Vuescan is driving me crazy!

Gabriel M.A. said:
That was my first thought. The other could be double-profiling (or misprofiling), very common problem. I'm not sure how Microsoft-ish Apple has gone with their latest OS (they certainly have with iTunes and QuickTime), so I don't know if this is an option anymore: check with your Color control panel if you have a profile set for your monitor, then check what you're using with VueScan, then check if you're doing a profile conversion vs. adding vs. not doing anything at all with (let's assume you're using) Photoshop.
Click to expand...

As I said, it's with color neg film and infrared cleaning turned off. I don't think it's the profile. I have my screen running on a calibrated profile and set Vuescan to run on the same screen profile. Output profile is Adobe RGB if I remember correctly (I'm on another computer right now).

I always convert (not assign) to sRGB as a last step in Photoshop but that's a moot point as the problem I'm having with Vuescan is there from the start (even in the preview) not just after I save the file.
 
It sounds like the problem started when you changed your operating system. I think a lot of people had similar problems. It must be the driver. I would send Ed an email. He's very quick to respond, and will get to the bottom of it.
Pete
 
Are you scanning as a .tiff? I found that with my Minolta and Viewscan it scanned the full dynamic range regardless of the settings I used, so I always end up with this sort of thing.

2299235590_fdf8e9db1a_z.jpg


.. a quick run through Levels and gets to this

2298441627_100823e832_z.jpg


... then colour to taste, I only use it for stuff I'm going to print it's too slow to do draft scans
 
Pete B said:
It sounds like the problem started when you changed your operating system. I think a lot of people had similar problems. It must be the driver. I would send Ed an email. He's very quick to respond, and will get to the bottom of it.
Pete
Click to expand...

Actually, the problem didn't start due to the change in operating system. The change in OS from Snow Leopard to Lion forced me to switch to Vuescan as Nikon Scan no longer worked because Apple dropped Rosetta (which war required to run old PowerPC applications).

I'll send Ed an email tomorrow to see if he can help!
 
I had horrible results scanning portra with Vue Scan as well. I went back to Nikon Scan for color negatives. It came off very grainy and flat-BW is okay.
 
Actually I've also been having another very annoying problem with VueScan. It seems it's having a hard time 'starting' the Nikon. I turn on the Nikon and the green light is flashing. I turn on VueScan and the light keeps flashing which means the scanner is not ready. VueScan does recognize that a scanner is connected but I can't feed the holder into the scanner.

With the trial version of Silverfast I don't have this problem at all. I turn on SF and immediately the scanner is ready.
 
Ok, just so you guys see what I mean, here's the same frame scanned once with Vuescan and with Silverfast.

Vuescan

Silverfast

This is really not a matter of my scans not looking perfect right away. What Vuescan is giving me is clearly useless.
 
Try changing the "Color Balance" option on the "Color" tab to a different settting. I find "White Balance" or "Auto Levels" normally work best. Looks like VueScan is over-compensating the exposure.
 
johnamazement said:
Try changing the "Color Balance" option on the "Color" tab to a different settting. I find "White Balance" or "Auto Levels" normally work best. Looks like VueScan is over-compensating the exposure.
Click to expand...

I really appreciate that you guys are trying to help. I don't want to be rude and this is not directed specifically at you but please everyone stop assuming that I'm an imbecile. I have of course tried all the color balance settings. I have also tried every single one of the film settings. All I'm getting is different flavors of crappy. Modifying the black point / white point, curves or brightness sliders doesn't help much either.

All filters are turned off. Scanner and film profiles are set to 'built in' (don't have an IT8 target), Output profile is AdobeRGB, Monitor profile is my calibrated profile.
 
I assume the histogram is biased to the left? and you have tried different file formats? I seem to get much better files in .tiff than anything else
 
I have of course tried all the color balance settings. I have also tried every single one of the film settings. All I'm getting is different flavors of crappy. Modifying the black point / white point, curves or brightness sliders doesn't help much either.

