epson software.

Thanks in advance.

[Ian Lyons]

Lightroom doesn't support scanning, so you'll need to scan your images using an external application then import the saved TIFF or JPG files.

[nortstudio]

Do you happen to know whether Elements handles scanning?  I received that program with the scanner too.  I'm just wondering whether their is a preferred way to deal with the scans of old negatives/photos.  I assume like most things, there are some programs that are better suited than others.

Also, would you recommend TIFF over JPEG?

Thanks for the quick response.

[Ian Lyons]

Yes, you can scan directly into Elements, but only if the scanning application supports it. From memory, Epson still provide a TWAIN compatible driver.

TIFF have the advantage of not having the compression artefacts that arise when saving a file as JPG. However, JPG can be much smaller file size. Personally, I prefer TIFF.

[Scooby007]

Yes Elements supports scanning. Scan as tiff because it is a higher quality archival format.  Scan as 16-bits rather than 8 if you want to maximize quality by having more information about the colors captured at the time of the scan.

Whether you use Elements or LR to work on your scans, the original scans should remain unchanged on your hard drive (if you're scanning your portfolio, and not just the odd photo for the odd project), which is how LR works anyway. There are several possible workflows

1. Scan and work on the resulting tiff in Elements/Photoshop only. Dupe the scan and work on the dupe. This adjusted file becomes your "final tiff"

2. Scan and work on the tiff in LR. No need to dupe. Bring it into LR, make changes, and export with changes if and when desired. You can't overwrite the original by exporting from LR even if you wanted to. This makes a new copy with your adjustments.

3. Scan and work in LR, export new tiff, then further touch it up in Photoshop or Elements

In all three your original tiff scan remains untouched on your hard drive. The point is that proper high resolution scanning is time-consuming, and you're better off doing it once and doing it right.

[nortstudio]

This Epson Scan program provides the choice of 48 bit color, 24bit color, 16 or 8 bit greyscale.  I am figuring to go with the highest quality.  Correct?

The attached image show the choices.

[Ian Lyons]

Yes, go with 48 bit colour and 16 bit B&W

[Jao vdL]

The attached image show the choices.

One of the things to be careful with is that the flatbed scanners usually do not have the resolution they claim at all. The V500 for example, really only manages 2300 ppi(dpi) or so(link for the V700 but it is optically identical). This means that you really don't have to scan above that resolution as you will just be imaging the optical quality of the scanner, not the actual detail in your image. 2300 is actually quite good for a flatbed, but it does mean that for a 35mm slide you only get about 7 MP of info.

[Conrad C]

The preferred way depends on whether you are going to scan one or two, or hundreds; and if you need to fix them up a little bit, or a lot.

If you're going to scan just a few, Elements is fine. Elements supports scanning via the Photoshop plug-ins that some scanners come with. Even if there's no plug-in, you can always open the scanned image into Elements; some scanning software lets you set which program to open the image in after scanning.

If you're going to scan many rolls, Lightroom is better. Use the scanner software to make negatives positive and have it dump all the scans into one folder that you will use for processing. In Lightroom, set that same folder as a "watched folder" for automatic importing. As the scans pile up in the folders, you'll see them appear in Lightroom. Pick a sample image from a roll of film, make the necessary adjustments, then use Lightroom's Copy Settings or Sync features to blast those changes across all the other images in the same roll. If this doesn't fix a whole roll instantly, it probably gives you a great starting point for them at least. The point is, if you're going to do bulk editing, Lightroom will be infinitely faster compared to Elements. Elements will be better than Lightroom if you need to do major repairs on a damaged image, though.

Use high-resolution TIFF for any valuable images. I have a lot of rolls that are just snapshots though, so I'll scan those at far lower quality just to save disk space. There's no point in clogging up hard drives with 16-bit high-res TIFFs of fuzzy ASA 400 frames that came out of a point-and-shoot, so I might scan those at low-res 8-bit, just enough to look good at 4x6 inches or the Web. If there is something valuable in there I'll just rescan at higher quality.

[nortstudio]

This is very helpful.  Although I realize it's all common sense - diving into a new program is always daunting.

Do you know offhand where I find the choice to "watch" the folder where I will be importing the scans to?  I looked around in preferences, and right clicking on the folder itself.  no luck.

Thanks so much for all the great info.

[nortstudio]

Sorry, found it!

[pgilpat]

I'm sorry, but I don't mean to be a wet blanket, but would it be so hard to allow twain selection to load up a scanner driver?  Yes, most everything I have is digital, but I also have original images that I want to preserve, and the multiple steps add to the workflow.  Just my 2 cents.

[Scooby007]

to the OP, if in fact as your screengrab shows you are scanning an 8.5x11 original at 6000+dpi, you're going to have an absolutely massive file, many hundreds of megs.

