Epson 4490 scanner question

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grantray

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This is really annoying me:

While in "professional" mode and resizing the cropping to to fit the negative, I recently noticed that, based on the amount of light or dark in the cropped image, the scanner will AUTOMATICALLY ADJUST EXPOSURE!!! This is, of course, very bad because I can't figure out how to make it stop doing this. I set the exposure the first time when I took the image, and I don't need the silly scanner software telling me how light or dark I need to scan. This goes without saying that the scanner's "suggested" amount of scanning brightness is almost always off. A similar incident would be if the enlarger in the wet room said, "Excuse me, but I don't think you need THAT much light when exposing this particular negative to paper. I'm going to fix that for you, and there's nothing you can do about it."

Is there a preference tab I can't find that will allow me to turn off "the helper?"

Thanks.

-grant
 
AFAIK, there is no way to turn off that automatic leveling that it does. You can reset the white points out to 0 and 255, and relevel the individual channels. But as soon as you frame the next shot, it does it again. It also turns on a relatively aggressive sharpening algorightm. I've also generally found that the histogram is always pushes far to the left to the point of massive clipping and blocking up of shadows. It's like I need to shoot TXT at 100 or something. But the scans actually come out fine, it just looks weird.

I hate to say it, but that's why I use Vuescan.

allan
 
In the professional meny, there a series of button controlling the exposure adjustment, to the right of those there is a "Reset" button. Click it with the negative(s) selected before scanning and it will undo any exposure adjustments.
 
The problem is that the act of cropping itself adjusts exposure. And the amount of light given is almost always too low. This is unacceptable. Photoshop CS is far more subtle for adjustments than the Epson software. What I want is a standard amount of light. Like an enlarger if I were in a wet room. I have PS cs to use for my "filters" when I want to adjust contrast and specific color saturation levels.

Will Vuescan give me that level of control?

-grant
 
Vuescan lets you do scans with absolutely zero adjustments. You can also output as RAW which is _really_ zero adjustments (not even any basic curves or anything for proper tonal response) which you can then reourput over and over to get the curves you want.

The interface is kind of tough, and I am now wary of recommending it because some folks hate the interface _so_ much that there is sometimes a backlash. But I am a big fan.

allan
 
grantray said:
The problem is that the act of cropping itself adjusts exposure. And the amount of light given is almost always too low. This is unacceptable. Photoshop CS is far more subtle for adjustments than the Epson software. What I want is a standard amount of light.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is what happens when you click the "reset" button. When you crop a picture, it goes back to "automatic exposure adjustment" and thus adjusts exposure, but you can simply reclick "reset" to undo this.
 
I'm one of those that hates the vuescan interface, however, I do like the results enough to just deal with it. It takes time to get used to it, and once you do, it's not that complicated. Took me at least three or four months of using the trial before I finally purchased it, and then another six months or so before I gravitated away from the bundled scanner software. *shrug*

Jano
 
Well, try this "reset" feature, first. I didn't even realize that was what that feature was before. Personally, I still think EpsonScan does some automatic stuff that I don't like, and there has to be some meaning to the weirdness in the histogram, but try that out before you tackle Vuescan's interface :)

allan
 
We all slowly wore Jano down. It was an ordeal. But the Vuescannerites came out on top. :)

allan
 
jvx, the reset button is still a preset adjustment from the Epson software. As an example, look at the edge of the negative after you use the reset the next time you scan.

-grant
 
I generally avoid using EpsonScan for anything other than a quick preview. Usually I use Silverfast SE which came with my Epson 4990. The interface of Silverfast is good but the SE version is somewhat limited (e.g. can't do batch scanning) and the Ai version is rather expensive.

I, too, am one of those who do not like the interface of Vuescan. I'm pretty happy with Silverfast for b&w negs and color slides but with c41 color film it just messes up the colors with the profiles that are supposed to match the film. However, I have had such a hard time trying to figure out how to actually use Vuescan than I just went back to Silverfast.

