Why No RAW Scanners???
Why are there no scanners that produce a RAW file?
Seriously, I would have thought that someone would be offering one by now. Is there some technical reason that I don't understand?
And for those who don't understand why I would want one: it's all about the flexibility. Even though almost everything is shot in digital now, there are a lot of legacy slides, transparencies and positives out there. Using a RAW format would allow for much greater flexibility for future uses without the need to have multiple resolution files of the same shot, not to mention the storage requirements.
And while I'm on a tear, why hasn't Wacom come out with a bluetooth tablet?
If I can have a bluetooth mouse and keyboard, why can't I have a bluetooth tablet?
Oh well.
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Why are there no scanners that produce a RAW file?
Seriously, I would have thought that someone would be offering one by now. Is there some technical reason that I don't understand?
And for those who don't understand why I would want one: it's all about the flexibility. Even though almost everything is shot in digital now, there are a lot of legacy slides, transparencies and positives out there. Using a RAW format would allow for much greater flexibility for future uses without the need to have multiple resolution files of the same shot, not to mention the storage requirements.
And while I'm on a tear, why hasn't Wacom come out with a bluetooth tablet?
If I can have a bluetooth mouse and keyboard, why can't I have a bluetooth tablet?
Oh well.
It's not really about the scanner. It's about the scanning software. Vuescan (which supports something like 750 scanners) and Silverfast AI can both produce "raw" files, which are essentially unprocessed tiff files (image data straight from the sensor) which can be scanned "from file" in the scanning software. This way, you can scan your negatives once, store the raw files, and if you ever want to scan them differently, you can just scan from the raw file.
Recent versions of Vuescan can output a standard DNG file instead of a vuescan specific raw file, and the documentation claims that these DNG files work in adobe camera raw and bridge (but not aperture - for an explanation of why read up on the partial DNG support in aperture). I haven't been able to make this work, but I haven't tried too hard, and if there is a problem with the software Ed Hamrick (the developer) ought to have it sorted out before long.
#2) Uh, last I heard, they do make a bluetooth tablet. I looked at one but the features didn't compare well to USB tablets. But it wasn't that bad.
It's not really about the scanner. It's about the scanning software. Vuescan (which supports something like 750 scanners) and Silverfast AI can both produce "raw" files, which are essentially unprocessed tiff files (image data straight from the sensor) which can be scanned "from file" in the scanning software. This way, you can scan your negatives once, store the raw files, and if you ever want to scan them differently, you can just scan from the raw file.
I had not heard of that. I use an older version of SilverFast...could be time to upgrade.
#1) A Camera RAW file is usually a 12 bit file. Scans can be 48bit or more. You don't need RAW. It is a step backwards. All the "advantages" a RAW file brings can already be done with simple Photoshop tools. There is no need with the exception of verified file integrity for forensics and court admissions.
#2) Uh, last I heard, they do make a bluetooth tablet. I looked at one but the features didn't compare well to USB tablets. But it wasn't that bad.
I'm not sure I follow your point about RAW being a step backwards from tiff. I know about up-sampling and down-sampling abilities of PhotoShop, but they only work within small parameters.
As for your link to the graphire tablet, sorry I should have said a bluetooth Intuos caliber tablet. I agree that graphire doesn't have the features I want.
Do you realize that 12 bit means 36 bit (12 bits per channel) and that 16 bit means 48 bit? 12 bit isn't so much worse that the 16 bits that the scanner can give you. Not all scanners can even give 16 bit - often they scan at 12 or 14 bits, and the confusion comes from the fact that photoshop works in 8 or 16 bit modes, and anything that falls in between gets labeled 16 bit, so as not to lose data.
But there is still no quality advantages to use RAW over TIFF. That's what I was trying to get at.
At least that's my understanding of it.
Although I'm not sure that the same holds true for say, Vuescan DNG files.