Plustek 8200i with SF SE+ suggestions

[Blooze]

I finally picked up my new computer build last weekend and plugged in my Plustek for the first time since I bought it in November.

I played with it for most of an evening with one negative and finally seemed to hit on something that worked OK. I was wondering if someone might have a better starting workflow for me than the following for B&W negatives with Silverfast SE+ 8, other than buying new software for now?

I chose negative, color 48-24bit, Photograph 1 at 3200 ppi, Adobe RGB, Negafix Delta 100, all sharpening etc... off, did the prescan and adjusted the frame then the histogram to grab the whole spectrum 0-255 (which it was showing) and the middle tone at 0. I then scanned as a tiff, imported in CS4, and chose the green channel which seemed to look the best before applying a slight curve and some dust removal/dodge/burn/slight sharpen/convert to sRGB. I tried desaturate instead of just the green channel and it was OK, but the contrast was a little higher.

Here's the first scan downsized for the web.

 

[michaelwj]

I was wondering if someone might have a better starting workflow for me than the following for B&W negatives with Silverfast SE+ 8, other than buying new software for now?

This is a tricky one.

I picked up a 8100, tried for ages to get a consistent, easy, quality scan from TMX and TMY-2 using Silverfast. In the end, I bought Vuescan, and followed Chris Crawfords tutorial: http://chriscrawfordphoto.com/technical/scanning.php

In the end its pretty cheap, and my only regret was that I fu*ked around for so long trying to get Silverfast to work for me. Now, scanning is quick and easy, and the results are always great. Its what I'd recommend although some will recommend other ways and I've not used the Epson software.

Sorry I don't have an "other than buying new software" solution.

Michael

 

[Blooze]

I've messed around with SF some more and it seems I have the best luck scanning int their B&W 16bit HDR setting at 7600dpi which comes out to 8** ppi, importing to CS4, downsizing with bicubic sharper to 300 ppi, inverting, then adjusting the gamma and exposure to where it looks good. Sounds laborious, but it really is pretty fast to do.