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Nikon Super Coolscan
4000 ED Film Scanner Review
Table of Contents: Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with Nikon. The opinions offered in this review are based entirely on my experiences with my own Super Coolscan 4000 and a limited variety of films. Your mileage may vary... Nikon has dropped the 'LS' prefix and all of their scanners are now branded only as 'Coolscan'. The lower end scanners are named 'Coolscan' and the upper end models are called 'Super Coolscan'. In this review we are going to refer to our Super Coolscan 4000 ED as a 'Coolscan 4000'. The Super Coolscan 4000 ED supersedes Super Coolscan 2000, which was also known as the LS2000. The Coolscan IV supersedes the Coolscan III which was also known as the LS30. The brand new Super Coolscan 8000 is a combination 35mm and medium format film scanner. Comments On Hardware, Software And InstallationThe image of the Coolscan 4000 at the top of this page shows it configured with the supplied 35mm mounted slide adapter (MA-20). The Unit also comes with a 35mm negative strip adapter (SA-21) which has a built in motor to feed film strips of 2 to 6 frames. When using the strip feeder adapter, there is a slider for adjusting the exact framing of the preview image in the software GUI. This manual adjustment comes in handy when the auto detect frame feature can't index your individual frames properly. Both of these adapters slide into the main scanner unit and can be exchanged while the unit is on and the software active. The unit also ships with a film strip holder that can accommodate a film strip with up to 6 frames (FH-3). The FH-3 can be used with curled or damaged film strips. You lay the film, up to 6 frames, into the folding adapter and insert the film strip holder into the slide scanning adapter. Single slides are hand pushed right into the slide adapter and there is a mechanical button to eject them. The slide adapter holds one slide at a time. An automatic slide feeding attachment (SF-200 S), a roll film adapter (SA-30) for uncut rolls of 35mm film, an APS film adapter (IA-20 S) and a medical Slide Adapter (FH-G1) for microscope film are available as options for this unit. This scanner comes with it's own two external port, one internal connector IEEE 1394 PCI 'RATOC' brand name OHCI compliant FireWire adapter card and a cable. The supplied cable has standard 6 contact plugs on both ends. You are advised by Nikon not to operate two FireWire devices at the same time. The power supply for the scanner is internal. My Coolscan 4000 is connected to an OHCI compliant Adaptec Fireconnect 4 port card that I installed to facilitate digital video editing. My computer is a home built Athlon 1.2 gig with 512 megs of DDR Ram. This scanner requires Windows 98 Second Edition, Windows Me, Windows 2000, or Windows XP (must use Nikon Scan 3.1.2 or later for XP). It will not operate on the original version of Windows 98 since that version can not support the latest FireWire drivers and updates that this scanner requires. This scanner can also be used with Mac computers running OS 8.6 - 9.2.2. This scanner uses 3 color LEDs for image illumination. This is a departure from most scanner hardware configurations. This partially collimated lighting is supposed to produce very accurate color renditions but also has the effect of making every scratch, dust particle and blemish appear sharply and in minute detail in your scan. Scanners that use single lamp illumination don't seem to 'enhance' these sorts of defects as much as Nikon's scanners. It's a good thing that Nikon introduced digital ICE automatic film defect correction along with their scanner line. You will find this option almost necessary in many cases, particularly with this 4000 dpi scanner. The combination of high resolution and a collimated light source make any scratch or blemish on your film really stand out in the scanned image. The scanner's mechanical operation has been nearly flawless so far. If you change adapters while the scanner is on, be sure to wait for the status LED to stop blinking and turn to steady before you insert a new adapter. If you remove the film adapter after your scanning session, wait for the status LED to stop blinking and turn to steady before turning off the scanner. Failure to follow this procedure may produce error messages when you power on again with a different type of adapter. This procedure is mentioned in the operation manual but it is easy to forget until you have your first 'failure to communicate with scanner' and 'hardware error'. The Coolscan 4000 is advertised by Nikon to have a Dmax of up to 4.2. This would be quite an improvement over it's predecessor, the Nikon LS2000, which was advertised to be capable of up to 3.8. A quick explanation of Dmax would be the ability of the scanner to find detail in dense areas (dark or shadow areas in slides) of film and render that detail