Help Scanning Unmounted Slides

[wjlapier]

I hope there is an easy way to scan my unmounted slides I developed--I might add this is the first time I've used E6. A row of pics on the light table that look great to me, but don't look the same when I scan them. Using a Coolscan V and Vuescan.



I usually rely on auto about everything in Vuescan, other than the scan size, and a few other things. Generic almost always for film when I scan C41. Color auto. I'm pretty happy with my scans and the ones I send to Walmart come back acceptable.

Any suggestions I would appreciate it. FWIW, I really don't want to output to RAW and do a bunch of post on Photoshop. I'm hoping there is an easier way. I have a bunch of E6 film so I hoping for a great workflow.

Thanks!

 

[max0ski]

I don't know much about the Coolscan V but what specifically is the difference in the images coming out of the Coolscan? If you have the time to swap scanners I would sell the Coolscan and grab a Noritsu LS-600. A little more involved but well worth it. You would have no problems scanning slides or any 35mm film for that matter.

 

[Corran]

"Don't look the same." Perhaps post a scan to better explain what you mean.

I would assume "auto everything" is the problem.

 

[brbo]

As mentioned, you should remove the Vuescan's "Auto" guessing what the slides should look like.

Here's how I would do it with Vuescan:

1. in 'Input' lock exposure at 1
2. make a preview of film strip with a frame that has everything in it (everything from deep shadows to bright highlights and broad colour range)
3. select this frame
4. in 'Input' lock the film base colour
5. right click in the image to select neutral colour until it looks OK(ish)
6. in 'Input' lock the image colour
7. in 'Color' adjust the individual RGB parameters for blackpoint, whitepoint, film base colour (others when necessary) to get it as close to what you see on light table

If you have done a good job on this one frame every other frame should be very close to what you see on the light table. Of course, the dynamic range and linearity of your scanner's response could mean that you might still observe some/more differences in deep shadows, bright highlights and certain hues, but there is not that much you can do about this.

Profiling your scanner with IT8 target would help somewhat, but don't expect miracles. With most IT8 targets and Vuescan's built-in profles you will get less dynamic range. The slides will be a bit "punchier" because of that.

Here is a example of a scan that I did (I did the colour matching on a different frame from the same film - I intentionally didn't pick the best candidate to test how bad it can be if you don't have a single proper frame on your roll), film is Provia 100F:



Same scan, but this time using the profile created in Vuescan with Coloraid F3-type (recommended for Provia 100F) target:

 

[wjlapier]

"Don't look the same." Perhaps post a scan to better explain what you mean.

I would assume "auto everything" is the problem.

I'm doing this quick. I'll be back later and elaborate.



Scan auto and resized in PS to 1000 then upload to Flickr. Copied from Flickr as 800 wide. That's it.

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Scans never look like the slides right out of the scanner. You have to edit them in Photoshop to adjust color and contrast to get the files perfect.

I wrote a tutorial on scanning transparency film with a Nikon scanner and Vuescan:

http://crawfordphotoschool.com/digital/slide-scanning.php

There's also a video version you can watch; the link is on the page with the written tutorial.