Vuescan Question

**Peter J. De Smidt** · 14-Jul-2007, 15:40

I'm scanning my BW negatives using a Canon 9950F and Vuescan. I've found that using the green channel gives the best results. Anyway, I'd like to adjust exposure, as it were, to get the most information from the negative, but I don't want to just be applying post scan adjustments, which I prefer to do in Photoshop. I'd like to be able to either very the intensity of the light used for scanning or the time. Is this possible?

**Ed Richards** · 14-Jul-2007, 18:04

I use the same set up. You cannot vary the exposure, but it is very useful to use the B&W developer/contrast setting and the white and dark points to make sure you do not have clipping and that the values are well spread on the histogram. Silverfast claims to vary the exposure with its multi-exposure setting, but I have not yet seen any improvement over Vuescan. I will not say it cannot do better, but I have not figured out how to make it do better yet.

**Ken Lee** · 14-Jul-2007, 18:54

Here are some VueScan options that will get you the maximum range from the scanner.

If you want to set the RGB value to something else, that's another matter, but the basic idea is shown below.

**Peter J. De Smidt** · 14-Jul-2007, 23:36

Thanks guys. I've had a bit of a hiatus from scanning, but now it's time to get back to it. In the past, I always used the various film settings and curve settings to spread out the histogram, but my understanding is that there's really no benefit to doing this in Vuescan as opposed to Photoshop, and it's much easier to do in Photoshop. I'm I understanding this correctly?

**Ken Lee** · 15-Jul-2007, 03:37

You definitely understand correctly.

Not all VueScan users have a copy of Photo$hop, so the presence of basic editing features in VueScan makes it even more appealing. But if you have both, it's best to use each for their intended purpose.