in the resulting scan accurately without patterned or random digital noise pixels. Dmax is not measured in a linear fashion so the difference between 3.8 and 4.2 is significant. As a comparative example, most flatbed desktop scanners have a Dmax of around 3 to 3.2. The Coolscan 4000 comes with very good documentation. There is sheet with instructions for installing a Windows 98 SE FireWire update. The update executable is included on the software CDROM. This sheet also has a full set of hardware and software installation instructions. The full Installation procedure is covered in a nicely done printed manual. Two CDROM's are shipped with the Coolscan. The first is the Nikon Scan 3 scanning software and driver and the second is a very full featured online manual for installation and operational features. This online manual is in Adobe PDF format. You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to be able to use the online CDROM manual. My Coolscan 4000 installation was completed without any problems. I had the scanner operating in less than 5 minutes from unpacking it. Naturally, this speedy install time was made possible by my existing FireWire card installation. Before buying this scanner make sure you have at least one empty PCI slot in your computer. I'm not aware of any FireWire cards that do not operate on a PCI connection and Nikon claims the scanner may not operate 'normally' if you use any sort of hub or converter. The software graphical interface is Windows oriented with sliders and buttons. You can do all your cropping, color adjustments, contrast and brightness adjustments while looking at the preview image. This software is extremely full featured and supports ICC color profiles. There is a huge selection of tools and options in this software. The tools and flexibility Nikon Scan 3.1 offers in preparing your image for scanning is awesome. See a screen grab of the main GUI and tool array. My Coolscan 4000 came with Nikon Scan at 3.1. If your scanner shipped with 3.0, I highly recommend that you download Nikon Scan 3.1.2 from http://www.nikontechusa.com/. Nikon Scan at 3.1 or 3.1.2 can be used with the LS2000 and Coolscan III too. Nikon Color Management With Nikon Scan 3.1Nikon Scan 3.1 has several calibrated RGB color spaces suitable for Mac or PC. Available for PC with a gamma of 2.2 is sRGB, Adobe 1998 RGB, Bruce RGB, CIE RGB, wide gamut RGB, wide gamut compensated RGB and NTSC. You can deselect Nikon Color Management and scan into un-calibrated RGB. For Apple/Mac with a gamma of 1.8 you now have Apple color match RGB and Apple RGB compensated and Apple RGB. This scanner has 42 bit color sampling so you can select to scan to 24 or 48 bit color in any of the RGB color spaces. The Coolscan 4000 can also scan to 8 or 16 bit grayscale and 32 bit CMYK. See a full chart of the available colors spaces. Nikon Scan is now up to level 4.0. Visit the Nikon Scan web site and read the FAQ before downloading and installing Nikon Scan 4. sRGB is still a rather new standard and some folks are not comfortable with it. The following information is a quote and was taken from Adobe Photoshop's Color Management technical support page. The link to this information is no longer available. However, I'll print the information and hope that Adobe won't get after me..;^) "sRGB is a standard promoted primarily by Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft. It reflects the standards for HDTV broadcast (Gamma=2.2, Primaries=HDTV, White Point=6500K). One of the reasons to use sRGB is that Hewlett-Packard is promoting a workflow in which hardware devices such as scanners, non-PostScript printers, and Web browsers will be optimized for RGB data in the sRGB space. If you are using such devices, sRGB will provide the simplest workflow. sRGB reflects the characteristics of the average PC monitor. If you are producing graphics to be viewed on the Web, sRGB will reflect what most viewers see. The downside to sRGB is that it has a limited color gamut and cannot represent as many colors as other color spaces. It is not a good choice for professional prepress users since too much of the CMYK gamut lies outside of it." Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard think sRGB solves a lot of problems with un-calibrated RGB. Personally, I find sRGB perfect for web imaging and printing on my PhotoSmart and Canon S800 photo printers. In fact both of these printers are optimized for sRGB input. I've been told that the Epson photo printers are also optimized for sRGB. It is best to know in advance the color space your intended output device is optimized for before you prepare you image for scanning. Adobe's Photoshop will allow you the option of opening an image in your working color space and profile while temporarily discarding the embedded profile. You can also 'convert to profile' after your image is created. This Photoshop feature allows you to scan and save in fairly wide color