Critique this image (great spangled fritillary on Butterfly weed) to your heart's content, but I'm more interested in help with a scanner problem. My HP Photosmart scanner now inserts a horizontal line about 1/4 down from the top border on all scans (looks like a scratch on the slide). I've cleaned the mirror and other internal components with compressed air, recalibrated, and reinstalled the software. No change. Getting through to HP's support line is remarkably difficult. Anybody have any idea of what the cause is, and whether I can remedy it myself? Many thanks.

-- Peter May (peter.may@stetson.edu), July 06, 1999

Answers

Hi Peter,

beauty photo. As for the scanne issue, have you tried using another driver? I have tried the PScan32 driver which is available as freeware and it works much more effieiently, and it is also relatively NOISE-FREE. Of course, if you aren't using windows, then I don't know what you could do. I don't suppose it's still under warranty by any chance?

By the way, the PScan32 home page is at http://www.mecc.co.jp/le nik/psmart.htm. Good luck, and keep those beautiful pics coming!

-- Daryl Hiebert (dektol@altavista.net), July 06, 1999.

anderings about the web since my earlier post, I'd like to add 2 links that you might find interesting:

• Andrew Kim's review of the HP Photosmart where he says he had to return his on accont of dark strips in his scans.
• Steve Hoffman's review where he details noise and artifacts of scanning.

Hope that helps.

-- Daryl Hiebert (dhiebe@po-box.mcgill.ca), July 06, 1999.

Sorry, it appears that for some reason (most likely ME), the first part of my post is missing. I meant to say that somehow in my meanderings about the web that I had found the mentioned sites....

-- Daryl Hiebert (dhiebe@po-box.mcgill.ca), July 07, 1999.

Fantastic shot.

I think you need to return the scanner though. My guess is a defective CCD.

Have you inspected each of the R, G, B channels in Photoshop?

BTW, you never want to use canned air on the mirror, if it's anything like a camera mirror...

Do you get the scratch when scanning prints too, or only slides? The location of the scratch when scanning prints will help the HP techs diagnose the problem.

Good luck! Keith

-- Keith Clark (ClarkPhotography@spiritone.com), July 09, 1999.

Thanks a ton, Darryl and Keith. The offending scan has been replaced with a new one sans line. The HP folks were remarkably helpful when I got through to them, and I received a replacement scanner the day after I talked to the HP representative.

-- Peter May (peter.may@stetson.edu), July 09, 1999.

Hi Peter -- that's great to hear that your scanner is fixed. You'll be needing it often if this great butterfly closeup is any indication. Is this with your new 200mm macro as is, or was additional close-up hardware employed?

-- John Sullivan (sullivan@spies.com), July 09, 1999.

John,

Thanks. This was the unadulterated 200, probably at f11 or 16, with SB-28 flash off camera, in TTL mode. Pretty much a glorified point and shoot, though I don't use the autofocus feature very often. Keep your fingers crossed - the snakes (including a timber in the wild) will be coming back from the processor soon, I hope.

Peter

-- Peter May (peter.may@stetson.edu), July 10, 1999.