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Question

Scanning with Lightroom?

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
October 22, 2009
3 replies
50680 views

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.

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JW Stephenson

Inspiring

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

S

scfree

Participating Frequently

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

Community Expert

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.

S

Scooby007

Participating Frequently

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.

Ian Lyons

Community Expert

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.

N

nortstudioAuthor

Participating Frequently

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

Community Expert

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.

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