scanning tips

[Trius]

Trius,
It's easy. Develop for a thinner negative, and use a condenser enlarger or a higher grade paper/filter

allan

Allan: Wanna tell me where I put the condensors for the Beseler 45? Huh???

I don't think I would EVER go back to "chalk and soot" prints -- Ansel's description, not mine, so no flames in my direction!

Seriously, I don't like using a condensor enlarger, even though I did for years. Once I switched to cold light, that was it. I'll follow Gene's tips on scanning "properly" (ducking) developed negs!

Earl

 

[Pherdinand]

32 bits in RGB colour? How do you divide 32 to 3 ?

just teasing you.
It's a helpful list, and I agree with most of it.

 

[Pherdinand]

By the way, the "scan at highest resolution your scanner can do" is not always a good advice. On one hand, some scanners offer interpolated resolutions which don't make much sense if you use PS. On the other hand, a 48-bit scan of a 6x6 (or even a 35mm) frame at, say, 6400 dpi, is gigantic.
Finally, there are tricks with reducing image size. E.g., (i couldn'
t believe it when i've read it so i tried myself) resizing to half size or quarter size gives much sharper and clearer results than, say, to 33% or whatever weird number.

Edit: DMR, you are probably right with the Vuescan vs K-M software. But the Epson software is a bit handicapped (the colour management e.g. is completely screwed up), as well as the Silverfast SE they distribute with the Epsons (which cannot scan in batch mode e.g., and it has a useless manual, meaning you'll have to ask on the Net or figure all out yourself).

 

[kshapero]

Many drivers are also unable to make a digital negative scan. Vuescan saves me time by enabling me to scan all my negs in one shot and then scan them from a file individually at a later time without having to deal with physical negatives.

Excellent thread. I have vuescan, use it all the time. But please elaborate on the above. I tried and I can't seem to get it to do this.:bang:

 

[Kin Lau]

Excellent thread. I have vuescan, use it all the time. But please elaborate on the above. I tried and I can't seem to get it to do this.:bang:

Only the Vuescan Pro version can do a RAW scan.

 

[dmr]

One other trick, which really threw me at first, while scanning slides. For a while, I thought the scanner was not handling the full dynamic range of the slide, forcing me to either accept clipping on the highlights or on the shadows.

I found that if I tweaked the exposure so highlight detail was not clipped, for some reason the shadow detail was very good too.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. ... Look at the left example image below.

I'm sure most all of you scan slides so you get some of the slide mount in the frame. Well, the far left hump in the histogram on the first image is just the dark opaque border.

When it's cropped (and that's all I did for this demo, crop only), notice that the left hump entirely disappeared. The full dynamic range of the slide is contained well within what remains and can be easily adjusted to fill it out with levels and/or curves.

Since I realized this, I've been able to scan even contrasty slides and get the full range included in the scan.

 

[shaaktiman]

Finally, there are tricks with reducing image size. E.g., (i couldn'
t believe it when i've read it so i tried myself) resizing to half size or quarter size gives much sharper and clearer results than, say, to 33% or whatever weird number.

Wow, really? That's interesting, I never would have thought of it. But now that you say it, it makes sense based on the bicubic interpolation method PS uses to resize. The numbers can just average evenly instead of getting crazy fractional. Thanks for the tip!

My scanner only goes to 4000 but I do every, single scan at the max. When I scan 6x6 on my epson I also scan it at the max. It does make a huge file, but it is only huge for a few minutes until I can reduce it. The scan time is increased, but I really find it to be the easiest (and ultimately fastest) way to greatly improve quality.

 

[MCTuomey]

thanks for the great thread, shaak!!!!

 

[RyanG]

Thanks for the tips.

Right now I'm adjusting to scanning 35mm film, and I have a few small questions.

I have an Epson 4490, and I use the scanning software it came with (I'll probably buy vuescan soon, since so many speak so highly of it).

Now, what file format do you guys scan to? Tif?
Right now I scan at 1000 resolution, to Tif. But I'll try some higher resolutions and see what the results are. I need to just work on one image, and experiment with different settings.
Then I'll get cracking on the curves, since so far I haven't been making much use of that.

 

[mich8261]

Thanks for the great info. Just what the doctor ordered for this newby. Can you explain why it's not possible to use ICE on B&W negs?

Thanks.

 

[aad]

Thanks for the tips.

Right now I'm adjusting to scanning 35mm film, and I have a few small questions.

I have an Epson 4490, and I use the scanning software it came with (I'll probably buy vuescan soon, since so many speak so highly of it).

Now, what file format do you guys scan to? Tif?
Right now I scan at 1000 resolution, to Tif. But I'll try some higher resolutions and see what the results are. I need to just work on one image, and experiment with different settings.
Then I'll get cracking on the curves, since so far I haven't been making much use of that.

I scan to TIFF and edit, to avoid problems with JPEG compression. If I need JPEG, I convert at the end.

I found my 4490 didn't do any better with Vuescan. The Epson software is simpler and gives the same results.

 

[mich8261]

Thanks for the explanation Roland. Would the same be true of C-41 B&W film?

 

[MikeL]

Thanks for the explanation Roland. Would the same be true of C-41 B&W film?

Nope, that's the nice thing about XP2 and Kodak's version. Both scan well with Ice on my Coolscan.

 

[mich8261]

I only have one roll of "true" B&W film. I'll have to try it out and see for myself.