Best scanner settings for newbie...

[MiniMoke]

Hi all,

I am a recent re-convert to film photography and rangefinder cameras.

I bought a Plustek 8200i with Silverfast SE software and I am desperately trying to find the ideal settings for scanning high quality B/W negs. (Trying B&W first as I really prefer it.... I leave color to my X100.... for the moment)

What I'm trying to achieve:

I want to be able to get a reasonable quality scan and to be able to print 4x6" standards and occasionally some 10x15" pictures or slightly bigger for framing (of course viewed from further away, so no first grade quality needed).

What are the best settings to use?? Uo to now I get only mediocre results and I'm getting tired tweaking the scanner settings..

Please tell me someone can help me take this hurdle.

 

[venchka]

I could help with Epson Scan. Sorry. I quit Silverfast ages ago.

Wayne

 

[kuzano]

I Don't!!!

I Don't!!!

Hi all,

I am a recent re-convert to film photography and rangefinder cameras.

I bought a Plustek 8200i with Silverfast SE software and I am desperately trying to find the ideal settings for scanning high quality B/W negs. (Trying B&W first as I really prefer it.... I leave color to my X100.... for the moment)

What I'm trying to achieve:

I want to be able to get a reasonable quality scan and to be able to print 4x6" standards and occasionally some 10x15" pictures or slightly bigger for framing (of course viewed from further away, so no first grade quality needed).

What are the best settings to use?? Uo to now I get only mediocre results and I'm getting tired tweaking the scanner settings..

Please tell me someone can help me take this hurdle.

After trying for some time to use scanners, I quit.

First, I fought with the OEM software... Epson
Then, I fought with Vuescan
Then, I fought with Silverfast SE

Hated them all, but ended up using OEM just to get the best scan and no image processing at the point of scan.

Then I bought better holders (BetterScanning)

Came to the conclusion that do in ANY image processing with the scanner software was hopeless, and opted later Post Processing in software designed specifically for image editing. The scanner is not a good image processor and necessarily neither is scanning software. A scanner should be used simply to get a good image into a usable digital format.... not preclude or degrade further image editing in good editing software.

For instance, sharpen in the scanner software, and you may be limiting "sharpening" in Photoshop, etc. It's far too early in the process to sharpen at the scan level.

It's incredibly time consuming just to get the best image one can without trying to process in scanner software, but I decided to just get the best basic scans with the Epson OEM SW,

Ultimately, if I could get good 35 scans (which I rarely shoot any more) I couldn't get good MF. If I achieved good results on one, the techniques for the other were different.

Final result... Scanner GONE!. I have my images scanned when the film is processed (Oh Yeah-I don't process my own film- no darkroom and I don't want to do it anyway).

I don't always have full rolls of MF scanned HD, but may choose select negs/transparencies.

I tried 4 scanners off and on over the last ten years. Results always the same. (but I admit... all were flatbed and not the cheapest) And since MF is more important to me dedicated MF scanners were always too expensive.

Good luck.

The bottom line I have seen over and over... You will spend a disproportionate amount of time seeking good scanning on flatbed scanners. Film processers have skilled people who do nothing but. And that's if you get good references for a good processor.

I prefer to spend my time shooting images. And I do weigh more to the film side in my shooting.

I leave it to others to rebutt my findings, but none of them will convince me that my time and effort is well spent on scanning images to digital format.

I make $80 per hour working on computers and I can find plenty of that kind of work, which I actually enjoy. I cannot afford to pay myself $80 per hour to do photo scanning, and be frustrated in the process. I do nothing without considering time value.

 

[j j]

Do as little tweaking of scanner settings as you can. Just set the white and black points so you are not clipping either one. Scan. Then take your scan into whatever image processing software you use and correct it there.

 

[johannielscom]

What j j says.

My tool of choice is Lightroom because it can handle bulk adjustments. Only when more specific tweaking is necessary do I boot up Photoshop.

 

[Michalm]

Congratulations on choosing film and rangefinder excellent choice. Here is what you need : Create linear , scan you will have to scan negative as positive and gamma vlaue set to 1 - this gets you equivalent of raw file from camera= doing so you will not have to re-scan the same frame again and again to get better results. Second stage is to invert file using negfix8 script (free) and third to tweak file to your test which i find easiest in Litghtroom. Look here http://www.colorneg.com/scanning_slides_and_negatives/scans/Lasersoft_Imaging/SilverFast_8/SE/Ai/ and then here https://sites.google.com/site/negfix/howto

 

[venchka]

I was never here.

Wayne

 

[MiniMoke]

Great, thanks all for your input!

Just one thing, I'm fiddling with the resolution settings and don't really know what I'm doing. What size shall I select in Silverfast (4 x 6", A4.....?????) and what resolution (1800, 2400, 3600???)

 

[Mablo]

It's been a while since I used Silverfast SE 8 with my Plustek scanner but I'll give my two cents worth. For any b&w film:

From the 'Image' menu on the toolbar, choose:

-Image type - Negative
-Color depth - 16bit HDR (meaning the scanner will scan the neg twice)

From 'Tools' menu on the toolbar:

-Make sure 'ME' is activated (Multi-exposure)

Now move on the right side of the screen where you find 'WorkFlowPilot' menu:

On the Submenu 'ScanDimensions':

-Give a suitable filename for your neg files
-Select path where they can be found
-Choose: 'TIFF'
-Format: 'Custom'
-Preset: Custom (3600dpi)

On the Submenu 'NegaFix':

Vendor: 'Other'
Filmtype: 'Other'
ISO/ASA: 'Standard'

Leave all other submenus as they are.

Now click 'Prescan' and when it finishes crop it on the screen and click 'Scan'.

Now you should have a 16bit .tiff file. You need an image processing software to do processing in 16bit mode. Then save as your .tiff file to 8bit jpg format.

Hope this helps a bit.

 

[MiniMoke]

Thanks for the clear and easy to follow instructions!

 

[DrTebi]

Congratulations on choosing film and rangefinder excellent choice. Here is what you need : Create linear , scan you will have to scan negative as positive and gamma vlaue set to 1 - this gets you equivalent of raw file from camera= doing so you will not have to re-scan the same frame again and again to get better results. Second stage is to invert file using negfix8 script (free) and third to tweak file to your test which i find easiest in Litghtroom. Look here http://www.colorneg.com/scanning_slides_and_negatives/scans/Lasersoft_Imaging/SilverFast_8/SE/Ai/ and then here https://sites.google.com/site/negfix/howto

I agree with Michalm.

After trying many methods of adjusting scanner settings etc., I found that it's really best to scan the images as "raw" images, or linear images. Most scanning software supports this. Even my Canoscan 4000US allows me to do that--here it is the "monitor gamma" setting, which should be at 1.

Then I use the ColorPerfect plugin for Photoshop, and I am pretty much done. I usually don't even bother with any settings in ColorPerfect, and I use Photoshop only for cropping. It couldn't be simpler than that.

I haven't tried the NegFix script yet, it's free while ColorPerfect costs 79 Euros.

Regarding resolution... you probably want to always scan at the highest resolution. That way you can always down-size your image later, according to your needs (print size etc.), if need be. Up-sizing is a big no-no.

Give ColorPefect a shot, it's free to try. It really works for me, I don't want to spend hours on Lightroom or any other software trying to get the image to look as it should. If I do want some final editing, by the way, I use Photivo. It's free and I find it much more useful for the last tweaking of images than any other photo editor, including Photoshop.

Just my 2 cents.