zauhar
Veteran
OK, I have gotten Vuescan to basically do what I want, which from what I gather is saying a lot for scanner software.
However, it has one "feature" which is driving me up the wall. In preview mode I click on the individual frames to adjust the crop lines. Almost every time I do this, the orientation of the view will change, sometimes flipping 270 degrees, and the white/black settings will shift dramatically. Sometimes the preview of the film holder goes partially off the screen!
Am I doing something wrong? Is this a bug? Am I the only one experiencing this? Am I supposed to do something else to select the frames?
Thanks!
Randy
However, it has one "feature" which is driving me up the wall. In preview mode I click on the individual frames to adjust the crop lines. Almost every time I do this, the orientation of the view will change, sometimes flipping 270 degrees, and the white/black settings will shift dramatically. Sometimes the preview of the film holder goes partially off the screen!
Am I doing something wrong? Is this a bug? Am I the only one experiencing this? Am I supposed to do something else to select the frames?
Thanks!
Randy
Rogier
Rogier Willems
Here are some suggestions to look:
Hope this helps.
- Input: Rotation - None
- Crop: Show Multi Outline - Uncheck
Hope this helps.
zauhar
Veteran
Thanks for the response - However, I tried that and it does not change the behavior.
This is driving me f--cking mad!
I will restart and see if it stops doing this.
Randy
Rogier
Rogier Willems
Worse case delete the .plist to reset back to default settings.
zauhar
Veteran
Rogier, here is what I determined - it seems all is OK so long as I don't zoom in. I was zooming in to more easily adjust the crop, but clearly that does not work. Also, I make sure that it finishes any housekeeping before I make any further moves (i.e. wait for the watch icon to go away).
Randy
Randy
rco3
Newbie
Having chased similar issues in the past, I'm offering up my thoughts on the matter; I may be telling you many things that you already know and if so I apologize in advance.
-- I have often been irritated at changing frames while zoomed. It's as if it looks at the shift required to get to the next frame, THEN rotates it, THEN applies the shift without accounting for the rotation. It's not just you. The changing rotations you observe are probably because Vuescan remembers the last rotation for each frame and assumes you want to keep it with the next preview. So I often (last night, in fact) find myself zooming all the way out and stepping through the frames one by one, setting the rotation as I go, before I even bother setting crop positions or white/black points. It still jumps to the wrong place in the preview area if I switch frames while zoomed, but at least the rotations are correct. Then I'll set the crop for each frame, and finally set white/black points and curves per frame if appropriate.
-- White and black points are set as a percentage of the input pixels that will be black or white in the output image. If you go from a contrasty frame with the sun and some black velvet to a full-frame shot of a gray card and keep the same W/B points, you'll get the same number of white and black pixels in each frame - which you probably didn't want and it'll look very odd.
-- Fortunately, Vuescan remembers the white/black points for each frame separately (unless you select the "All frames" option in the Color tab), so you don't have to have that problem... but if the crop area is offset for some reason, it will calculate W/B points over the incorrect region, possibly including the unexposed edge or the completely exposed leader, etc. This will throw off your output values and look all weird and stuff.
-- You CAN set "Lock Image Color" and then the white and black points ARE absolute values within [0 1] independently per color, rather than percentages, and they don't change from frame to frame. But note: if you're scanning film, you'll have to uncheck "Lock exposure", do a Preview pass, check "Lock exposure", Preview again, "Lock Film Base Color", and then you can set "Lock Image Color." Don't skip any of the Preview steps. For these steps to work correctly, the crop region during these steps should include min and max densities (e.g. unexposed film edge and exposed leader) so that Vuescan can see what are, effectively, the white and black points of the film response. Again, if I'm telling you things you already know how to do, I apologize. Point is, "Lock Image Color" will prevent those W/B point shifts between frames that you've described.
-- My workflow doesn't really need it, but I believe that if you scan at 48 bpp and output to 48 bpp, the W/B points and color balance, etc. aren't applied to the output image. Others may want to chime in on that. I always scan at 48 but output to 24, because none of my work is yet good enough to worry about better than 24 bpp. But I've still got the negs/trannies...