All filters are turned off. Scanner and film profiles are set to 'built in' (don't have an IT8 target), Output profile is AdobeRGB, Monitor profile is my calibrated profile.
Click to expand...

Fair enough, but unless you give us the information we can't know!
 
Jamie123 said:
I really appreciate that you guys are trying to help. I don't want to be rude and this is not directed specifically at you but please everyone stop assuming that I'm an imbecile. I have of course tried all the color balance settings. I have also tried every single one of the film settings. All I'm getting is different flavors of crappy. Modifying the black point / white point, curves or brightness sliders doesn't help much either.

All filters are turned off. Scanner and film profiles are set to 'built in' (don't have an IT8 target), Output profile is AdobeRGB, Monitor profile is my calibrated profile.
Click to expand...


We are at a loss as you have not been specific enough about your settings. Once can only ask. One can only know so much from so little (and so ambiguous).

The images you've posted hint at nothing new that hasn't been discussed here, and yet most of anything asked/suggested here is being replied to with a sense of "duh (!!)".

Your "SilverFast" image shows "auto" processing of color/cast/curves (yes, HDR and Gamma settings can offset your "not auto" settings) at some level (sometimes one can inadvertently have "autoexposure" even though one thinks "auto" is off), your "VueScan" hint at manual settings -- and both tell me that your gamma values are very different. There are at least a few things going wrong at the same time. Also, depending on the version of SilverFast, the rendering may be different (and options are different).

I would suggest other things, but I wouldn't want to make you feel like I think you're an imbecile. If you're a doctor and you're hurting, "it hurts", and "I've already done that" are not very good diagnostic tools. Best of luck.
 
Sparrow said:
I assume the histogram is biased to the left? and you have tried different file formats? I seem to get much better files in .tiff than anything else
Click to expand...

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by biased to the left. If I understand you right then no, to the contrary. There's actually almost no information recorded in the shadows so towards the left the histogram goes flat.

I save as .tiff but again, that's a moot point as the problems I'm having start with the preview scan. I'm not getting anything I can use to begin with so it doesn't matter what format I save it in later.


I'm really at my wit's end with VueScan and my Nikon Scanner. I don't seem to have any of these problems when I use it with my Epson 4990 for 4x5 but with the Nikon it's a nightmare.
 
VueScan works well if you use it as a negative scanner and do the positive conversion in ColorFix in Photoshop. This yields the best results for me, by far.
 
Gabriel M.A. said:
We are at a loss as you have not been specific enough about your settings. Once can only ask. One can only know so much from so little (and so ambiguous).

The images you've posted hint at nothing new that hasn't been discussed here, and yet most of anything asked/suggested here is being replied to with a sense of "duh (!!)".

Your "SilverFast" image shows "auto" processing of color/cast/curves (yes, HDR and Gamma settings can offset your "not auto" settings) at some level (sometimes one can inadvertently have "autoexposure" even though one thinks "auto" is off), your "VueScan" hint at manual settings -- and both tell me that your gamma values are very different. There are at least a few things wrong at the same time.

If you're a doctor and you're hurting, "it hurts", and "I've already done that" are not very good diagnostic tools. Best of luck.
Click to expand...

Like I said, I wasn't trying to attack anyone or be unappreciative of the help provided and I do agree that I could've been more precise with the information on what settings I'm using.

What I meant to say is that I really have tried all the obvious solutions that a normal regularly computer savvy person could come up with. Have tried all the settings and combinations I could think off. There's not a box in the VueScan preferences I haven't tested out to see how it affects the scan. Keep in mind, I've been having this problem for well over half a year. I was sure that it could be solved with a new calibration device and a proper profile but clearly I was wrong.

To be a bit more precise, it's not really the color cast that's the problem or even the nearly blown highlights. I can get the Vuescan image to look a lot closer to the Silverfast one. But what I'm always getting is pitch black shadow areas with tons of color noise.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom