Challenges with Highlights in Scanning Process?

[LansoirThemtq]

Is it possible that I am doing something wrong, or could this be a limitation of the scanner and software? I am relatively new to scanning and I'm experiencing issues with preserving highlights. I use an Epson V850 Pro scanner along with Silverfast 8.8 software to scan 4x5 Tri X negatives in 16-bit grayscale. Many of my negatives have high contrast with highlights that contain just enough detail on the negative and print well in the darkroom, resulting in strong prints.

My usual process involves performing a pre-scan and then adjusting the histogram by pushing each side to its limits. However, I've noticed that the right-side slider in the histogram can't be adjusted adequately to bring down the highlights. This leads to them being overexposed. Although I can reduce the highlights in post-processing using Affinity software after scanning, this often results in a flat, light grey tone that doesn't look very appealing.

Any insights or suggestions on whether I'm missing a step or if this is a limitation of the scanner and software would be greatly appreciated.

[j.e.simmons]

My thoughts on this are that we develop negatives to fit the contrast range of our papers. Likewise, we have to develop our negatives to fit the contrast range of our scanners. Maybe someone else has better ideas.

[Tin Can]

why are you scanning

shoot DIGI for DIGI prints

[bdkphoto]

Is it possible that I am doing something wrong, or could this be a limitation of the scanner and software? I am relatively new to scanning and I'm experiencing issues with preserving highlights. I use an Epson V850 Pro scanner along with Silverfast 8.8 software to scan 4x5 Tri X negatives in 16-bit grayscale. Many of my negatives have high contrast with highlights that contain just enough detail on the negative and print well in the darkroom, resulting in strong prints.

My usual process involves performing a pre-scan and then adjusting the histogram by pushing each side to its limits. However, I've noticed that the right-side slider in the histogram can't be adjusted adequately to bring down the highlights. This leads to them being overexposed. Although I can reduce the highlights in post-processing using Affinity software after scanning, this often results in a flat, light grey tone that doesn't look very appealing.

Any insights or suggestions on whether I'm missing a step or if this is a limitation of the scanner and software would be greatly appreciated.

It's been a while since I did much scanning but I always scanned to a lower contrast than the final image, making sure there was detail in the highlights, and the shadows had detail as well. I used the scan as a raw file and processed with (in my case Lightroom/photoshop) to build back contrast, burn dodge etc. You could also do multiple scans - one to make sure you have adequate highlights and combine them as a HDR and process from there. There's also some truly wonderful masking tools - if you are trying to retain highlights in the sky as an example-- you can simply select the sky or a highlight range and process that independently from the rest of the image. Its important to note that your monitor setup is really important here too, if you are working on a laptop or an iMac with a generic monitor that isn't profiled and calibrated properly you may have detail in your scans that you are not seeing because the monitors native contrast is too high to display it.

[Larry Gebhardt]

Try a scan as a positive with no adjustments. Use 16 bit RGB. Then edit in Affinity/Photoshop. The file should have room on either end of the histogram. My guess is your issues are in the scanner software and you can get a good image out of this. I'd be happy to take a stab at the conversion if you want to share the positive scan.

why are you scanning

shoot DIGI for DIGI prints

There are many reasons to want digital images from film. Excellent work can be done with scanning film.

[Abierce]

Two suggestions:
Purchase a 4x5 Stouffer 21 step transmission step wedge (Bostick&Sullivan for example) and then scan it. You'll find the acceptable scannable negative range of the scanner.
Use a DSLR set up for converting b+w negatives. This will allow you to change the amount of light passing though the negative (effectively capturing a longer density range)
The density range of a negative differs from contact printing, enlarger printing and digital printing, generally speaking.

[Alan9940]

If you're an Adobe user, you might look into scanning to a linear raw file, and then using the ColorPerfect plugin (PS) or NegativeLabPro (LR) to convert. I generally use the PS plugin for all my B&W conversions and have not seen issues with highlights. Deep shadow areas are another story, but that's due to the limitation of my flatbed scanner. Also, I don't change the development of my film whether wet printing or working from the desktop.

[interneg]

Likewise, we have to develop our negatives to fit the contrast range of our scanners.

Nope. Even the Epson V850 should not struggle with the DR of an average BW neg that can be printed on regular silver gelatin papers.

Try a scan as a positive with no adjustments. Use 16 bit RGB. Then edit in Affinity/Photoshop. The file should have room on either end of the histogram. My guess is your issues are in the scanner software and you can get a good image out of this. .

