Instruction/ maintenance manual of the product 7 Better Light
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Large F ormat D igital Scanning Camera S ystem Revision D March 2007 U ser ’ s M anual featuring… Digital Scanning Camera S oftware.
2 Ackno wledgements Better Light acknowledges and is grateful for the har d work and dedication of its employees. Additionally , Better Light acknowledges the contributions of its Beta testers and industry colleagues.
CAUTION! PINCH HAZARD: DO NOT OPERA TE INSERT OUTSIDE CAMERA. A TTENTION! DANGER DE PINCEMENT : NE P AS EMPLOYER A VEC L ’INSERTION A L ’EXTERIEUR DE LA CAMERA. ACHTUNG! ZWICKGEF AHR: NICHT AUSSERHALB DER KAMERA BETREIBEN VERLETZUNGSGEF AHR. W arning: This is a class A product.
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5 Contents P arts List .......................................................................................................................................10 Connector Identification ................................................................
6 Automatically N aming Images ...................................................................................................31 Adding N otes to Y our Picture .......................................................................................
7 Changing Existing Color Balances ......................................................................................52 Deleting Color Balances ...................................................................................................... 52 Altering Color Balance for M ood or Effect .
8 Adding N otes to Y our Pictures ............................................................................................68 Exporting N otes .........................................................................................................
9 Appendices ....................................................................................................................................84 Appendix A - Cleaning the CCD Co ver Glass ............................................................
10 P ar ts List 1. Control Unit (1) 2. Insert (1) 3. Double shielded cable (1) 4. USB cable (1) 5. Power supply(1) 6. Power cord(1) [not shown] 7. Filters (1 daylight, 1 tungsten) 8.
11 Connector I dentification.
12 Getting S tar ted Installing and Configur ing the ViewF inder ™ S oftware Insert the CD containing the V iewFinder™ camera contr ol software and copy the entire camera software folder and its contents to the Applications folder on y our computer’ s hard disk.
13 M emor y Requir ements e V iewFinder™ softwar e requires about 20,000K bytes (about 20 MB) of memory to operate, as shown in its Get I nfo window .
14 Quick S tart Guide 1. Connect the camera insert to the control unit Plug the male end of the insert connector into the DB-25 socket on the camera control unit into the (marked as “DB-25 Insert Connector ” in the connector identification image on page 8).
15 3. Connect the AC po wer to the control unit U se only an approved po wer cord with a plug appropriate for the pow er receptacles of the region. e camera has an external universal pow er adapter , able to operate from any AC v oltage between 100 and 240 volts nominal, 47 to 63 Hz single phase, without changing switches or jumpers.
16 of the ground glass to position the viewing ar ea correctly . e outside of the mask can be trimmed with a pair of sharp scissors for a better fit in certain view cameras.
17 a lens shade is recom- mended to reduce possible filter flare. e infrared filter can be fitted to most smaller 4x5 lenses by means of a clip-on filter holder (not supplied), usually sold for use with 35 mm cameras.
18 12. P rescan Click the button to take a quick scan of the image. Check the prescan image to make certain that the intended image is displayed in the preview . Adjust the camera and software settings and make additional prescans until the intended image is achieved.
19 P rescanning e usual method of operating the Better Light camera centers around the tasks of prescanning the scene, adjusting parameters to achieve the intended image, then scanning the final image.
20 F ast P rescans e F ast Pr escan checkbox in the main control area selects between normal pr escans (unchecked), per - formed at exactly the line time and color balance (sen - sitivity) selected.
21 Cropped P rescans P rescans always scan and refresh the entir e image area unless the C rop Pr escan box is checked. When the Cr op Pr escan box is checked, only the cropped area indicated in the preview screen will be scanned, which can greatly reduce the o verall prescan time.
22 S uper View P rescans is is a feature that allows a quick scan of a prescan sized ar ea in the image at the current r esolution. is is a great feature for checking focus and depth of field without having to make a full scan and opening the image in Photoshop.
23 Saving and Viewing P r escans After a prescan has been made the Save P r escan… option may be selected from the File menu. When selected, the current, adjusted preview image data is saved as a TIFF image file into the folder selected in the Save F ile dialog box that will appear .
24 Rulers Selecting S how Rulers from the Display menu will cause rulers to be displayed on the top and left edges of the preview image. Command-R (Control-R in Windows) can also be used to turn rulers on and off. e rulers are shown in the curr ent units selected on the Size tab panel.
