(Continued — 2)

There are also a few glitches that appear to be attributed to Adobe’s new Photoshop 6 palettes where some of the drop-down menus in the scan software show Photoshop options the first time you select them, and not the options for the plug-in. Presumably, this doesn’t happen in Photoshop 5. We did not test the plug-in for compatibilty with non-Photoshop imaging tools that can use Photoshop plug-ins, and there is no standalone scanning option.

On the hardware side, the unit performs flawlessly. The USB connection had no problems or lock-ups, and filmstrips load and eject cleanly with nothing to snag or damage them if power were to fail suddenly.

Each time you insert a piece of film, the software takes 45 seconds to calibrate to the film density. It will repeat this even if you install the same filmstrip, so for high-production work, this could become tedious since you can’t simply save this calibration and skip the step for the other strips from a single roll. A pre-scan of a five-frame strip takes about 2.5 minutes to complete.

But the unit is relatively fast, taking about 5.5 minutes to scan a 63.8MB image to disk, with a low sharpen procedure during the scan phase. One of the strengths of this unit is in its batch-scanning to disk. Once calibrated and after your specific adjustments are made in the software window, you can walk off and let the unit do its work scanning an entire film strip (or an entire roll presumably, although you would need to provide your own reels or something on the output end to keep the film from harm).

Of course, the proof is in the scan, and I was very impressed with the scan quality of the Kodak Professional RFS 3600. For testing, I chose some images I shot on Seattle Filmworks’ Kodak motion picture film loaded into 35mm cannisters. This film is somewhat unique because it has no edge identifying film type, and it is a bit on the grainy side, but with excellent tonality (you can generally see everything in shaded areas). After scanning some shots I took of the Golden Gate Bridge, I was very pleased by the excellent scan quality, both as 63MB files and 5.5MB files. Certainly the grain was there, and I preferred the Photoshop unsharp mask filter to the plug-in’s sharpening feature, but the detail was quite good and far exceeded anything I could do with my aging flatbed. The fine detail in the image was well captured and the colors were spot-on for my calibrated monitor.

I am still not convinced that a quick start guide, albeit nicely done, is a replacement for a printed manual. Documentation is provided in PDF on CD, and at least the plug-in has a direct link to the PDF (you can press a button in the software to read the PDF documentation). The problems with the software will likely be addressed through a driver update since this product shipped right before Photoshop 6 was released.

Overall, I was very pleased with the Kodak Professional RFS 3600. It certainly has the features and performance required by most imaging professionals for average 35mm film scanning duties. It does an exceptional job of focusing on mounted slides, easily changing focus to counter any bowing or bulging that may have occured in the processing and mounting.

My only complaints were the plug-in compatibility on the Mac platform with Photoshop 6, some quirks in the scanning software related to sizing, and the lack of printed documentation. Otherwise, the RFS 3600 is an excellent scanner for 35mm format films, providing superior results.

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