gamuts like Adobe RGB 1998 or Bruce RGB and convert it later to any number of other equal or lesser gamut color spaces or profiles. Nikon Scan's Graphical InterfaceThe GUI (Graphical User Interface) and software is easy to learn to use if you are at least at an intermediate level in understanding digital image manipulation. My Coolscan 4000 has produced some beautiful scans. I was very happy with my LS2000 but at 3 years of age it developed the notorious stepper motor failure and will now only scan at 16X sampling. My Coolscan 4000 and Nikon Scan 3.1 have produced default scans from Kodachrome 25, Fuji Provia F, Fuji Reala and Fuji Velvia that have been, with rare exceptions, close matches with the original slide or negative with color and exposure. The Coolscan 4000 and Nikon Scan 3.1 do a much better job with initial color and exposure selection than my LS2000 and Nikon Scan 2.5. At nearly 1500 - 1700 USD this outfit is fairly expensive but for folks who desire top quality scans, I think it's worth the expense. In fact, in my opinion, this scanner can produce scans that rival drum scanner output. I recently had a chance to compare this scanner's output directly with drum scanner output. A friend of mine sent me two slides and drum scans of those slides on CDROM. I scanned the two slides on the Coolscan 4000 and was pleasantly surprised at the results. Check out some screen captures of comparisons scans from the Coolscan 4000 and Tango drum scanner. Nikon Scan 3.1 provides all of the pre-scan image manipulation controls. There are two integrated parts to the software. If you use the twain acquire feature in Win 98 your twain compliant imaging program will bring up Nikon Scan's GUI window that has access to all of the pre-scan control features. If you use Nikon Scan as a stand alone you get an extra window tiled with the control panel window. This extra window has save, save as, copy and zoom and print functions. This window also has a button to re-open the scan image control panel and a selection tool. However, I've found no options to crop or do anything with your selected marquee area. You can rotate or flip the image from this window too. Used from your desktop, (referred to as a standalone application of Nikon Scan) Nikon Scan always opens both windows tiled on each other. For the purposes of this review I'm not going to try to explain every tool and operational feature of Nikon Scan. I'd rather concentrate on some of the unique features and options available with this scanner and software. There are some notable improvements in Nikon Scan 3.1 over Nikon Scan 2.5. There is now a scan profile for Kodachrome. Kodachrome scans were always problematic with my LS2000. Kodachrome scans would frequently have a blue cast that was difficult to remove. I'm impressed with the Coolscan 4000's ability to scan Kodachrome. The 2 dozen or so Kodachrome 25 scans I've made have been close to perfect with the scanner's default color and exposure selections. While we are on the subject of Kodachrome. The optional image processing tool called Digital ICE does not work well with Kodachrome. Nikon warns of this limitation with Kodachrome in the scanner's documentation. I've tried a few Kodachrome slides with ICE processing and while some had only a slight blurring of some of the fine detail in the image, others were totally unacceptable due to blurring and overall softening of large parts of the image. The other two image enhancement features in this software/scanner Digital ROC and Digital GEM are fully functional with Kodachrome. I'll cover ICE, ROC and GEM in more detail a bit later on. In my opinion the Coolscan 4000 and Nikon Scan 3.1 offer tools and capabilities that allow for professional level scan preparation and digital image creation. Nikon Scan 3.1 has a greatly improved levels/curves tool with all the capabilities of Photoshop's similar tools. There is a new LCH color editor. LCH stands for Luminosity, Chroma and Hue. This tool uses a separate curves type GUI each for Luminosity and Chroma and has an adjustable flat line curve setup for Hue. This feature rich tool may be more appropriate for use by advanced digital imaging enthusiasts or by folks who enjoy experimenting. In a nut shell, the Luminosity curve adjustments affect contrast and Chroma curve adjustments affect color saturation. The hue tool in this array is slightly different than a standard curves tool. The Hue tool has a flat line graph superimposed on diagonally placed color bars. The adjustment is made by dragging the flat curve into a 'hill' or 'valley' shape into the color area you wish to affect. This tool set has appropriate options to fine tune all three adjustments. If you are uncomfortable with the curves/levels tool approach to image manipulation, the simplest method to achieve tone and color correction is available in the 'color balance' tool. The color balance tool has slider adjustments as well has the capability