Scanhancer with CS 5000

[sanmich]

Still struggling with my scanning process...

It came down to one main problem:

If I use the scanhancer on my coolscan, I loose some of the details in the very dark areas, no matter how I try to fool the exposure. Incidentally, using the scanhancer totally messes the auto exposure of the scanner, so I do it manually.

If I don't use the scanhancer, I get images that present a broader histogram, but every tiny defect is visible, some of them will be hard to work on post process (scratches etc...)

Is there a way to use the scanhancer with no impact on quality?
Or should I scan as is and handle the grain and defects in post (right now, I am using LR for the RAW image adjustments, and I was hoping to keep it this way).

Please help..
I'm trying to make my first book, and I'm running in circles :bang::bang:

 

[ferider]

What film, Michael ?

My usual work-flow is (1) keep the negatives as clean as possible, (2) level and contrast changes at 16bit in PS, reduce to 8 bits, (3) clean in Jazz PSP (now Corel ?), since I feel that's easier and faster.

Not sure that scanhancer helps for the reasons you mentioned. Have been tempted, but not tried it yet.

Roland.

 

[sanmich]

Hey Roland

Mostly Tri-X there.
some of my negs are quite a mess.
I once had an Hexar AF whose hobby was to scrach negatives (go figure).
Even clean negs can have very superficial scratches that the coolscan will pick, and I'm not talking about the very small defects that seem to be everywhere.
The scanhancer seems to be very helpful for that.
Right now the problem boils down what I'm showing here:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1722788
The scanhancer makes a mess out of the auto exposure of Vuescan, and apparently also yields to some clipping in the shaddows.
But even without it, Vuescan seems to clip the shaddows.
I just went through all the negs I scaned so far and all of them, even those who seem well exposed have a peak in the dark areas of their histograms. Even PS is giving me an alert about this when importing from Nikon scan.
I can't experiment right now (too much work before the semester starts). I will retry in a few days and keep you posted..

 

[Benjamin Marks]

Have you monkeyed with the "gain" slider in the NikonScan interface?

 

[caycep]

vuescan -> aperture for me. lightroom for other folks.

 

[RObert Budding]

Scratched negs? You may want to consider wet scanning. Here's a link that shows both wet and dry scans of scratched negs:

http://scanscience.com/Pages/SampleScans/Scans3-BW.html

I use Scan Science Lumina fluid. Works well, and it's safe for film.