Best Possible Scans?

[Bill Pierce]

I know a lot of you shoot film. With the supply and variety of black and white enlarging paper growing less, I’m going to assume than many of you shooting b&w are scanning your film and printing the files on inkjet printers. I was particularly interested in how you were scanning.

At this end, I’m using an Imacon scanner, always making master scans of my color slides and old black-and-white negatives at the highest resolution (6300 dpi on this scanner). Because some of my black-and-white went through labs associated with news publications, because they were always afraid that a great news shot would be underexposed, a lot of that film is overdeveloped, dense, contrasty. So even my black-and-white negatives get scanned as transparencies and then converted to black-and-white positive images in Photoshop. This seems the most efficient and effective way to scan dense, contrasty negatives rather than the scanners settings for black-and-white negative film.

So what are you doing with your film and how do you get the best possible scans?

 

[gilpen123]

OT, I'm also interested to get some advance process ideas. I use a 5000ED with the Nikon software scan as B&W good results but may be better.

 

[kzphoto]

Bill, if I know I'm scanning black and white I like to use the channel mixer in Photoshop. I'll scan the film as color negative (48-bit) and then save the file. With the channel mixer, I can choose how much information I want from each channel. It's a great way to make your 'tough' b&w negs look much prettier.

 

[Dwig]

Bill, if I know I'm scanning black and white I like to use the channel mixer in Photoshop. I'll scan the film as color negative (48-bit) and then save the file. With the channel mixer, I can choose how much information I want from each channel. It's a great way to make your 'tough' b&w negs look much prettier.

I've not used this technique for working with poorly exposed and/or developed negs, but have used it several times for dealing with antique negs that are stained, some unevenly. It can be effective.

I use an EPSON v700, an I normally scan my good 35mm images at 4800ppi though I usually drop down to 3200ppi when scanning 4x5 and sometimes when scanning 120.

Even when scanning antique negs from cameras with rather mediocre optics, mostly old family snaps, I generally "overscan" at a higher than necessary resolution and downsample later in PS. I have, on a few occasions, run into interference pattern issues when there is a very regular grain size that is too close to the scanning frequency. So far, I've only seen this with antique images that were very grainy, by modern standards. The solution is usually to scan at lower resolutions, although I've occasionally resorted to very high resolution 6400ppi scans and downsampled in PS.

 

[DNG]

Well, I just started scanning, and I use PlusTek 7300 35mm scanner. I set it at 6000dpi and my files are around 75mp-89mp in size (I save them as TIF files). I see plenty of fine detail on tiny distant objects...

Whole Image followed by a 100% crop

XP2 @ 400, 5cm f/1.5 Summarit @ f/8, no noise reduction was used. But I did use "Un-Sharp Mask" sharpening.

 

[maddoc]

I use a Nikon Coolscan4000ED now for my 135 films and Vuescan software. Only recently I have started saving the scanned files in two versions, one lower resolution JPG for web-use and a full resoultion TIF for possible printing. Vuescan also allows to save your scanned file as RAW file, the unprocessed raw-data directly from the CCD. This RAW file can be saved also as Adobe DNG file and then processed in Adobe PS.

I don`t know about the Imacon software and if the Imacons are supported by Vuescan but if yes it might be worth a try.

 

[filmfan]

I am interested to see what other people say. I just pop the negs in and click "scan" with my Nikon Coolscan 8000 ED. There has to be something I am not doing because I am not seeing much quality.

 

[splitimageview]

Vuescan also allows to save your scanned file as RAW file, the unprocessed raw-data directly from the CCD. This RAW file can be saved also as Adobe DNG file and then processed in Adobe PS.

I don`t know about the Imacon software and if the Imacons are supported by Vuescan but if yes it might be worth a try.

This is what I do, as I have much better knowledge of how to adjust things in Photoshop, so I just use Vuescan for the raw scan only.

 

[arseniii]

I use Nikon IV and NikonScan by Nikon. It's a quite powerful software I've got to say. It has levels and noise reduction option(which works really well in most cases)...

 

[filmfan]

Nikonscan has levels and noise reduction?

 

[arseniii]

Nikonscan has levels and noise reduction?

What I meant here was curves+Digital ICE+ Analog gain which is sufficient for me to obtain desired results in terms of contrast and grain...

 

[ferider]

Nikon 5000 ED with roll-film holder for quick scan and high throughput, and film holder FH-3 for selected high quality scans. I use Vuescan and leave all manipulations to color, sharpness, etc. to PS.

Most important for me is to keep the film as clean as possible between development and scanning.

Pretty good results, IMO, but likely not competitive with your Imacon, Bill.

