Scan/PS/Post problems

[dadsm3]

I think this must be a common problem because I often see triple posts of the same shot to the gallery....
I have a KM Scan Dual IV, and I usually scan my b&w's as a colour neg, 3200 dpi at 8 bits using 'pixel polish', and upload automatically to PS. Trouble is, the uploaded image initially doesn't look nearly as good as it did on the KM software, much less sharp. I usually use the greyscale control on PS to delete the colour, then do a little minor contrast/brightness adjustment, then some unsharp mask to make it look the way I want it to.....problem is that once the UM is actually applied, it seems to be drastically reduced. Once I downsize and jpeg it for posting to RFF it often looks nothing like I wanted it to.......
Back to the original image, oversharpen it to hell and MAYBE I get the image I want to post. Of course, when I print if I use the UM at all the print is way oversharpened, and I have to re-print.
Just wondering what I'm doing wrong, but the number of multiple posts of the same image to the gallery indicates I'm not the only one who has to stroke PS to get the image you want to actually post.
Mike

 

[FrankS]

I'm new to this too Mike, so I'll be paying attention to any answers.

 

[Graham Line]

Mike: You're scanning color neg to get b&w, right? My Minolta Scan Dual III software doesn't like to do that either.
Try scanning in a full-color high-res .tiff on a 2x or 4x sampling, then move it into Photoshop and use the color levels sliders to desaturate the image. That should give controllable tones. I'm transitioning from Elements to Elements 4, so I can't give you the exact steps off the top of my head.
My own personal preference is to use Ilford's XP2 Super C-41 process B&W, which scans beautifully.
I never have quite figured out what 'pixel polish' does. I leave that and the auto dust brush switched off. The scanner simply records as much data as possible for manipulation in PS.
One other point, and I'll quit: Instead of trying to make one scan do everything, I scan separately for printing and for web sizing. 16-bit, high resolution etc for printing, but no bigger or more pixels than I need for Web posting. It takes more time but avoids losses due to resizing and gives a better result.

 

[rogue_designer]

I personally hold off on unsharp masking until I have it at the final size. A small web image gets resized, then USM is applied - I don't USM the original. Likewise, I size for printing then apply USM - as there are different USM settings for the size and printer preferences, so you tailor it as you go. (So in this case I have one master file, then generate two different output files from it - in different sizes, with different USM settings.)

As far as the 3 posts in the gallery, I think when you submit it in several different categories, it actually duplicates it in the database.