Using Silverfast 8 SE Plus to scan B&W negatives

[Peter308]

Scanner workflow

Well, I have managed to develop my first two rolls of film (Delta 400 in Ilfotec LC29) and scan the negatives using Silverfast 8 SE plus and a Plustek 8100.

My approach is to use the scanner to capture as much detail in the file as possible and keep all the PP tweaking for LR.

Silverfast preferences are left pretty much “out of the box” apart from changing the gamma from 2.2 to 2.0 and the internal colour space to sRGB.

I use the Workflow pilot in SF so firstly, the neg scan is set to “slide” to keep it as a negative, then task is set to B&W and 16->8 bit with the multi exposure tool switched on. This keeps the file to greyscale as the RGB archive option produced huge files.

After the pre-scan I adjust the frame as needed then select full 7200 dpi resolution. I also manually adjust the histogram black, white and mid points to a full 0-255 range, as after the pre-scan, the histogram is usually from about 10 to 165. Other than this I do not use any of the SF tools before the full scan. Files produced are around 70 MB and fairly flat but seem to adjust well in LR.

I would be interested to hear how this compares to how others approach and use of Silverfast.

 

[aldobonnard]

Hello,
Long time ago I used a cheap Plustek 7200 which is basically identical to yours optically and sensor-wise.
It gave me the best results I ever achieved in B&W especially with Neopan 100 and 400 and Delta 100 and 400 developed in cheap Ilfotec HC 1+31 (similar to LC29).
I would run a first fast pass in low resolution to check which frame was worth the long scanning time.
Then on selected frames, I would also use the multi-sampling which existed before SF8, use the 7200 dpi and downsized to 3600 eventually. I would however keep the negative mode, and also 16 bits in the TIFF files (8 bits I thought I'd lose too much of information). Huge files, for sure, and long scanning time. Then I would open in Photoshop where transferred into B&W and a more HD space friendly compression.
This is pretty much the same method I use with VueScan and Nikon 5000/9000 and Minolta 5400 Mk.II scanners nowadays, albeit using the RAW export 16 bits Grey mode for B&W, instead of the RGB TIFF.
I still use the Silverfast for the 5400 Mk.I when scanning negatives and slides. I just find that the silverfast negafix is more accurate than Vuescan, and that the slides colour calibration procedure in SF works better then in Vuescan (even if that means running the old Win XP OS on a virtual machine).

 

[SaveKodak]

With B&W I actually just keep it pretty simple. I scan in grayscale at the highest bit rate available, and match my curve/exposure as close as I can to my desired output without throwing away any information available. I then go to PS and do everything I can to optimize the scan, before importing it to LR which I use to archive and export when needed. I have scanned in SF8, but generally now I use Vuescan because of its simplicity and the availability of multi-exposure and multi-sample without the upcharge.

I haven't noticed any significant end benefit in going through the extra steps of post-scan reversal, or holding on to color information. If you consider that your final image generally will be a vast reduction in the amount of information present in the negative, I think you can see why just getting a little closer to your final product at the level of the scan is not a bad thing. I always think of my scanner as an 'enlarger.' It's sort of like how your print in a darkroom setting has vastly less latitude in stops than your captured image, but this is necessary to produce a visually pleasing final image.