Correct. Some of the onboard scanner inversion algorithms seem to have been designed for very narrow & specific usage cases, likely geared around assumptions for DTP usage in the 1990s - rather than allowing for optimal usage of the scanner's density handling abilities.

[Alan Klein]

Is it possible that I am doing something wrong, or could this be a limitation of the scanner and software? I am relatively new to scanning and I'm experiencing issues with preserving highlights. I use an Epson V850 Pro scanner along with Silverfast 8.8 software to scan 4x5 Tri X negatives in 16-bit grayscale. Many of my negatives have high contrast with highlights that contain just enough detail on the negative and print well in the darkroom, resulting in strong prints.

My usual process involves performing a pre-scan and then adjusting the histogram by pushing each side to its limits. However, I've noticed that the right-side slider in the histogram can't be adjusted adequately to bring down the highlights. This leads to them being overexposed. Although I can reduce the highlights in post-processing using Affinity software after scanning, this often results in a flat, light grey tone that doesn't look very appealing.

Any insights or suggestions on whether I'm missing a step or if this is a limitation of the scanner and software would be greatly appreciated.

I use Epsonscan with my V850. I never used Silverfast. You could try Epsonscan to see if there's any difference. But you seem to be doing what I do with setting the black and white points (levels) for the scan manually.

There are limits to the scanner and negatives if you clipped the highlights. You can't get blood from a turnip. In the future, start checking stop range with your meter and use graduated neutral density filters for a bright sky if there are too many stops for the film you're using. Also, and I never used the zone system, you can expose for the shadows and develop for the highlights to improve the range. Others will have to tell you how to do this.

[Bruce Watson]

I am relatively new to scanning and I'm experiencing issues with preserving highlights. I use an Epson V850 Pro scanner along with Silverfast 8.8 software to scan 4x5 Tri X negatives in 16-bit grayscale. Many of my negatives have high contrast with highlights that contain just enough detail on the negative and print well in the darkroom, resulting in strong prints.

When you say "highlights" are you referring to the negative or to the final print? IOW, are we talking about high density on the negative or low density? Just need some context here or people will be talking at cross purposes and confusion might reign.

My usual process involves performing a pre-scan and then adjusting the histogram by pushing each side to its limits. However, I've noticed that the right-side slider in the histogram can't be adjusted adequately to bring down the highlights. This leads to them being overexposed. Although I can reduce the highlights in post-processing using Affinity software after scanning, this often results in a flat, light grey tone that doesn't look very appealing.

Any insights or suggestions on whether I'm missing a step or if this is a limitation of the scanner and software would be greatly appreciated.

The limitation is probably not in software. It's the hardware in the flatbed scanner. The scanner is scanning a line at a time. So it can not be optimized for each pixel -- for that you need a drum scanner. What this means typically is that pro-sumer flat bed scanners were designed so that everything is scanned using a set density range. If what you are scanning fits in that range, great. If not...

Second limitation is that all the pro-sumer flatbed scanners I know of were optimized for color materials. So... dye clouds, not metallic silver grain clumps. The difference here is that the dyes are translucent. The metallic silver is opaque. So the metallic silver exhibits Callier Effect. This in turn decreases contrast in high density areas, what most scanner operators call highlights.

Callier Effect is the same thing that effects enlargers in darkroom printing. It is more prevalent in cubic grained films like Tri-X, HP-5+, etc. and less prevalent in tabular grained films like TMY-2, Delta, etc.

Many years of experimenting, and working with, a scanning workflow taught me this (and yes, this is just me and may not apply to anyone else): for capture, tabular grained films. If you aren't going to print in the darkroom ever, then bring your Dmax on your negative down a little, maybe a stop. If your scanner is having trouble reading the opposite end, bring your Dmin up a little. These two things may make it difficult to print this negative in the darkroom, which is why I'm warning about that.

If you shrink the density range a bit, the scanner will probably like it, and you'll be able to print however you print a little easier with less corrections in your photoeditor. But every scanner is different, as is every scanner workflow. So you'll have to do some experimentation to find your own personal sweet spot.

Else, if you *are* going to darkroom print these negatives, optimize for darkroom printing. If you can easily print your negative on a #2 printing paper and get the results you want, your scanner should be able to scan it without too much trouble.

It took me the better part of a decade to learn enough (in large part thanks to many on this forum, and others) to be able to reduce it all into a couple of paragraphs like the above. Do with that what you will.