Epson V600 + Epson Scan Software + Tri-X 400 - Suggested Settings

[Dave S.]

I'm a neophyte to home scanning and I'm looking for some settings suggestions when scanning Kodak Tri-X 400 (Arista Premium 400).

Please share your preferred settings for scanning Kodak Tri-X 400 (Arista Premium 400) when using the Epson Perfection V600 Photo Scanner + Epson Scan software.

Any additional post production information when using Apple Aperture, Adobe Lightroom, etc. is welcome. I've listed my preferred settings (so far) below.

Epson Scan Ver. 5.1

Document Type: Film
Film Type: Positive Film
Image Type: 48-bit Color
Speed Priority Scanning = Unchecked
Resolution: 3200dpi
Document Size and Target Size: What was auto filled in by preview function
Scale: 100%
Trimming: Off
Unsharp Mask: Checked / Low
Grain Reduction: Unchecked
Color Restoration: Checked
Backlight Correction: Unchecked
Dust Removal: Unchecked
Digital ICE Technology: Unchecked
Image Format Type: PRINT Image Matching II (TIFF) (*.tif)

Apple Aperture Ver. 3.5.1

Adjust Curves to Invert Negative
Auto Exposure
White Balance: Natural Grey
Crop if necessary

 

[Merlijn53]

It's a b/w neg film, so why should you scan it as color pos?
Imho the only settings during scanning should be black- and white points, so uncheck usm and color restoration.
If you don't want to post process, try the automatic setting. I use it to scan all negs as a kind of contact sheet and the Epson software gives a reasonable result for that.
Regards,
Frank

 

[defconfunk]

I scan on a V600. I mostly shoot Plus-X and HP5+. See the link in my sig for examples.

In an attempt to reduce file size, I started scanning at 2400dpi. I noticed a large increase in apparent grain. I thought that was due to my switch in developer (I started doing plus-x in rodinal), but when enlarged the grain isn't that obvious. So I've switched back to 3200dpi The files are larger, but the image looks much better.

I scan as 16-bit B&W, saving to print matched tiff. I find there is a big quality difference vs saving as jpg.

Pretty much everything else is left to default/auto.

 

[Dave S.]

Thanks for your suggestions. The scanning as a color positive was something suggested in a flickr post and when I compared it to scanning as B+W negative I liked the color positive results better (much less crushing on the blacks especially). That said, I will continue to experiment with the B+W negative setting because that does seem like the obvious correct way to scan, well, B+W negative 🙂.

I tried scanning with USM unchecked, but found it to be very soft and was challenged to sharpen it up in Apple Aperture. Nevertheless, a friend of mine is a Photoshop pro and this morning offered to give me a tutorial on effective sharpening in the near future. Hopefully that will do the trick. My instinct is to scan clean (without USM, color restoration, etc.).

 

[ZeissFan]

There was an article in Shutterbug about eight or nine years ago that suggested scanning b/w negatives as color negatives. Then reversing and changing to grayscale. I can't recall the reason. This was when Shutterbug was in the much larger format.

I tried it a few times and felt that it seemed like a good idea. However, I didn't feel like going through the extra step and eventually stopped doing it.

 

[GarageBoy]

Does scanning in 24 bit color as a B&W negative offer anything over 16 bit grey scale B&W?