Help with Scanning

[Raffay]

Hello,

I am scanning my negs, and have no clue if i am doing it right. Initially, I thought the scanner would simply scan what I have exposed the actual shot, but I have noticed that by selecting the tons of options the results differ dramatically - which in my opinion is quite confusing since you don't know what your exposure looked like.

The other issue I am facing is that the review is showing something completely different to the actual scan, see pictures attached:

Preview:


Scan:


I am using VueScan with the following settings:

1. Input 16 bit gray
2. Green channel
4. Scan resolution 2400
5. Output 16 bit gray

Have no clue what to select in the colour tab, none and generic, portrait of Ilford etc. btw, I have tried all none, manual etc.

The main issue is that the preview is misleading and I want to know if I am doing something wrong or is this a VueScan issue.

Cheers

Raffay

[pasiasty]

Did you scan to JPEG/TIF or to RAW (which might be TIF as well)? You may set this in the 'Output' tab.

[Raffay]

did you scan to jpeg/tif or to raw (which might be tif as well)? You may set this in the 'output' tab.

tif

[pasiasty]

I'd say that your settings are quite strange. Especially 'brightness' set to 0.5 may result in quite dark image. Default is 1. Try setting everything to default (File -> Default options), then choose proper kind of media (Input -> Mode and Input -> Media) and scan.

It it also possible, that your clipping frame is too large and the software calculates values including holder areas; but it does not look like...

[Rollinhofuji]

I think the preview always uses some kind of default settings (i.e. brightness = 1), that could pretty mch explain the difference. Furthermore, try setting the whitepoint to something like 0.01% or even 0.1%. This means that the brightest 0.01% or 0.1% would be completely white (or, digitally spoken, have an RGB value of 255 255 255) with no details. This is ok for digital work. I personally use 0.1% blackpoint and 0.01& white point with VueScan, IIRC.
I also noticed that your curve settings are quite strange. I never touch the curves (which means I save it as a linear scan - default for curve low is 0.25, curve high 0.75). You can activate a curve preview somewhere in the menu, then you can see what the curve settings actually do.

If it is helpful, I may post/attach my VueScan preset for B&W 4x5. I also use the green channel only, which gives best results on my V750.

By the way, I just noticed that you set the film type to Ilford XP2 - do you really use XP2? Perhaps the dark image results from VueScan´s special post-scan processing for this C-41 B&W film. I use GENERIC (or something like that) always. Tonal adjustments are then done in Lightroom (via Curves, quite convenient and powerful).

[polyglot]

This tutorial might help, though the images are missing (my website got hacked) and it's aimed at colour. However, many of the same principles regarding black point and the Vuescan brightness slider still apply.

[Rollinhofuji]

This tutorial might help, though the images are missing (my website got hacked) and it's aimed at colour. However, many of the same principles regarding black point and the Vuescan brightness slider still apply.

Thanks for sharing - this is really interesting for me, since I have some trouble getting decent colours out of my Ektar scans.
Would be great if you could maybe re-upload the example pictures (or maybe post this article here?)...

Regards,
Jan