copying 35mm slides

[ErikJan]

easyHDR can read and write 48-bit TIF files and rotate, mirror and crop them. It's not free (but not expensive either).
Another one is Sagelight 48-bit Image Editor 3.0.

Tested EasyHDR, it doesn't read my TIFs (48bit, compressed)

[HansV]

That's the problem with TIF - there are so many possible variants that there's no guarantee that any particular program will recognize them.

[stuck]

I'm now looking for a program that reads and saves these 48bit TIF files and allows me to at least mirror the image. Anyone with a suggestion?

The scanner I have access to at work is a Nikon Coolscan V and the .tiff files I get from it can be opened by Irfanview but off the top of my head I don't know exactly what type of .tiff, other than they come out at ~65Mb each. Have you tried Irfanview?

If it works for you then might be able to make use of Irfanview's batch handling to set it going on mirroring all your files in one go.

Ken

[ErikJan]

The scanner I have access to at work is a Nikon Coolscan V and the .tiff files I get from it can be opened by Irfanview but off the top of my head I don't know exactly what type of .tiff, other than they come out at ~65Mb each. Have you tried Irfanview?

Ken,

Got IrfanView and installed. WHen I load a TIF (it works) and look at the image info it says something like "original 40-bit" / "current 24 bit". I can mirror and save; the result is less than a quarter of the original and indeed only 24 bit...

Guess my search for a tool that can read; mirror and save a 48-bit TIF continues...

[stuck]

the image info it says something like "original 40-bit" / "current 24 bit". I can mirror and save; the result is less than a quarter of the original and indeed only 24 bit...

This must be something to do with the fact the scan you are capturing is a compressed TIFF. When I use the Coolscan I just use the NikonScan software (the PC is an XP box) and the TIFFs I get are not compressed. Perhaps if you check through your VueScan software you might be able to find a way of saving uncompressed TIFFs? Maybe that will help?

Ken

[ErikJan]

OK, save an uncompressed TIF this time... tried with Irfanview.. no change: it reads the file but immediately converts to 24 bit (like Paint.NET, en like easyHDR)

[DaveA]

I have had nothing but troubles with using tiff files.
I have since just gone to jpg, png or gif and then they all seem to behave.

[ErikJan]

Yeah, but jpg is lossy, gif has only 256 colors and png is not very widespread (I think). TIF has always worked for me...

[HansV]

Have you tried Sagelight yet?

[stuck]

OK, save an uncompressed TIF this time... tried with Irfanview.. no change: it reads the file but immediately converts to 24 bit (like Paint.NET, en like easyHDR)

Have you checked through Irfanview's various options/preferences? It could be that there is something somewhere that sets 48bit to 24bit as the default.

Ken

[jonwallace]

OK, save an uncompressed TIF this time... tried with Irfanview.. no change: it reads the file but immediately converts to 24 bit (like Paint.NET, en like easyHDR)

Have you checked through Irfanview's various options/preferences? It could be that there is something somewhere that sets 48bit to 24bit as the default.

Ken

There's a thread about this on the irfanview forum here

[ErikJan]

I checked the forum and although people confirm this is a usefull feature I do not get the impression that IrfanView supports 48 bits

[ErikJan]

Still have to explore SageLight a bit. Today I started thinking also about Adobe stuff... I'm an amateur but a perfectionist at the same time (as already stated)... so I want a good treatment of my 48-bit 4000 dpi scans obviously...

There's Photoshop Elements 8 and Photoshop Lightroom... "Elements" seems to be the thing I need: "somewhat advanced retouching for the amateur", I don't care about databasing my pictures (Google Picasa does a great job there for me), I certainly do not care about fancy filters unless they improve quality. I do care about enhancing the dynamic range, some color correction (RGB curves etc. but nothing too fancy), some cropping and slight editing (spots, cracks, red-eyes). Of course it should read my 48 bit TIFF files and als save results back as such...

I looked if Elements can do that and today I even called the Adobe sales dept here... all they could say is that Elements is SUPPOSED to support these 48-bit files, but when I asked what that meant, I got no real answer... Anybody out there who'd know this or could point me to some resources with examples (yes, I did Google for this... no real results)????

