Vuescan, Tri-X, 400CN film settings?

[rffguy]

What film settings do you use for Vuescan when scanning TriX and 400CN? Under the 'Color' tab you can set 'B/W vendor', 'B/W brand', and 'B/W type'. What do you use for these settings for these two types of film?

I don't know if the type of scanner matters, but I have a Nikon Coolscan 5000 if that makes a difference.

Thanks!

 

[ChrisL]

The best option for scanning B&W negatives is to scan them in as color and convert in your image editor. I have found that Vuescan does an excellent job on chromes and c-41 color/B&W but true B&W negatives are hard to scan correctly. When I want to scan the negative correctly without converting it later then I use Silverfast which has much better film profiles.

 

[RayPA]

My experience is completely opposite from ChrisL. I find scanning b&w with Vuescan to be a breeze. I have a tougher time with color negatives. I scan Tri-X using the b&w film setting, TMAX 400, D76 and various CI settings. I don't use CN.

🙂

 

[AusDLK]

First thing to do is ditch Vuescan. What a horrible, completely non-intuitive POS (piece of software).

 

[RayPA]

First thing to do is ditch Vuescan. What a horrible, completely non-intuitive POS (piece of software).

I used to use Epson scan, great interface, flakey software. It used to corrupt the lib file on a regular basis. It finally bombed out and wouldn't work anymore. I thought it did a great job and was really saddened. I bought Vuescan and couldn't believe the difference in the scans I was getting, like a completely different scanner. Intuitive? No, but WELL worth the cost and effort.

Some people (not me) find a manual stickshift on a car to be non-intuitive and difficult to use. That's no reason to call a Porsche a p.o.s. Stick with Vuescan it's great.


🙂

 

[AusDLK]

Um... comparing Vuescan to a Porsche is not very accurate.

Comparing it to a kit-car (even a high performance one) without an assembly manual is more on the money.

If you have tons of time to fiddle with tons of loosely related settings scattered across multiple tabs with virtually no useful documentation then I have no doubt that you can pull a magnificant scan.

But with the three scanners I have -- Nikon 5000, Minolta 5400, and Epson V750 -- I use the manufacturer's software in all cases. All are easy and relatively intuitive to use and I seriously doubt the scans I get suffer in any way when compared to Vuescan -- or Silverfast (another completely unnecessarily complex piece of software although not as convoluted as Vuescan).

 

[RayPA]

Um... comparing Vuescan to a Porsche is not very accurate.

Comparing it to a kit-car (even a high performance one) without an assembly manual is more on the money.

If you have tons of time to fiddle with tons of loosely related settings scattered across multiple tabs with virtually no useful documentation then I have no doubt that you can pull a magnificant scan.

But with the three scanners I have -- Nikon 5000, Minolta 5400, and Epson V750 -- I use the manufacturer's software in all cases. All are easy and relatively intuitive to use and I seriously doubt the scans I get suffer in any way when compared to Vuescan -- or Silverfast (another completely unnecessarily complex piece of software althought not as convoluted as Vuescan).

UM...the topic of this thread is not what AusDLK thinks about Vuescan. The subject line is very specific as is the original question. You want to bash Vuescan start a thread and bash it. I personally don't care what your opinion is about Vuescan. The members who've responded here have Vuescan and use it.

What's the point of your original post here? So you're unable to deal with complex software So what? Create a thread and profess your inability all you want. I'm here as a participant to hear what other Vuescan users are doing. Seems to me like YOU'RE trolling.

.

 

[AusDLK]

Um... I am a software developer with 30 years of software development experience.

I have personally developed a half a dozen commercial software products and brought them to market. I have created two successful software businesses. One in business for over 20 years.

I know what makes a good piece of software and what doesn't.

I respectfully submit, sir, that you are picking the fight here (and turned the thread into something about what we both think of Vuescan). In my first post, I merely expressed an opinion (related to the thread topic) which I believe is my priviledge as a paying member here.

 

[visiondr]

UM...the topic of this thread is not what AusDLK thinks about Vuescan. The subject line is very specific as is the original question. You want to bash Vuescan start a thread and bash it. I personally don't care what your opinion is about Vuescan. The members who've responded here have Vuescan and use it.