to enter numerical values for brightness, contrast and the colors red, green and blue. Also new is the ability to apply unsharp mask during the scan. This tool has the usual 3 parameters to adjust but you are limited to seeing the results on the preview instead of at actual pixel level. Due to this limitation, I prefer to do unsharp mask in Photoshop after the scan. However, if you understand what the adjustment parameters will accomplish at any given resolution, the lack of an accurate visible reference isn't a big problem. Digital ICE3 "Cubed" - Scan Quality Enhancement ToolsICE3 is an updated version of the original Digital ICE that offered automatic film defect correction. ICE is designed by a company called Digital Science Fiction. The Original Digital ICE automatically removed scratches and blemishes on your film during the scanning process. ICE "Cubed" or times 3, now includes two other image processing features. Digital GEM minimizes the film grain in your scan and Digital ROC restores color in faded slides or negatives. Each or all three of these image processing tools can be implemented before you start your scan. The actual image processing for each of these tools is done after the scanning process and before the image is exported to Nikon Scan's 'save' window or your TWAIN compliant imaging program.. Digital ICEICE = Image Correction and Enhancement. Until recently Nikon was the only manufacturer offering Digital ICE. This feature requires some extra built in hardware in the scanner so it can't be offered as an aftermarket add in for all film scanners. Minolta's DiMAGE Scan Elite II now offers Digital ICE3 too. I suspect that other scanner manufacturers will soon be offering this feature or some comparable solution. Digital ICE defect correction now has two levels of application, 'Normal' and 'Fine'. Normal mode will clean up most large scratches and spots but it may leave faint traces of these artifacts in the final scan that you will have to clean up by hand with a clone tool after the scan. Fine mode cleans up nearly every scratch or blemish but softens the hard edged areas of the image to a more noticeable degree. Careful use of unsharp mask can return these areas close to pre-ICE levels of apparent sharpness. Interestingly, ICE also has the effect of lessening the visibility of apparent film grain in some cases. This job is supposed to be handled by GEM but you may find with your particular brand of film, that ICE will smooth out apparent film grain as well as remove spots and scratches. Check out these Digital ICE defect correction comparison images. Digital ICE does not work well with Kodachrome. Digital ICE does not work at all with traditional silver based black and white films. Digital ICE will work properly with C41 based chromogenic black and white films. Digital GEMGEM = Grain Equalization and Management. As far as I'm concerned GEM is the sleeper in this suite of tools. Visible grain in prints larger than 8X10 has always been an issue with enlargements made from 35mm films. Even with fine grain films in the ISO 100 and under range visible grain can be a distraction in prints of 11X14 and up. Gem nearly eliminates visible grain your scans. GEM has 4 incremental levels of application. The available settings are 1, 2, 3 and 4. I've found 2 and 3 to be most useful. As with ICE the GEM tool will soften the hard edges of an image ever so slightly in proportion to the level of GEM selected. However judicious use of unsharp mask can bring these areas back to pre-GEM levels of apparent sharpness. Click on this link to see some comparison examples of Digital GEM film grain reduction. I've actually tried to duplicate GEM's effect on film grain by using Photoshop 6's 'smart blur' tool but I haven't been able to even come close with that approach. Digital ROCROC = Restoration Of Color. An interested third party kindly donated a few very faded Ektachrome slides dating from 1959. ROC did a great job on the few samples I tried it with. Some folks claim you can achieve the same result in Photoshop by working with channels. My attempts with these scans at color restoration in Photoshop and working with channels were not really worth looking at. At the very least, ROC is a time saving tool that will probably work well on all but the most faded slides. See a three image comparison example of ROC applied to one of these Ektachrome slides. Multi-Sample ScanningIf you choose to scan with this option, there are 3 levels of multi-sample scanning available at 4X, 8X, and 16X. The idea behind multi sample scanning is that the scan head makes multiple passes over the entire film area and compares pixels and discards noise generated pixels. This scanner's ability to see into dense areas of film and produce noise free scans is excellent. My initial tests with single pass, 4X, 8X and 16X sampling seem to show very little difference in random noise pixels. There is a slight improvement at 