HP PhotoSmart S20 Scanner Test Images
A word about our scanner testing philosophy: Some publications
have taken the position of scanning everything using the scanner's
default settings, believing this to be most fair, neutral methodology.
The problem with this approach is it may show unacceptable results
for an otherwise perfectly usable scanner. (Most users are willing
to engage in some tweaking of the scanning parameters to get
the best result.) For our part, we believe the most accurate
representation of real-world performance is to allow for a reasonable
level of twiddling of the scan parameters. In the interest of
objectivity though, we also show scans performed with default
settings, to provide a completely neutral reference point. Also note that all images here have been JPEG compressed for compatibility with 'web browsers. This will degrade image quality somewhat, but we used a very conservative compression setting ("9" in Photoshop for the images below) to minimize this. |
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"Musicians
II" image: (760k) The main
image here was scanned at 1200x800 pixels (maximum res is about
3600 x 2400), and no tonal adjustments were made. Normally,
we'd comment here about all the manual adjustments we made to
improve the scan, but in this case, we didn't feel any were needed!
Here's a sample with the sharpening set
to 60, (1100k) (beautiful!) up from
the default value of 15 used in the main
scan (760k) (NOTE that this is NOT the identical "Musicians" image as used in our digital cameras test! It's very similar, but the models are different, and the digital-camera version is a couple of reproduction generations removed from this particular version.) |
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"Musicians II" detail clip:
(756k) The PhotoSmart's 2400 dpi is solidly
in the mainstream of high-resolution film scanners. This clip
was taken from a maximum-resolution scan of the Musicians II
image. Note how easily you can see individual strands of the
model's hair, and how completely free from pixelation the overall
image is! We mentioned earlier how well and subtly the PhotoSmart's
sharpening algorithm worked: The table below has links to samples
scanned with sharpening settings of 30, 60, and 100 (the default
value is 15). The setting of 100 is really too much, as it tends
to emphasize noise & grain, but overall the sharpening is
really beautiful. (Well, maybe we wax a little euphoric, but
it's really, really good!) Here's a composite
(288K) of the small shots we referenced
in the main review, showing the effects of Photoshop unsharp
masking (top), default sharpening in the scanner (center), and
scanner sharpening set to 60 (bottom).
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Kodak Royal Gold 25
"House" detail clip: (596k)
This is a detail clip from the same negative used to produce
the "house" poster for our digital camera tests. It
was shot on Kodak Royal Gold 25 film, which is extremely fine-grained,
but which has very different color characteristics from most
normal color negative films. The new PhotoSmart did a fairly
good job of handling this unusual film producing a default
scan (556k) that's somewhat light
and a little reddish, but overall surprisingly well-balanced
for this subject. This was one of the few images we had to tweak
manually to improve relative to the default settings: For our
main image (596k),
we stretched both the highlight and shadow portions of the tonal
range, and moved the color balance a bit more toward green and
away from magenta. Print scan sample: We also ran a low-res scan of a mini-lab print (604k) made from this negative, showing the color balance there, which was more normal. (The strangeness of the film having been largely corrected for by the mini-lab photo printer.) |
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"Train" Shot (Extreme
shadow detail): (492k) This slide
is a tremendously tough test of scanner performance in extreme
shadow regions. The PhotoSmart S20 again did surprisingly well
here. The default scan (680k)
came out rather dark, as befits the subject. For our main
image (492k), we boosted the overall
brightness a fair bit, and the shadow values slightly. (We wanted
to open up the shadows, but also wanted the shadows to run all
the way to maximum black, to make best use of the tonal range.)
The result is quite good, on a par with many more-expensive scanners
we've tested. This shot (640k)
shows the results of some additional tweaking in Photoshop, bringing
out more detail in the shadows and adjusting the color balance
at that end of the tone curve somewhat. Overall, performance
on this difficult subject was very good, and noise was surprisingly
low for such an inexpensive input device. |
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Q60 Color Target:
(136k) Kodak's "Q60" color
target (formally adopted by the ISO as part of the IT8 color
standard) is a good test of color accuracy and tonal rendition.
Once again, we found no need to adjust the scanning options away
from their default settings! Tonal range is excellent, with even
step 22 of the grayscale showing some differentiation from step
21, although there's a fair bit of noise that far down, and the
color balance shifts to the magenta. Notably though, step 20
of the scale is very neutral in color, and shows almost no noise
at all. Color accuracy is excellent everywhere, with good saturation
in the strong primaries, but delicate handling of the pastels
as well. |
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"Davebox"
test target: (292k) As we've commented
on in the past, color negative film is weird, but the S20 seems
to handle most common types remarkably well. The main image (292k) here was shot on Kodak Gold 100, and
once again, we felt no need to adjust the scanning parameters
away from their default values. Print Scan sample: This image (320k) was
scanned from a print made from the Kodak Gold 100 negative used
above. It shows the lighter bands in the dark areas we noted
in the main review. Our test of the previous PhotoSmart scanner
using this subject showed light bands running across the image,
caused by shadows of the transport rollers affecting the calibration
process. We saw none of this behavior on our test unit of the
S20, but have heard from at least one reader saying he saw the
effect in his unit. For our part, it appears that this problem
is cured |
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WG-18 Resolution Target
Horizontal Clip: (48k) The full
WG-18 target is very large (see below), so we cropped-out these
snippets to show the scanner resolution on this familiar target.
The original shot here was taken on Kodak Tech Pan black &
white negative film, probably the highest-resolution film currently
made, shot with the very sharp Nikon 50mm f/1.4 lens. Still,
it is definitely not to be considered a laboratory-grade standard.
Nevertheless, this will give a fair indication of maximum performance
with the upper end of consumer-grade film emulsions. The horizontally
oriented target (vertical resolution) shows a visual resolution
of about 1400-1600 line pairs/picture height, a very good performance,
about the same as the earlier PhotoSmart. |
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WG-18 Resolution Target
Vertical Clip: (44k) Here's the
corresponding vertically-oriented clip of the WG-18/Kodak Tech
Pan target. Visual resolution is virtually identical to the horizontal
clip, although with perhaps a shade less contrast at the highest
line frequencies. Very impressive resolution performance! |
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Full-Size WG-18 Resolution Target: (1,292k!) For the real masochists, here's the full-size WG-18 target, scanned at the maximum resolution of 2400 dpi. A side note: We didn't explicitly set up a test for frame coverage by scanners, but our WG-18 shot goes right to the edges of the 35mm frame. This shot shows that the PhotoSmart S20 Scanner can scan all the way to (and even slightly beyond) the edges of the 35mm frame. WARNING: This JPEG expands to a 7.7 megabyte
file, which will may crash your browser if viewed directly!
To view it, you must first download it directly to your hard
drive (right-click in Windows, click & hold in Mac Netscape),
then open it in an image-editing application. Here is the link
to the RAW JPEG
IMAGE (1,292k!) (No surrounding HTML file.) |
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USAF 1951 Resolution
Target: (340k) (Elderly technoids
only ;-) Old-line lens and film testers will be well-familiar
with the "USAF 1951" resolution test target. (1951
is the year it was created, giving you an idea of what we mean
when we say "old-line".) This was scanned at the maximum
2400 dpi from a laboratory-grade target (chrome on glass slide)
before being cropped down, and would normally give an excellent
view of the scanner's ultimate capabilities. In this case though,
the exterior-surface test pattern falls slightly outside the
optimum focal range of the PhotoSmart's fixed-focus optics. The
results are still impressive, with the last distinguishable feature
being group 5, element 5 vertically, at 50.5 line cycles/mm (1290
line pairs/inch); and group 5, element 3 horizontally, at 40.3
line cycles/mm (1024 line pairs/inch). The short extent of the
USAF pattern targets doesn't permit the sort of visual interpolation
our eyes do naturally on the more extended WG-18 pattern. As
a result, the USAF target should yield much more conservative
resolution numbers. |