-- I have often been irritated at changing frames while zoomed. It's as if it looks at the shift required to get to the next frame, THEN rotates it, THEN applies the shift without accounting for the rotation. It's not just you. The changing rotations you observe are probably because Vuescan remembers the last rotation for each frame and assumes you want to keep it with the next preview. So I often (last night, in fact) find myself zooming all the way out and stepping through the frames one by one, setting the rotation as I go, before I even bother setting crop positions or white/black points. It still jumps to the wrong place in the preview area if I switch frames while zoomed, but at least the rotations are correct. Then I'll set the crop for each frame, and finally set white/black points and curves per frame if appropriate.
-- White and black points are set as a percentage of the input pixels that will be black or white in the output image. If you go from a contrasty frame with the sun and some black velvet to a full-frame shot of a gray card and keep the same W/B points, you'll get the same number of white and black pixels in each frame - which you probably didn't want and it'll look very odd.
-- Fortunately, Vuescan remembers the white/black points for each frame separately (unless you select the "All frames" option in the Color tab), so you don't have to have that problem... but if the crop area is offset for some reason, it will calculate W/B points over the incorrect region, possibly including the unexposed edge or the completely exposed leader, etc. This will throw off your output values and look all weird and stuff.
-- You CAN set "Lock Image Color" and then the white and black points ARE absolute values within [0 1] independently per color, rather than percentages, and they don't change from frame to frame. But note: if you're scanning film, you'll have to uncheck "Lock exposure", do a Preview pass, check "Lock exposure", Preview again, "Lock Film Base Color", and then you can set "Lock Image Color." Don't skip any of the Preview steps. For these steps to work correctly, the crop region during these steps should include min and max densities (e.g. unexposed film edge and exposed leader) so that Vuescan can see what are, effectively, the white and black points of the film response. Again, if I'm telling you things you already know how to do, I apologize. Point is, "Lock Image Color" will prevent those W/B point shifts between frames that you've described.
-- My workflow doesn't really need it, but I believe that if you scan at 48 bpp and output to 48 bpp, the W/B points and color balance, etc. aren't applied to the output image. Others may want to chime in on that. I always scan at 48 but output to 24, because none of my work is yet good enough to worry about better than 24 bpp. But I've still got the negs/trannies...
semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
Note also that Ed Hamrick, the developer of VueScan, has generally been very responsive to questions and input.
zauhar
Veteran
"rco3", thank you for that very cogent response. (Looks like you just joined rff, welcome!)
You stated clearly some things I have only guessed at, namely that vuescan is "remembering" stuff it should not. Since I have a pretty much equal mix of orientations, this explains the really weird behavior. This is clearly a bad bug, unless there is some expected workflow with vuescan that I am not grasping.
Is simply shutting down vuescan between previews a workaround ?
Randy
You stated clearly some things I have only guessed at, namely that vuescan is "remembering" stuff it should not. Since I have a pretty much equal mix of orientations, this explains the really weird behavior. This is clearly a bad bug, unless there is some expected workflow with vuescan that I am not grasping.
Is simply shutting down vuescan between previews a workaround ?
Randy
rco3
Newbie
Cogent? Thanks, Randy. I've been lurking for a while, haven't really had much to add. My only rangefinders are a C3 Matchmatic and a Century Graphic. Mostly shoot RB67 and D7000. [ducks]
I'm not sure that remembering rotations is a bug, though. I'm not sure how else to do it; Vuescan can't really tell that the film has or hasn't been changed, but the rotations need to be set at least once each time film is loaded... but once is enough, it ought to remember after that. I can confirm that there is no rotation set per frame when starting Vuescan up. After that, any rotation it shows seems to be a rotation I've set and it's remembered.
After trying to reproduce the wrong-shift-while-zoomed-and-rotated problem, I can't. It happened last week, same version of Vuescan, but not last night. Might be that I was using high-res Preview last week, but I def. wasn't last night. So that might be a key, I'll have to try that later.
-- Rob
I'm not sure that remembering rotations is a bug, though. I'm not sure how else to do it; Vuescan can't really tell that the film has or hasn't been changed, but the rotations need to be set at least once each time film is loaded... but once is enough, it ought to remember after that. I can confirm that there is no rotation set per frame when starting Vuescan up. After that, any rotation it shows seems to be a rotation I've set and it's remembered.
After trying to reproduce the wrong-shift-while-zoomed-and-rotated problem, I can't. It happened last week, same version of Vuescan, but not last night. Might be that I was using high-res Preview last week, but I def. wasn't last night. So that might be a key, I'll have to try that later.
-- Rob
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