 

[Gregoryniss]

I use an Epson 4490 Perfection flatbed and scan at 4800dpi for 16bit black and white and save as Jpeg. Seems to be working well for me so far on my small budget. Don't think I could justify getting a better one due to the price increase and not as substantial increase in IQ compared to say getting a new lens or something

 

[Steve Ash]

I use a Coolscan 5000 with Silverfast Ai and Silverfast HDRi. I scan at 4000dpi in Silverfast Ai which generates a raw file with all scanning data including the infrared channel for dust and scratch removal. This raw file get processed in Silverfast HDRi. Even the dust and scratch data can be processed on different levels later. Since I utilize Silverfast HDRi my scanning time has reduced a lot as I only do one scan with maximum data and downsize if required later. I do not know if there is a Silverfast version for the imacon though.

Regards
Steve

 

[JPSuisse]

Bill, thanks for starting this thread. It is very interesting to hear about the latest scanning techniques. Even here, there is advancement, I think, in the last years. I started a very similar thread and poll here.

I also scan with a Nikon 5000 directly to RAW scans using Vuescan and then post-process with Lightroom. Many people have told me that there is no such thing as a RAW scanner file. But, I think that VueScan's is RAW in the sense that it is uninterpreted by the scanning program. Some remarks about this process:

1.) At first I had very bad experiences with Nikon's roll adapter using black and white film. The frames were all over the place! Then, when I started developing my own black and white film the problem went away magically. I realized that the contrast on the negative between the image and the negative edge has to be high enough for VueScan to find the frames! This was never an issue with color slides because slide film is, well, contrasty.

2.) A key point for this process is pointed out by ferider, it really only works with new, unscratched and clean negatives. This is because VueScan simply captures all the data and records. There is no ICE cleaning, etc. Since I now develop my own negatives I control whether they are clean or scratched. Also, I get my slide film uncut in a plastic foil.

3.) The roll film adapter from Nikon is really great, I just pop a whole roll in, quickly set up the color balance (ca. 5 minutes) and go wash the dishes! It's a completely easy process! But, it took me a long time to figure out the details. In fact, I think it was easier for me to learn how to develop black and white film than to figure process out. The details are killers. But, once you get it, it's easy as pie. Really.

What surprises me most is the number of people making 4000 dpi scans of film. Really, some where around 3000 dpi seems for me to be the limit or reasonable resolution! Unfortunately, the Nikon 5000 only supports RAW scans at 1000, 2000 or 4000 dpi. This is a "hardware supported" resolution. Any other resolutions with the Nikon 5000 will reduce quality. Anybody know what the Imacon will do here?

I live in a printer-less world. If I want prints I either go to the photo shop or to the darkroom. I've never printed any of my scans bigger than 20cm by 30cm. But, a 2000 dpi scan at this resolution from my work flow looks great. I can't ever imagine me printing anything bigger. Hell! My walls aren't big enough for anything else!!!

Best,

JP

 

[kzphoto]

As an aside, Digital ICE on Black and White negs destroys your contrast. You'll get posterized images. Don't do it.

 

[Bill Pierce]

Many of the reasonably priced scanners mentioned in this thread have obvious limitations compared to the 10 to 20 thousand dollar scanners that see a lot of professional use. Obviously, these limitations don't apply to web images or relatively small prints. But I wonder if those limitations or the sheer pleasure of locking yourself in a dark room where nobody can disturb you have kept some folks in the wet darkroom? Any folks out there battling the tide? What are the problems of keeping a wet darkroom these days?

 

[Florian1234]

Well, for me it is a Coolscan V and Vuescan. I scan the b&w films in color negative film mode and put them to greyscale in LR2 after scanning as dng file.
What I notice is that I get nearly no grain using this method - with Tri-X developed in D761+1.
Would I get more grain when scanned as b&w film in Vuescan?

As for the darkroom use: That's just more time consuming for me as amateur who doesn't do projects to sell or exhibit within a certain deadline.
edito: I've got the stuff for a wet darkroom, too, overhere, but there's limited time, lack of skills somehow and well, it is just for fun when I want real photos for the wall or as a give away or so.

 

[lawrence]

I hope you don't mind if I ask a slightly off-topic question that's been bugging me for a while. Do the users of this hybrid process feel that the results are significantly better or different from the results that could be obtained from a purely digital process? If so, in what way?

 

[Harry Lime]

I have two scanners. Nikon 5000ED and 9000ED with glass holder.

I take the 5000ED on the road and the 9000ED sits at home.

Using the glass holder with the 9000ED produces significantly sharper scans than without. It's a little slow to line up every neg individually, but it's worth the effort.

For the most part I use Nikonscan. Color negative and b/w output (16bit). Usually I go for 4x oversampling, but turn it up to x8 (x12?) for a master scan. The quality of the output from the 9000ED is quite good. Apparently the 9000ED comes within spitting distance or equals the Imacon 343.

Currently I'm looking in to Silverfast HDR software. This software makes multiple passes and combines the wedged exposures in to an HDR image (high dynamic range), thus giving you scans with greater exposure range and less noise. I've seen some comparisons and it looks like the Silverfast HRD option can significantly boost the IQ of your scanner.

But I would like a Imacon...

I've also had a few drumscans done. The sharpness is unbeatable and now you can get them in 16bit. But they are expensive..