Vuescan or scanner giving unusable results

[swmcl]

Hi,

Just a quick note ...

I seem to always find the software glitch - I'm that kind of guy for some reason. I have obviously got pre-conceived ideas about how things should work and I clearly think very differently to all software programmers !! In this case, I thought I could get a scan of some sort anywhere on the glass platen.

Today I have been placing a 5x7 B&W negative on my V700 to get a quick scan. I pulled the white background thingy out of the lid and placed my photo up at the hinge end of the glass in the centre. I surrounded the three remaining sides of the photo with black card.

The results from a preview were complete crap. No image to be seen.

I play for hours at the settings. I search the net for help. I read the manual. Nothing doing.

Do you know what the problem was ?

I don't think the transparency is meant to go up to the extent of the glass. I happened to pull the transparency about 1cm off the edge of the glass and Bingo! I got a scan. Yes I know, don't tell me ...

It is very difficult to search for help on Google with this kind of scenario so I thought I'd post my findings here.

Now I need to remember this for next time.

:-)

How come no one else gets this issue ?

[benrains]

It sounds like you're not using the film area guide that's supplied with the Epson V700/V750 scanners for scanning large format film/transparencies. Here's the Epson user documentation for it- http://files.support.epson.com/htmldocs/prv7ph/prv7phug/html/set2_2.htm#S-00600-00200-00310

Although I always place my film emulsion (non-shiny) side down, and then flip it in Photoshop. I find this minimizes Newton rings showing up in the scans.

[Ken Lee]

... or perhaps you put the holder in backwards or upside down. The holders have markers on them which signal information to the scanner. Without them, we get a... surprise :cool:

[swmcl]

Guys,

It was a 'quick scan'. No holder. Does Epson give you a 5x7 holder ??

I must admit it is also because the scanner is coming out of storage too. The holders are somewhere else.

Looking at the guide linked by Ben I see in section 4 there ia a note ... I am confirming that when they say, "Leave the part of the film area guide circled below uncovered or colors in your scans will be affected." It is certainly true !!!

Thanks Ben ... and Ken.

[cover]

Post is a year old but if it helps others... I stumbled across Vuescan by accident while trying to get new life into my canon scanner that doesn't provide drivers for windows 7 and THOUGHT the blue hue to the scans was part of the 'water mark' that comes with the trial issue. I purchased PRO and it's still there. The net result is unacceptable and I'll be trying to get a refund from Vuescan unless they can help me get that cleared up. I'll post back here what the result is but would advise others against buying the program depending on how they treat this.

[Rollinhofuji]

Blue hue with VueScan? never had such experience - would it be possible to make a screenshot of the "input" screen with all options on the left visible?

Vuescan can use either all, green, red or blue "channels" to make a B&W scan. I found the green channel to give the best results (may depend on your scanner). It is important to save these files as a grayscale file then (usually 16bit TIFF or whatever). Then, no kind of hue can show up. Or are we talking about color scans? If so, you might need to calibrate your scanner.

[Michael Cienfuegos]

Not sure about the Canon scanners, but with the Epson V700, you must have either a negative holder or the film area guide in place or you will get some weird stuff in place of a scan. The upper right hand corner of the platen must be covered or you will have that unpleasant surprise.


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[Rollinhofuji]

Indeed - and furthermore, some dedicated area must be either covered with a white translucent piece of plastic (I guess my Canon 9900 had such on its holders) or must be completely uncovered (Epson) to allow proper white balance.

[cover]

I'll post back here what the result is but would advise others against buying the program depending on how they treat this.

Ed Hamrick was great to work with. Emails came back at night so perhaps he has a day job but he was great to work with. In essence, Ill I had to do was 'calibrate' the scanner to the software and voila. Pretty cool to have my older scanner running again under W7-64. Thanks for the responses to my post too, everyone. :-)

[David Lobato]

When using the Epson software there needs to be a gap at the top near the hinge for the software to recognize and set the right scan parameters. The film area guide has a wide cutout there for that purpose. Move the negative down about 3/8ths of an inch if you're not using the film area guide. That should work.