APOGEE PHOTO MAGAZINE Product Review: Nikon Coolscan IV Ed

Product Review - The Nikon Coolscan IV ED Film Scanner

by Michael Goldstein

The Nikon Coolscan IV ED scanner has a very simple front panel. The power on/off button is located in the lower left-hand corner of the panel. The dark section covering the top third of the panel is a sliding dust cover, protecting the orifice into which is inserted a film adaptor. Power and USB interfacing connectors are located on the rear panel, and all other controls are implemented by software.

“We don’t want your slides, anymore!”

This exclamation wasn’t an emphatic indication that my photography no longer measured up. Far from it. My local stock agency simply wanted me to concede that the industry had joined the New Millennium and gone digital. If I wanted to submit images in the future, they would have to be in the form of electronic files.

Not that I wasn’t already computer savvy. I had five hundred images on Kodak Photo CD (paid for by my various editors), and I was writing “how to” articles on Photoshop. However, I was also writing product reviews on my brand new and very expensive film-based camera hardware. When my agency suggested I buy a digital camera, that was the last straw. I had to bite the bullet and purchase a film scanner.

Of course, I was aware of the advantages of owning such a toy--no more risk to my slides in the mail, no more dashes to the lab for slide dupes, and the capability of producing scans at a moment’s notice. I might even be able to produce cleaner scans than my local lab had given me on Photo CD. I’d simply been avoiding the expense.

But which scanner should I buy? I went into homework mode and was soon balancing cost, optical resolution, dynamic range, cost, file size, software features, and cost. The choices quickly narrowed to those scanners featuring Digital ICE^TM, an image enhancement technology that effectively removes all dirt, specks, and scratches from the completed scan. I’d spent many hours with Photoshop removing imperfections from my Kodak Photo CD scans. If I could eliminate the need for similar work in the future, I was all for it. According to my research, Nikon had been the first company to offer that kind of image enhancement--although others followed their move. Working on the premise that the company that had produced the technology first would work hard to stay in the forefront, I focused my quest on Nikon products.

In the end, I selected the Nikon Coolscan IV ED scanner. Its dynamic range of 3.6 had, until very recently, been state of the art for these products. Its resolution of 2900 dpi still pushes the capabilities of most modern inkjet printers. The scanner’s maximum output file size of sixty-nine megabytes exceeds my foreseeable requirements. What’s more, the use of an LED light source would hopefully prevent specification changes with scanner aging. (I tend to keep favorite toys for a long time.) Finally, the price was right.

The Nikon Coolscan IV Ed scanner comes with several peripherals. A SA-21 strip-film adaptor is shown on the right-hand side, with a MA- 20 slide mount adaptor on the left. The middle adaptor is a FH-3 film holder, which is used in conjunction with the slide mount adaptor.

Of course, the first time you insert a slide into the scanner and press the SCAN button, it’s a thrill. However, when you’re using Nikon’s default parameters, your initial scans of some slides may be far from ideal. Careful reading of the printed manual plus the more detailed information on the CD-ROM reveals that the Nikon Scan Three software is wonderfully configurable. This is good, as slides featuring extreme contrasts can produce terrible scans.

In the TOOLS palette, you’ll find image histograms, curve utilities, and “unsharp masking” adjustments exactly like those in Adobe Photoshop. They can be manipulated in the same manner to produce excellent scans of images with color casts or extreme contrast levels. You soon become aware that time spent in adjusting the scan “preview” for the best result is time well invested. Each group of tools has parameters that may be named (and saved) and set as your new default parameters, if you so desire. The original Nikon parameters remain a click away, in case you need them. You can even save different default settings for a variety of problem film categories.

Digital ICE ^TM(Image Correction and Enhancement), Digital ROC ^TM (Restoration of color), and Digital GEM ^TM (Grain Equalization and Management) are all available to augment your scan quality--either individually or as a group, on demand or automatically employed. Once you’ve scanned with Digital ICE ^TM, you’ll never turn it off. If you’re going to print your final scans, the Digital ROC^TM and Digital GEM^TM utilities should be utilized, as well. While they’ll greatly increase your scan times, the quality of the resultant scan will always be worth it. For example, without using the Digital GEM^TM utility, I noticed that the sky areas and the dark areas of some images often appeared grainy after using the UNSHARP MASKING filter in Photoshop. This effect vanished after I learned to use the Digital GEM^TM utility while scanning slides for printing.

It’s also possible to balance scan resolution, file size, and image dimensions to create the exact scan you require. Even the cropping dimensions are configurable in order to produce the maximum usable pixels in your scan without black borders. The various tools that control the final scan are similar to the image manipulation tools in Adobe Photoshop, and other imaging programs. That is, there’s no one button that makes all the difference. As in photography itself, great scanning results come from practice and attention to details. To achieve the best scans, you’ll have to adjust color balance and contrast slightly for each different image.

My results with this scanner have been very gratifying. For installation and/or software problems, I found Nikon support to be extremely helpful. Nikon employees want you to get the most enjoyment possible from your Nikon product, and they’ll work hard to achieve that goal. As I continue to gain confidence and experience with the software, my scans steadily improve in quality. I discovered an additional benefit to me, as well. Once again I’ve managed to put off my conversion from film to digital cameras!

Nikon Coolscan IV ED SPECIFICATIONS

Optical resolution - 2900 dpi.

USB 1.1 interfacing.

Platforms include Mac OS 8.6 or later, Windows 98SE, Windows ME, and Windows 2000.

Dynamic range of 3.6.

LED light source eliminates need for recalibration or replacement.

High quality 48-bit images at files sizes as large as 69 Mb.

Dimensions 3.7 x 6.6 x12.4 inches (6.6 pounds weight).

Accessories include a USB interface cable, Nikon Scan 3 Driver software, a slide mount adaptor (MA-20S), Strip film adaptor (SA-21) and a strip film holder (FH-3), AC power cord, printed manual and user software manual on CD-ROM.