Downloading the trial version surely can't hurt though.
 
Well, populating the scanning section (which would have a lot to do with Vuescan, since it's what I use) of my wiki is my next step. Though the underwhelming contributions to it so far isn't exactly inspiring me. But I do like to write...

Hopefully that will help with dealing with how to use Vuescan. There is nothing I can do to help the interface :).

allan
 
I'm also in the Hates Vuescan boat.. but I use it for scanning b&w negs on my Coolscan V.. I've honestly only used my Epson 4490 maybe 3 times, since I don't shoot MF as much as I should, but maybe I'll try it with Silverfast, which I loaded up to work with a different scanner that became redundant with the 4490
 
Wow. There are far more "I hate Vuescan but use it anyway" folks out there than I realized. I love Vuescan because it gives me the control I need. The interface is just a side issue which isn't relevant in light of my procedural needs. Huh.

allan
 
kaiyen said:
Wow. There are far more "I hate Vuescan but use it anyway" folks out there than I realized. I love Vuescan because it gives me the control I need. The interface is just a side issue which isn't relevant in light of my procedural needs. Huh.

allan
Click to expand...


There aren't a lot of alternatives to the bundled scanner software and if you don't want to pay a fortune for Silverfast Ai then Vuescan seems the way to go so there are bound to be quite a few users who buy Vuescan although they're not overwhelmed by it.
How do you like Vuescans color profile for c41 color film? I tried it with a roll of Portra 400VC and it looks even worse than when I use Silverfast.


I saw the wiki you started. I think it's a great idea so keep at it! Unfortunately I don't have any darkroom experience and I've only just started developing my own film so I can't contribute (yet).
 
kaiyen said:
Wow. There are far more "I hate Vuescan but use it anyway" folks out there than I realized. I love Vuescan because it gives me the control I need. The interface is just a side issue which isn't relevant in light of my procedural needs. Huh.

allan
Click to expand...

Personally I like Vuescan. The interface does not bother me. Once I found the densitometer setting Vuescan became my go to scanner software.

I hate software that insists that it knows what I want better than I know what I want.

As for the C-41 profile, I only scan black and white or slides. So that is not an issue.

Allan: do not give up on the Wiki it is too good an idea to abandon this soon, right now I am swamped at work and home. As soon as I get some time I will be writing up some stuff.
 
I don't hate Vuescan. I love SilverFast, but they're shooting themselves in the foot by charging for individual copies for each different scanner. When I upgraded to Coolscan 5000 (and temporarily 9000), the SilverFast option was only to be had for $500. Nein, bitte.

So I just scan "raw" and process with SilverFast HDR. You may want to do the same with VueScan; VueScan is great for handling your scanner, but not that great for imaging itself.
 
Gabriel,
Well, I don't have the money for Silverfast HDR (that's the commercial one, right?) For B&W, Vuescan does everything I need. I don't shoot enough C41 color to have completely figured out how to work with it yet. I just use the generic color profile, btw.

There is a scanning section in the wiki, too, by the way. As Pablo pointed out in my wiki thread, perhaps putting a lot of film development info there isn't a great idea considering all the other wikis and resources out there, but the scanning info would be useful. If you have a workflow that works for you, create a page for it and go to town.

allan
 
Just out of curiosity, have you gone in and clicked on the configuration tab (in professional mode) and then gone to the color tab and then unchecked the continuous auto exposure option? Maybe I am misunderstanding the orginal issue, but maybe this will get you where you want to go. It won't auto color/exposure correct unless/until you manually click the auto exposure button. Sorry if I am going down the wrong road here :)

Allan, the 48 bit HDR option is available in Silverfast SE under the output options drop-down. As mentioned by the previous poster, it is the only 48bit output option in SE and definitely worth investigating if you only have SE.

Doug
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www.BetterScanning.com
 
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