16X but you really have to look hard at an image at 200 to 400% magnification to see a difference. See some comparative examples of multi-sample scanning. Analog Gain ControlAnother available option lets you adjust the analog gain for each color channel or the master channel. This feature adjusts the exposure value for each color LED ( red, green and blue) independently or all at once on the master channel. According to reliable sources this is accomplished by varying the number of milliseconds that each of the LEDs are illuminated and the number of milliseconds that the CCD is exposed while the LED is illuminated. Analog gain can be set in fractional increments up to + or - 2EV. Each full step approximates the equivalent of a full stop of light. In my opinion the most useful application of this tool would be with under exposed slides or dense negatives. Raising the analog gain control when scanning underexposed slides or dense negatives can help bring out colors and increase contrast better than just altering the image in prescan with the levels tool or the brightness and contrast sliders. When you increase analog gain, shadow detail may increase just a little at the expense of highlight detail. If you know how to use layers and the magic eraser effectively in Photoshop, layering multiple scans at different analog gain settings could save or enhance some images. Also, images with a color cast may be improved by experimenting with these controls. As an example, moving the blue LED slider up will increase the overall level of blue in your image in a slide scan. See a four image analog gain comparison and the resulting histograms from scans of two Provia F ISO 100 transparencies. One transparency was properly exposed and the other was about 1/2 stop under exposed. Depth of Field Issues And Focusing OptionsThis scanner has a fairly shallow depth of focus. At first I thought it was much less than my Nikon LS2000 film scanner. A couple of test scans proved to me that both scanners had approximately the same depth of focus. However, the lack of center to edge critical focus due to film curvature is more noticeable in 4000 dpi scans than in 2700 dpi scans. Fortunately, Nikon has provided tools that will allow you to achieve sharp focus across the entire film area in almost all cases. You can select the area to autofocus on for each scan or you can preset this focus point to be anywhere on the film area for each successive scan. You can also set focus manually. This is accomplished by moving the lens focus up or down in very small increments by dragging a slider in the GUI or by keyboard numerical input. You can then re-preview the image or scan and view the results until you have perfect focus. I've found that setting the AF focus point half way between the center and any corner area usually provides the best auto focus. If your slide mounts do not hold the film relatively flat, neither of these methods may be good enough for critical sharpness center to corner. In this case you can try the following procedure. Remove the slide from its mount and use the supplied FH-3 film strip holder. If you remove a transparency from a cardboard mount, be sure to trim away any areas that have glue and cardboard material stuck on sprocket hole area of the film. The film strip holder has small cross bars that will pinch and hold the film on all four sides. This is a fairly time consuming operation as the cut film and the 'halves' of the strip holder have to be aligned manually. This method may or may not give you some improvement in center to edge focus. If the film is warped side to side, curled or badly deformed in any other way, the FH-3 may not hold it perfectly flat. The bottom line is that the FH-3 is just a little too flimsy and it doesn't always get the job done with really warped or curled film. Warped or curled film would seem to me to be the main reason for using this adapter. I've resorted to putting scotch tape around the sides of the holder opposite of the middle of the exposure aperture in the hope of making the film holder 'clamp' down solidly on the film strip. While taping the holder helps in some cases, it doesn't always provide an increase in edge to edge sharpness in the scan. In some cases just flipping the film over in the FH-3 helps (don't ask, I don't know why this helps sometimes..:^) If your film processing vendor uses a dip and dunk system there is frequently a hard bend or curl in the film at about frame #18. This bend is hard to flatten out and makes achieving good edge to edge focusing on frame #18 nearly impossible. This scanner should have a glass mount film holder as an accessory. Just for fun I tried scanning using a Gepe anti-Newton glass slide mount. Alas, the scanner picked up the texture in the anti-Newton glass. The glass texture gave the scans an 'on canvas' look when viewed at full resolution. I have found that the strip feeder adapter (SA-21) usually provides