25 I mage Captur e S ettings Resolution T o change the selected resolution, click the R esolution Incr ease or D ecrease button. Each click will select the next higher or next lower setting. Click and hold either button to advance rapidly through the available selections.
26 fewer , effectively larger pixels. is process always samples the entire image area, does not skip lines, and thus is immune to aliasing caused by subsampling (skipping pixels).
27 Line T ime ese up/down pushbuttons select the integration time for each line in a scan, and are the digital equivalent of the shutter time. As with film, the primary controls for determining ex.
28 e Scan T ime readout displays the o verall scan time for the selected Scan Ar ea, Resolution , and Line Time settings. e o verall scan time is simply the (actual) time per line multiplied by the number of lines in the scan.
29 Exposur e Lock Clicking on the Exposur e Lock button switches the exposure lock on or off. When on , changing the Line Time will automatically change the ISO to maintain the same exposur e. Changing the ISO will correspondingly change the Line T ime to maintain the same exposure.
30 Scanning After the prescan image has been inspected and the exposure and other image characteristics hav e been adjusted to give the desired r esults (as viewed in the preview) then the final image is captured by clicking on the button. e camera will then begin the final scan process, storing the image on the Control U nit disk drive.
31 used for other operations while the scan continues in the background. If , during a scan to the cam- era ’ s disk drive, the program is exited, the scan will continue until its normal conclusion and cannot be canceled until the V iewFinder™ program is r e-entered.
32 If Auto N aming is active, you can add mor e words, edit or r eplace the auto entry data by editing the entry in the filename field on the main control panel before the scan is made. e image file name will have a “.tif ” filetype extension automatically appended to the filename when saved to the host computer .
33 Exposur e E valuation Digital S pot M eter ing e camera control software includes two types of digital spot meters . e first is a “live ” spot meter that displays information about the image as the cursor is moved within the pr eview area.
34 Determining R elative Exposur e e digital spot meter can be used to quickly measure exposure v alues in an image and to help determine proper exposure and tone curve selection.
35 S tatic S pot M eter T ool During exposure, color balance, and tone curve selection, the same regions in an image often need to be metered repeatedly as changes ar e made. e digital spot meter features static spots that mark locations on the image and display the metered values for these points on the Color and T one tab panels.
36 Setting the S pot M eter S ize e number of pixels used to determine spot meter readings can be selected from the S pot Meter S ize popup menu above the histogram. e choices for displaying the data are either a single pixel (1x1), or the av er - age of a square group of pix els (3x3 or 5x5).
37 Histogram In addition to the location-specific image information pro vided by the spot meter , a histogram display presents overall image expo - sure information at a glance for the currently selected cr op area.
38 against the left (zero) side of the histogram, the image is probably underexposed, and will be dark. Likewise, if a significant portion of the image data is above the desired value for highlight detail, the image is prob - ably over exposed, and will be bright.
39 T ool Bar Magnify T ool e preview may be enlarged (“ zoomed in ”) by selecting the Magnify tool from the top set of buttons or by pressing and holding the Command key (Contr ol key in Windo ws) and clicking in the preview at the point of interest.
40 M easur e T ool (Mac only) e distance between two points in the preview image may be measured b y selecting the Measur e tool from the top set of buttons. Click in the preview to mark the start of the distance to be measured and drag to the end of the distance.
41 T oneZones ™ T ool Selecting the T oneZones™ tool from the top set of buttons will colorize the pr eview image to allow for rapid assessment of the image tones. When the T oneZones™ tool is selected, the grayscale beneath the histogram display will be replaced by a color zone display and a popup menu.
42 Sets of T oneZones™ may be saved, named and reused b y using the popup menu below the T one- Zones™ color bar . Once a set of zones is made, click on the T oneZones™ popup and select N ew Set - ting , then give the setting a name in the dialog box that appears.
43 Crop M ask T ool When working with cropped areas for scanning, a cr op mask may be displayed on the preview by selecting the C rop Mask tool from the top set of buttons or by pressing and holding the Com- mand key (Control key in Windows) and pressing and r eleasing the slash key (/) (aka virgule key).
44 When manual grid adjustment is used, the values in the grid spacing fields in the P ref - erences ar e automatically adjusted to reflect the manual settings.
45 T ab P anels Siz e P anel Scan Ar ea & Cropping F or those instances not requiring the full scan area of the camera, fully v ariable image cropping is pro vided.
