Improvement to Vuescan with Nikon

[wintoid]

Just updated to the latest Vuescan and scanned a roll or two on my Super Coolscan 5000. It seems he's fixed it so that I'm not always mucking around with offsets to get a complete frame on the preview screen. Brilliant! Just had to share.

 

[kully]

Excellent, thanks for that - I'd given up on Vuescan. I'll see if he's fixed it for the LS-50 too.

 

[photophorous]

I recently got a Coolscan V, and I'm not happy with the way B&W film scans. I hear Vuescan works better than Nikon Scan, but I'm having trouble understanding how the software affects it. Do you like the results from Vuescan better, or is it just the workflow you prefer?

Thanks,
Paul

 

[agi]

I was scanning last night with the updated software and the offsets are still way off for me. I'm using Coolscan IV. Anyone else have this problem?

 

[J J Kapsberger]

I do. It seems every I have to offset every second strip.

 

[Mark Wood]

I've found that the problem with this is always worst when I want to scan the first frame on the film and any others are usually OK. All I do is turn the negative strip around and for, say, a strip of six negatives, scan it as negative six instead of one. When I do that, I usually get the full frame. (With a Coolscan IV/LS-40).

 

[agi]

Ok so I'm not the only one. Hopefully he'll fix it as it's annoying as hell. One day it's working the next it's all out of whack.

@Mark - tried that but most of them are still off. I've been offsetting it by 16 to get all of the frame correct. It's possible my saved settings are off but this sudden change is a bit troublesome.

 

[DelDavis]

I recently got a Coolscan V, and I'm not happy with the way B&W film scans. I hear Vuescan works better than Nikon Scan, but I'm having trouble understanding how the software affects it. Do you like the results from Vuescan better, or is it just the workflow you prefer?

Thanks,
Paul

Paul,

I have the Coolscan V and Vuescan and prefer the results from the Nikon Scan software for B&W. Too bad, because I like the Vuescan interface much better. I just can't seem to tweak things to get Vuescan to give me results that are as consistently acceptable as with NS.

However, the tables are turned when it comes to color: Vuescan wins over Nikon Scan for me by a long margin. I just orderered an IT8 target from Wolf Fauste, so I'm hoping I can calibrate the scanner well enough that I can use Vuescan exclusively.

 

[PATB]

I have problems with the offsets too. Also, the BW scans are not that great compared to Nikon Scan. For some reason, I get better tonality and contrast with Nikon Scan for BW. However, I love Vuescan for slides -- almost like point and shoot and the automatic crop works great.

So for BW, I use Nikon Scan. For slides and color film, I use Vuescan.

I would like to try Silverfast but I believe it is not available for LS-50 and Windows Vista.

 

[planetjoe]

I've found that the problem with this is always worst when I want to scan the first frame on the film and any others are usually OK. All I do is turn the negative strip around and for, say, a strip of six negatives, scan it as negative six instead of one. When I do that, I usually get the full frame. (With a Coolscan IV/LS-40).

Funny - I just scanned a few strips last night on my LS-50, and found exactly the same thing. It was the first frame that gave my issues, so I turned the strip around and scanned in "reverse". No problem.

In retrospect, it appears that I "short-trimmed" that first frame, so perhaps the fault was mine. I'll install that new version tonight.


Cheers,
--joe.

 

[agi]

I'm going to have to try scanning bw with the Nikon sofware as I never even tried it. Thanks everyone.

 

[M. Valdemar]

The framing problem with Nikons was "fixed" about 10 versions ago, then it went off again, now it's refixed.

By the way, I got a discontinued Minolta Dimage 5400 II a few weeks ago.

It blows away my Nikon 4000ed.

Perfect Kodachrome scans, Digital Ice works beautifully, absolutely superior to the Nikon. No contest whatsoever.

 

[photophorous]

Ok, now I'm curious about this framing problem. Can someone elaborate? Is it cutting off the 24mm side or the 36mm side? I find Nikon Scan (w/Coolscan V) gives me a negative that is more like 22mm x 36mm, and I didn't think there was anything I could do to fix it.

Thanks,
Paul

 

[photophorous]

Paul,

I have the Coolscan V and Vuescan and prefer the results from the Nikon Scan software for B&W. Too bad, because I like the Vuescan interface much better. I just can't seem to tweak things to get Vuescan to give me results that are as consistently acceptable as with NS.

However, the tables are turned when it comes to color: Vuescan wins over Nikon Scan for me by a long margin. I just orderered an IT8 target from Wolf Fauste, so I'm hoping I can calibrate the scanner well enough that I can use Vuescan exclusively.

This is opposite of what I would have expected...although I'm new to this. I've been happy with the color scans. However, I recently tried to scan a Velvia slide that had some subtle pink clouds against a blue sky and they came out much more white than the actual slide. When I adjust saturation and color balance to get the pink back, the background blue looks very over-tweaked (technical term). Is that the kind of thing Vuescan does better for you?

Paul

 

[DelDavis]

This is opposite of what I would have expected...although I'm new to this. I've been happy with the color scans. However, I recently tried to scan a Velvia slide that had some subtle pink clouds against a blue sky and they came out much more white than the actual slide. When I adjust saturation and color balance to get the pink back, the background blue looks very over-tweaked (technical term). Is that the kind of thing Vuescan does better for you?

Paul

I generally find it easier to tweak the colors in Vuescan. That being said, I still haven't got them bang on, and usually have to do post-processing in Aperture, Photoshop, or The Gimp to get things sorted out. Neither of the two packages are perfect: my Velvia slides tend to come out of Nikon Scan looking muddled; Vuescan tends to turn the 'red' dial all the way to 11. While you have not enough pink, I've got too much -- it sounds like our scanners are calibrated for different parts of the curve. Hopefully when I get my calibration target in the mail this will be worked out.

Still, when it comes to color, Vuescan seems to be able to pull color images out of my scanner that are closer to the mark and therefore easier to 'fix'. But all scanners are different, even if they're the same model. Each has its own fingerprint.

I'll try to post some pre- and post-calibration shots.

 

[rich815]

He's "fixed" it a few times now. Pretty frustrating. Sometimes it seems to work great, other times no. It really depends on where the frames are exposed vs the sprokets, which for me varies since I use a number of different cameras. Nonetheless NikonScan is awful and I'd never give up on Vuescan, have used it for many years with my LS-4000....

 

[M. Valdemar]

Nikon Scan had the same offset problem in an earlier version.

It was "fixed" in Nikon Scan with an update and it works almost flawlessly now all the time.

I wonder if there's some proprietary code from Nikon that Hamrick can't reverse engineer?

If so, it's stupid that they hide it. Nikon won't update their own software, they should be happy that Hamrick keeps their scanners usable. Or do they want everyone to buy new scanners? Hmmmmm....