infrared dust removal doesn't work with silver-based film anyway, so I guess it's a moot point for me

Considering how bad most one-hour places can be for getting crap on the negatives, I can see how it might be considered invaluable. I just stopped going places where they dust up the negs. Even if I have to pay a few bucks more, it saves me hours trying to clean the neg and fixing in photoshop like you said. And those hours are worth more than the few bucks more it costs to have a pro lab handle the film.

If you are scanning to show on the web and make locating specific shots easier - a digital light table kind of thing - the max resolution of Velvia is wasted anyway. There's no reason to do multipass scans at 4000dpi unless you are sending it to a high quality printer. 2400dpi isn't going to impress a pro, but it looks pretty damn good, easily capable of showing fine detail.

It's kind of like saying, "If I was going to recommend a car, there's no way I'd recomend anything but a Ferrari." Sure, a Ferrari can be nice, but they are a bitch and a half from another perspective, and can be prohibitively expensive to boot.

 

True, but I am often cropping the image and don't most of us output to a high quality inkjet (R1800 for me now, used to be a 2200)? Sad to say, I rarely get my best images framed just right in-camera. Somehow I end up liking a different crop 90% of the time.

On dust, I did all my E6 work at A&I in Los Angeles. There is no finer lab in the country. However, I could not handle them for scanning in my home without seeing additional dust. If your casa is cleaner than my casa, more power to you.

If you are happy with lower-grade scans, and you believe the other poster might be too, why not recommend Kodak PhotoCD? I started in digital with that service and the bang-for-the-buck is hard to beat if you process a whole film strip at once.

 

[QUOTE=Penforhire,Dec 16 2006, 08:53 AM] While waiting for MMagic, let me guess. There are multiple ways to skin most cats in Photoshop.

 

[QUOTE=Penforhire,Dec 16 2006, 11:16 PM] True, but I am often cropping the image and don't most of us output to a high quality inkjet (R1800 for me now, used to be a 2200)?

 

Im getting better with masks and all, but I am a whiz with the lasso....almost surgical. None of you guys are lasso fans?

 

Magnetic lasso rocks!

I tend to -- color wand with narrow range (getting the range right saves a ton of work, plenty of undo's too), move to lasso modes for most of the finishing, and touch up a lot in Quickmask mode with paint brushes. The "marching ants" selection view hides too many tiny selections. Too many years working a mouse means I'm almost as good with a mouse as my Wacom tablet.

The most difficult part of selections, for me, is deciding on the correct amount of feathering or growth.

 

It is good for some things. There is always a part I miss with the lasso - a very small part that makes an edge look a tad funky. It is okay for doing images for the Internet, but all the mistakes pop out when you print.