[Skitterbug]

Still have to explore SageLight a bit. Today I started thinking also about Adobe stuff... I'm an amateur but a perfectionist at the same time (as already stated)... so I want a good treatment of my 48-bit 4000 dpi scans obviously...

There's Photoshop Elements 8 and Photoshop Lightroom... "Elements" seems to be the thing I need: "somewhat advanced retouching for the amateur", I don't care about databasing my pictures (Google Picasa does a great job there for me), I certainly do not care about fancy filters unless they improve quality. I do care about enhancing the dynamic range, some color correction (RGB curves etc. but nothing too fancy), some cropping and slight editing (spots, cracks, red-eyes). Of course it should read my 48 bit TIFF files and als save results back as such...

I looked if Elements can do that and today I even called the Adobe sales dept here... all they could say is that Elements is SUPPOSED to support these 48-bit files, but when I asked what that meant, I got no real answer... Anybody out there who'd know this or could point me to some resources with examples (yes, I did Google for this... no real results)????

Since I am only a *beginner* when it comes to scanning pics for preservation, I hope I can help a little bit. I scanned a pic at 48 bit color/1200dpi and saved it as a TIFF. It resulted in a file size 102.1 MB with .tif file extension. I have the MAC version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 and I opened this file with it. The info at the top of the pic says that it is a 004.tif @ 100percent (RGB/16). Is this close to the type of info you were looking for?
BTW, when I tried to scan my pic at 48 bit color/4800 dpi - my Epson Perfection V600 Photo scanner would not allow me to do this. It gave me this warning: Image size is too large. Reduce the Resolution or Scale setting, or decrease the size of the selected area to within 30000 x 10500 pixels. So that's why I scanned it at 1200 dpi. I have not tried doing anything to this picture in Adobe. I only opened it to see if Adobe would support a TIFF file and it did as I asked. Hope this helps?

[Skitterbug]

I looked if Elements can do that and today I even called the Adobe sales dept here... all they could say is that Elements is SUPPOSED to support these 48-bit files, but when I asked what that meant, I got no real answer... Anybody out there who'd know this or could point me to some resources with examples (yes, I did Google for this... no real results)????

News Alert! OH OH.....when I wanted to work on my pic to try using the layers option I got this message: Could not perform the requested action because Photoshop Elements provides only limited support for files with 16 bit color depth. Do you want to convert the image to 8 bit? So I guess it doesn't do as you wanted. At least not in Version 6.
ps: Or maybe that business converting it to 8 bit isn't a problem to you? As I said, I don't know much about this part of scanning and editing, etc.

[ErikJan]

Since I am only a *beginner* when it comes to scanning pics for preservation, I hope I can help a little bit. I scanned a pic at 48 bit color/1200dpi and saved it as a TIFF. It resulted in a file size 102.1 MB with .tif file extension. I have the MAC version of Adobe Photoshop Elements 6 and I opened this file with it. The info at the top of the pic says that it is a 004.tif @ 100percent (RGB/16). Is this close to the type of info you were looking for?
BTW, when I tried to scan my pic at 48 bit color/4800 dpi - my Epson Perfection V600 Photo scanner would not allow me to do this. It gave me this warning: Image size is too large. Reduce the Resolution or Scale setting, or decrease the size of the selected area to within 30000 x 10500 pixels. So that's why I scanned it at 1200 dpi. I have not tried doing anything to this picture in Adobe. I only opened it to see if Adobe would support a TIFF file and it did as I asked. Hope this helps?

That confirms what I found yesterday (sorry, forgot to update here): I sent a friend a 48bit 4000 dpi (small) picture which I scanned and asked him to open it and save it in the Abobe Elements 8 which he has. He returned that yesterday and the re-saved version had the same size as the one I sent out. The file properties also confirmed this was a TIFF (still) with 48 bits color depth.

So both your tests (thanks!) and mine confirm that Elements could and can still do this... I'm convinced and have decide to purchase Elements. As I'm still in "scanning mode" for months to come, I plan to actually buy this in October as then a next version might be out...