Just what I was thinking. Let's keep things civil, please.

Ron

 

[RayPA]

Um... I am a software developer with 30 years of software development experience.

I have personally developed a half a dozen commercial software products and brought them to market. I have created two successful software businesses. One in business for over 20 years.

I know what makes a good piece of software and what doesn't.

I respectfully submit, sir, that you are picking the fight here (and turned the thread into something about what we both think of Vuescan). In my first post, I merely expressed an opinion (related to the thread topic) which I believe is my priviledge as a paying member here.

You're still adding nothing of value to this thread except to profess that with all your experience you can't operate Vuescan. I've answered the question directly, and rather than bow out of the thread to which you bring nothing you want to persist.

Persist if you want. I've added something here. Good luck, rffguy. PM me if you want to discuss Vuescan without a troll thread-killer. I'm out of this thread, unsubscribing.

 

[AusDLK]

Cripes. And I always thought Ray was a cool guy... I am baffled why he choose to jump my **** tonight over this topic... I didn't mention the M8 once... 😉

 

[DaveSee]

UM...the topic of this thread is not what AusDLK thinks about Vuescan. The subject line is very specific as is the original question. You want to bash Vuescan start a thread and bash it. I personally don't care what your opinion is about Vuescan. The members who've responded here have Vuescan and use it.

What's the point of your original post here? So you're unable to deal with complex software So what? Create a thread and profess your inability all you want. I'm here as a participant to hear what other Vuescan users are doing. Seems to me like YOU'RE trolling.

.

Hay RayPA, thanks for your previous post on topic and B/W negs. I've not scanned my B/w negs yet, but have done a few Kodak CN with Vuescan set to a Generic color type: reasonably good results with no color cast using an old KM 5400. Not sure about other scanner s/w, but VueScan will produce a RAW file from the scan and this has left a lot of room for post-scan processing capability.

As for AusDLK's dislike for VueScan: yes, it has some quirks... but complex and convoluted? Well... with all those 30 years experience and a couple software companies propped up, we've still to know if the bits he pushed through a pipe had anything whatsoever to do with image processing, so what does it matter? He's happy with other's software and unable to express how one might use VueScan in assistance to rffguy, save to use the "bundled" s/w with the scanner... and M$ or Apple OS's, obviously 😉

rffguy: I'd use the generic and output to RAW. It's a TIFF file, as are many other RAW files in format, and I've read it into a couple "converters" OK... it's 16bit too.

hth+rgds,
Dave

 

[kaiyen]

Sometimes I miss the days of usenet and killfiles. Though the ignore user feature is close enough. First time I've used it. Should feel honored.

I set Vuescan in color negative mode, 48 bit. I set the film type to Tmax 400, and, as a starting point, the CI to D76 .55. If it's a contrasty neg, I move to .70 or .80. If it's a flat neg, I move to .50. But .55 gives me a nice, clean curve with the tones I want, and the full information that negative carries.

Also, once you get your exposure and develop dialed in, you will find yourself adjusting that CI less and less. For me, I'm at .55 almost all the time now.

allan

 

[rich815]

Vuescan is AWESOME. I've used it for years for three differnet Epson flatbeds, my Nikon LS-4000 and a friend's LS-IV. I never found scanning as a positive to do any good whatsoever. I do what RayPA does for the most part. I do sometimes find including some edge border outside the frame will help insure no clipping of the highlights or shadows. It will give you a very flat looking scan though. This is what you want. Scan this way at full-bit and then adjust in levels/curves in PS and you are golden. I've scanned and sold numerous prints and photo files for advertising gigs using my photo scan files from both my Epson 4990 and Nikon LS-4000. Click on any of the links below in my signature to see my photo pages about 98% of which were scanned using Vuescan.

 

[Todd.Hanz]

I use Vuescan with great results on my Epson 2450 and Minolta Scan Dual IV.

I scan in color negative mode, 48 bit like the others but I use the "Ilford XP2 " film type for Tri-X, Fuji Acros and XP-2/ BW400cn. Sometimes I'll use the noise reduction filter on light due to the grain aliasing of the dualscan IV.

I'll have to try the Tmax mode next time.

good luck,
Todd