46 e crop r ectangle may be locked to maintain the aspect ratio proportional to the size indicated by the Scan Area displays by clicking on the Lock Crop Ratio button in the size tab panel. e button will change to a icon and the aspect ratio of the crop rectangle will be locked out to any manual changes.
47 on Windows) is held do wn while the Insert Direction popup is selected, or if the Rotate with Image option is checked in the P refer ences. Dimension settings can be stored and r eused with the Setting popup menu (F igure D).
48 Resolution is independent of the crop ratio. Once cr op shape and size is set, select the reso- lution (file size) that you wish to use. Ho wever , if y ou type in a different pixel density (e.g. pixels per inch) the crop box siz e will change since it alters the size of the file needed.
49 F aster Scans for F r ee! In many instances, the requir ed image file size will be smaller than the maximum available from the scanning camera. In these cases, it may be advantageous to r otate th.
50 Color P anel Color balance adjustments are used to neutralize unwanted color casts, and also to introduce intentional color casts for mood or effect.
51 If a grayscale or car d is not used, a white background or neutral tones of the subject itself could be used for the color balance. (It is best to use an R GB value that falls in the linear portion of the tone cur ve, typically between 85 and 200).
52 Changing Existing Color Balances Any existing color balance setting can be altered by first selecting the setting from the Color Balance popup menu. en make any desired color changes by entering new color balance or filter values, or by performing another Auto B alance .
53 Reverting to a P r evious Color Balance e Revert button may be used to return to the set of color balance numbers in effect befor e the last Auto B alance was per formed. Revert will also change the filter numbers back to their pr evious values.
54 T one P anel T onal adjustments are most often used to make changes in the overall contrast range of an image, or to make changes to the placement of midtone values without affecting highlight or shadow values (or to make changes in highlight values without affecting midtone or shadow values, etc.
55 also reduced, since the dominant colors are “bright ”, and the secondary colors are “ dark ”, and this dif- ference is reduced along with the o verall image contrast.
56 e second method for 16 bits per color images is selected by clicking on the small button. e current tone curve will be applied to the image in 16-bit mode. e resulting file size will be dou - bled as it was for “N one 14-bit”, but will open in the image processing application (e.
57 Y ou can change the pivot point of the contrast buttons by sliding the z ero position of the scale at the bottom of the tone curve. Drag the zero EV mar ker to the desired location, then hold the Option key ( Alt key on Windo ws) while the contrast buttons are clicked and the curve will pivot at the zero position.
58 Limit Line On the left side of the tone graph is a curved green line that never mo ves. is is the line that denotes the limit for conversion from the 14-bits/channel of the raw camera image to 8-bits/channel in the image file without skipping any values.
59 T one Curve Histogram While the T one panel is active, a histogram of the image data appears in a gray color in the tone curve graph. e shape of this histogram is different from the one in the main window because it is based on the raw 14-bit image data, not the converted 8-bit data shown in the prescan image.
60 Saving T one Curves After creating or modifying a tone curve, you may wish to save the new curve; either as startup preferences, or as part of a custom setting. S elect the New S etting option from the T one Curve popup menu (Windows), or the Add S etting button next to the T one Curve popup menu (Mac), at the bottom of the T one tab panel.
61 F ocus P anel is digital camera system provides an extr emely accurate method of verifying correct image focus after the device has been inserted into the view camera. F ocus can be checked and adjusted at any point in the image, using data from the CCD image sensor itself.
62 Selecting a F ocus S ite ere are sev eral factors to consider when select- ing locations within an image for focus verification. e focus-quality algorithm displays the aggregate differences.
63 As the focus is adjusted on a view camera, the image also changes size, and therefor e moves slightly as a function of its distance from the optical axis.
64 In addition to the “ waveform ” graphic display , the pixel data fr om each line segment is analyzed by the computer , using algorithms that detect and amplify the differences in brightness between adja - cent pixels. e r esult from this analysis is displayed both as a number in large type, and as a bar graph.
65 be added to the displays. All three channels may be selected for simultaneous display . As mentioned earlier , this focusing system is so accurate that it is often possible to determine slightly different best- focus positions for each color , even when using the finest apochromatic lenses.
66 I mage F ile Management and R etrieval Digital scanning cameras can easily generate gigabytes of image data in a single day . e transfer , handling, and storage of this amount of information should be carefully considered to optimiz e both time and efficiency .
67 e ViewF inder ™ F ile M anager Images stored on the digital camera ’ s internal disk drive can be accessed by using the camera control software ’ s File M anager dialog, which is started from the F ile menu, or by typing its keyboard shortcut Command-F ( Control-F in Windows).
68 If Auto S ave is activated and you wish to save the files to another drive or r emovable media, be sure to uncheck the A uto Save box in the F ile Manager window . is will temporar - ily disable Auto Sav e (it does not change the Pr eferences settings).
69 Automatically S aving Files to a F older When the Automatically sav e scans function is activated in the Pr eferences , the files selected in the File Manager will be sav ed to the folder location you have specified in the Pr eferences .
70 Retrieving I mage Files e File Manager pr ovides a very flexible method of transferring image files from the camera disk drive to any destination folder on the host computer , including shared folders on other networked computers.
71 Selecting the R etrieval T one Curve (USB controller only) Images are stor ed on the controller’ s internal hard drive in 16-bit raw mode (as though you had selected the “N one 14-bit” tone curve in the T one panel).
72 Deleting Image F iles Images scanned to the camera ’ s internal disk drive remain on the drive until specifically deleted. is provides an extra lev el of backup protection for a job in progress, but can eventually clog the drive if images are not deleted r egularly .
73 M enus F ile M enu F ile Manager ⌘ F (Control-F in W indows) Opens the F ile Manager windo w . Save P r escan ⌘ S (Control-S in W indows) Saves the pr escan image as a TIFF file (including the adjustments made to produce the cur- rent preview image).
74 Quit ⌘ Q (Control-Q in W indows) (under the ViewF inder window on Mac OS X) Closes the program. Edit M enu Cut ⌘ X (M ac only) Cut the selected text fr om the edit field to the Clipboard. Copy ⌘ C (Mac only) Copy the selected text from the edit field to the Clipboard.
75 Display M enu Insert Dir ection Selects the insert orientation, as viewed from behind the camera. T oneZones™ Selects the T oneZones™ false-coloring tool. Crop M ask ⌘ (Control- in Windo ws) Selects the Cr op Mask tool. G rid ⌘ ’ (Control-’ in Windo ws) Selects the G rid tool.
76 Zoom to 100% ⌘ 0 (Control-Alt-0 in Windows) Zooms the preview image to 100%. N ormalize Histogram ⌘ N (Contr ol-N in Windows) When selected, scales the histogram display to fit all the data into the display area. Controls on Right P ositions ViewF inder’ s controls on the right side of the windo w .
77 Captur e M ode Selects the type of image capture: Color - a full color image is captured. Red - only the red channel is imaged. G reen - only the green channel is imaged. Blue - only the blue channel is imaged. N ote: this menu option is linked to the popup menu on the main ViewF inder window and duplicates its functionality .
78 U ser P r efer ences Some of the operating parameters of the camera control software can be customized for easier use, as determined by the type of imaging being done, and the prefer ences of the camera operator .
79 A folder may also be selected as the preferred location for saving pr escans when the Save P rescan… menu option is selected from the F ile menu. Click the P rescan F older… (PC) or Choose (Mac) button to bring forward a dialog box for selecting the pr escan folder .
80 N ote that if the name for a saved prescan r emains unchanged after a previous pr escan with that name already being display ed in Photoshop, the new prescan data will o ver write the existing imag.
81 G rid e default color and spacing of the vertical and horizontal rulings for the Grid tool can be set with the controls in the G rid area of the Pr eferences windo w . When the Color button is clicked, the System Color P icker window appears. Select the color for the grid lines and click on the OK button.
82 U sing Sounds At the conclusion of each prescan or final scan, a sound may be played. e Play sound when scan finishes and Play sound when pr escan finishes options may be used to activate this capability . e sound to be played is selected by clicking on the Choose Sound… button.
83 T ime Lapse I t is now possible to make time lapse sequences. Check the T ime Lapse checkbox, then fill in the time in seconds between images and the total number of images to make. When the Scan button is clicked, the time lapse sequence will start.
84 A ppendix A Cleaning the CCD Cov er Glass F irst, position the camera insert face up on a clean, stable surface. Use the Clean/P ark menu option to move the CCD to its cleaning position. e camera may r emain turned on during the cleaning procedure.
85 A ppendix B Manipulating E xposur e e Better Light digital camera system pro vides a ver y flexible set of controls for adjusting both exposure and processing.
86 Incr easing the line time is the “ cleanest” method of incr easing exposure. Doubling the line time yields one EV (f-stop) of incr eased sensitivity , but only increases the background noise level by 1.4 times. Color Balance (S ensitivity) Controls the relative sensitivity of each color channel; continuously adjustable in 0.
87 e philosophy of stopping down to f/32 (or smaller) that was often done with film and strobes is not the best practice for high-r esolution digital capture. M ost lens manufacturers say that the best overall image quality is obtained 2 f-stops belo w “ wide open ” (e.
88 A ppendix C Line T ime Settings Selected Line T ime Actual Line T ime ____________________________________ Exact 60 Hz 50 Hz 1/3000 sec. 0.33 msec. 0.33 msec. 0.33 msec. 1/1500 sec. 0.67 msec. 0.67 msec. 0.67 msec. 1/1000 sec. 1.00 msec. 1.00 msec.
89 A ppendix D Resolution S elections model 4000E-HS file size (MB) resolution pixels lines 24-bits 48-bits 100% 3750 5000 53.6 107.3 80% 3000 4000 34.
90 S uper 6K-HS file size (MB) resolution pixels lines 24-bits 48-bits 150% 9000 12000 309.0 618.0 137% 8250 11000 259.6 519.3 125% 7500 10000 214.6 429.2 112% 6750 9000 173.8 347.6 100% 6000 8000 137.3 274.7 87% 5250 7000 105.1 210.3 75% 4500 6000 77.
91 S uper 8K-HS file size (MB) resolution pixels lines 24-bits 48-bits 150% 12000 15990 549.0 1097.9 142% 11333 15101 489.6 979.3 133% 10666 14213 433.7 867.4 125% 10000 13325 381.2 762.5 117% 9333 12436 332.1 664.1 108% 8666 11548 286.3 572.6 100% 8000 10660 244.
92 A ppendix E S tatus Indicators P ow er e camera controller has an LED that indicates the status of the pow er to the unit. is LED also indicates whether the Better Light rechargeable battery is charging (if connected).
93 A ppendix F P anoramic Adapter e Better Light P ano/WideV iew can capture images for three types of panoramas; scene, rollout and object. Scene panoramas are when the camera is turned to capture an image of it ’ s surroundings. A rollout panorama is a single image of the surface of an object as it is turned.
94 necessary to know the exact number of rotation degrees in advance. U se the rotate stage buttons at the bottom of the tab panel to position the camera before the desired start of the panorama. en put a value into the P review Extent field that will be gr eater than the actual desired value.
95 Rollout P anorama Har dware S etup F or a rollout, the camera is fixed to a tripod and the stepper stage unit is placed on a firm, non- skid surface in such a manner that it will not turn as the motor is activated. A flat platform is attached to the stage armature then mounted to the stepper motor stage.
96 Object P anorama Har dware S etup e hardwar e is assembled just as it is for a Rollout panorama. Softwar e Operation F or this operation, begin by selecting the Auto N aming option, A utomatically Save Scans and a Scan Destination F older in the Pr eferences window .
97 A ppendix G Error M essages (not to be confused with Macintosh OS error message numbers) Camera Err ors “Camera r eported error: Busy ” e camera is busy doing something that prevents the r equested action.
98 “Camera r eported error: V alue Error ” e camera controller returns this error when an incoming parameter v alue is successfully con- verted to a number , but is out of range or otherwise inappropriate. is message should never be encountered in normal operation.
99 “er e is not enough free space on this volume to save the selected file. ” is error message may be encountered when attempting to r etrieve a file from the camera ’ s disk, saving a scan to RAM, or saving a preview image. e file volume (the user ’ s hard drive, remo vable media, network drive, etc.
An important point after buying a device Better Light 7 (or even before the purchase) is to read its user manual. We should do this for several simple reasons:
If you have not bought Better Light 7 yet, this is a good time to familiarize yourself with the basic data on the product. First of all view first pages of the manual, you can find above. You should find there the most important technical data Better Light 7 - thus you can check whether the hardware meets your expectations. When delving into next pages of the user manual, Better Light 7 you will learn all the available features of the product, as well as information on its operation. The information that you get Better Light 7 will certainly help you make a decision on the purchase.
If you already are a holder of Better Light 7, but have not read the manual yet, you should do it for the reasons described above. You will learn then if you properly used the available features, and whether you have not made any mistakes, which can shorten the lifetime Better Light 7.
However, one of the most important roles played by the user manual is to help in solving problems with Better Light 7. Almost always you will find there Troubleshooting, which are the most frequently occurring failures and malfunctions of the device Better Light 7 along with tips on how to solve them. Even if you fail to solve the problem, the manual will show you a further procedure – contact to the customer service center or the nearest service center