center to edge sharpness more consistently than the single slide scan adapter or the FH-3 strip holder. An exception to this statement would be a film strip that has a lot of curl. I have noticed that if you use the strip feeder adapter to scan the end frame of a strip that has been rolled or has a lot of curl, there can be a variation in focus between the leading edge (end of the strip) of the frame and the trailing edge of the frame. This is because the strip feeder uses two sets of top and bottom rubber rollers in the center of the film to help guide it and keep it flat. There is a set just in front and just behind the film aperture of the strip feeder attachment. If the film has edge to edge curl, and you are scanning the first frame, there is nothing to hold the center of the leading edge of the film strip level with the sides of the strip. In this situation you might be better off trying the FH-3 strip holder. The center rollers appear to be mostly guides and my best attempt to measure this apparatus indicates that the center rollers do not pinch or apply any sort of pressure on the film. The strip feeder uses two sets of rollers on each side of the film to actually feed the film. the bottom roller is rubber and does the driving of the film. The top roller is plastic and serves only to 'pinch' the film to ensure consistent friction and drive. These side rollers only contact the film perforation part of the film and do not contact the actual image area. The lens and light source move for the actual scan. The film feed is used only to position the film properly in the scanning area aperture. Since I purchased this scanner, I no longer have my transparency film mounted in slide mounts. It is more efficient to store film strips in 3 hole punched transparent film strip holders. Without the thickness of a slide mount you can store many more pages in any given size 3 hole binder. I can always cut and mount the film later if I need to put on a 'slide show'. I believe keeping the film in strips of 6 frames helps to minimize film curvature issues too. As for mounted slides, my limited experience indicates that glued cardboard mounts may be the worst for holding film flat. The snap together mounts that actually contact the film on all fours sides with a small amount of pressure may be the best at keeping the film flat. The slip in mounts that most commercial processors are now using are somewhere in between glued cardboard and the snap together mounts in their ability to keep film flat. You can do a quick check for film flatness in the strip holder or your slide mounts by holding the slide or strip holder up close to a light bulb. Hold the strip holder or slide so that you can see a reflection of most of the light bulb. View the non-emulsion (shiny) side and look at the reflection of the light bulb. If the reflection of the bulb is quite distorted as you move the reflection around on the film plane, the film is not flat. You should see close to a 'mirror image' of the light bulb. This method requires some interpretation and maybe some trial and error to figure out just when you have the film as flat as it is possible to get. Another way to check film flatness in 'real-time' is to autofocus on the center of your image, then do another autofocus half way to a corner and then another in a corner area of your image. Nikon Scan lists a numerical value for each focus operation. Each time you set autofocus to a different location on your image in pre-scan check that numerical value. If the number varies more than 5 points, you may notice a drop off in sharpness in your scans from center to edge. At 10 points difference and above, you will definitely see a drop off in center to edge sharpness in your scans. See a four image comparison example. The first image has autofocus set and the 3 comparison images had +5, +10 and +15 points of manual focus adjustment. ConclusionsAfter completing 300 plus scans it is my opinion that this scanner does a great job in almost every area. As mentioned earlier, it has a very complete set of pre-scan imaging tools. The Super Coolscan can produce superb images. This scanner/software combo has two weaknesses that are worth noting. The Coolscan 4000 has a very shallow depth of focus and Nikon Scan occasionally misses setting proper tonal range and color balance in it's default exposures. 4000 dpi scans will point out the shortcomings of your slide mounts, lenses and/or photographic technique in a most startling manner. If your desire is produce 11X14 or larger prints that are critically sharp, I highly recommend getting at least an 8 to 10X loupe to examine your film with before you start cussing at your scanner...:^) See my review of LaserSoft's SilverFast and some comments on VueScan aftermarket scanner control software by visiting this link SilverFast and VueScan Aftermarket Scanner Control Software More Links 
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