If your output size matches your original - i.e. you're scanning a 4x6 photo to then be printed at 4x6. you basically need 300dpi, you can double it 600 and then reduce and sharpen it and you'll probably realize a quality increase, but in general think in terms of output size at 300dpi vs. input size to determine scan res.

A 35mm slide scanned at 4000dpi - the "hi-res" standard, gets you 3600x5400 pixels, or a 12x18 print at 300dpi. You scan slides at a very high dpi because the slide is small and you want to make a print that's bigger than the slide.

But if your original is 8.5x11 and you scan it at even the true optical res of the scanner - 2300 as Jao points out - much less at 6000dpi interpolated (not a good idea anyway), you have enough data to make a print the size of a house - a small rambler anyway.

[JW Stephenson]

Nortstudio,

I also purchased that scanner and incorporated it into a workflow that fits with my existing LR catalog structure.  I can elaborate more if you are interested but basically my scan flow is as follows:

1.     Use the Epson scan software

2.     Scan images at 600dpi, 24 bit JPG color/16bit, slides at 3200dpi.  This means I can usually get the image up to the size of a full photo book page - usually.

3.     Drop the scanned images into "RawScan" folder, then subfolders by year, then subfolders by theme.

4.     When all or a large batch is scanned, process in NeatImage to remove noise introduced by scanner.  Dump resultant images into "ProcessedScan" folder structure with exact substructure.  This noise reduction is done in batch form.  More NR can be done inside LR on an image by image basis - this step it just to remove scanner noise and NeatImage (and other I am sure like Noise Ninja) is very effective.

5.     Import the ProcessedScan directory into LR.

6.     Convert all scanned images to DNG.  This is optional and is a bit of a waste of space, but I like all my "originals" to be non-JPG files since I use JPG files exclusively for exported images.  Keeps me from getting too confused when multiple images exist.

7.     Develop the images (color, exposure, local adjustments), enter metadata, etc. as you normally would.

8.     Move, by image or by folder, into yor normal catalog structure inside LR.

This seems to work for me but is really only for family type photos.  Professional images probably should always be scanned using the maximum bit depth and the TIFF file structure and probably not do any "global" noise reduction as well.

Hope this helps.

Jeff

[scfree]

one thing I would add to this is to make sure jpeg compression setting is zero. It was at default 16/100 out of the box. Had visual artifacts so I switched to TIF. But then checked and changed JPEG compression, and result is I see no worthwhile difference between an 80mb TIF scan and a 4.5mb jpeg.

...and note that apparently not much has changed (or maybe just for me) in 10 years.

[Conrad C]

If you're OK with how close a full quality JPEG looks compared to a TIFF, then you probably shouldn't be setting the JPEG to full quality compression, because there's a lot more storage space for you to save. Tests have shown that there is no visible difference between the top few levels of JPEG compression, so you can save even more storage space if you do not use maximum quality JPEG compression. Jeffrey Friedl wrote up a thorough analysis of this, in An Analysis of Lightroom JPEG Export Quality Settings.

The Lightroom default JPEG export quality of 75, falling in the 70〜76 range, seems to provide for as good a visible result as the highest quality setting…including even “lossless TIFF”. The file size, even at this relatively high 70〜76 setting, is still about one third that of the 93〜100 setting, so is well worth it in most situations.

[scfree]

Yep, some compression could be fine with me depending completely on the intended use of the exported images. For example, compression would be undetectable in prints of my scanned photos at original scale. So, as long as I have the original full quality JPEG or TIF or whatever still in Lightroom, I might export at something less than 100, but file size and storage space are always lower priority than look.

My current situation/project probably isn't one of the most situations he refers to. In my tests on an Epson v600, scanning full quality JPEG is almost undetectably similar to lossless TIF, at 1/10th the file size. 16/100 or 84 compression as it was set as default when I got it, while it does give a smaller file, it also introduces visible artifacts, changing pixels, that in my situation, I'm personally not ok with. I'm scanning very old photographs and I want all details and as close to original as possible, and nothing introduced.

[JP Hess]

That Epson scanner is quite capable. However, old photographs usually won't hold enough detail to justify saving tiff images. A good quality JPEG image will usually suffice. Another software I have used with a lot of success is Vuescan. It seems reasonably priced. I don't believe there is a scanner made that it doesn't support.

[Per Berntsen]

The TIF format has some lossless compression options – LZW works best with 8-bit files and ZIP works best with 16-bit.

LZW compression with 8-bit files can reduce the file size considerably.

Personally I wouldn't even consider scanning anything as jpg (or shooting jpg with a digital camera).

The jpg format is destructive by nature, even at the highest quality setting there is, as you have seen, some image degradation.

So jpg is a final format, and not suitable (or intended for) editing. Even if you do non-destructive editing in Lightroom, the edits have to be applied at some point (exporting), and even if you export at max quality, there may be some reduction in quality.