Thanks Peter for your advices, I m going to try it... and I'll post here my new impression and maybe questions...
Thanks Peter for your advices, I m going to try it... and I'll post here my new impression and maybe questions...
I have a slightly different workflow than Peter's (though I learned it his way first). Perhaps I will make a short video of my general workflow for reference sake, when I scan some film likely tonight or tomorrow.
So, I did a quick and dirty video of how I setup a scan. I don't have any fancy screen capture software for the Mac so it's just a basic over the shoulder video, but I think it shows everything alright.
Basically, once I do a prescan on "positive film" mode, I select the film area and push the little settings tab under the "Finish (options)" box. Normally the "HD" and SD" boxes show the highlight and shadow values respectively, which default to a lowish set of numbers on the HD values and higher on the SD values. Since we are scanning negative film, I flip them, and manually input the opposite - high numbers in the HD and the opposite in the SD. Usually I start with some known values - around 2 or 2.5 in all 3 of the HD values (or higher if the highlights are a bit stronger) and 0 to 0.2 in the shadows depending on the shadows. You can see my negatives here are a bit low contrast and the second one was a bit underexposed, so I reset the SD values to 0 to get maximum shadow density.
When scanning color negative film, I will use a dropper to find a "white" area for the HD value and a "black" area (usually the rebate) for the SD value. I have some pieces of paper with film types I use often to get in the ballpark and then adjust to taste as well.
I then move on to the MIN and MAX settings and type in manually all 0 and 255. Then I turn off sharpening and go to the curves box and usually do a slight S-curve, or if the negative needs something else, I tweak it however. Finally I register the negative - usually I scan direct to a compact flash card. As you can see in the video, I also just move the scan box around to the different negatives, and adjust to taste. In this way I can do a batch scan setup of a whole roll of 120 in about 5 minutes, maybe a bit more for color.
Hope this helps anyone looking for tips on using the Cezanne.
Good stuff, Bryan. Thanks for posting!
Note: you can go below zero with the HD/SD numbers if needed.
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
Thanks Bryan for your advice... Tonight I should scan some negatives, so I ll try both systems... I hope to post my result early...
Good point Peter! I've done that once or twice. I guess it's like raising the black point on a curves adjustment in Photoshop, but surely it can't "dig deeper" into the negative right? Or am I incorrect?
Good luck photo8x10, hope to see your scans soon!
Bryan, I wish I knew. Like you, I've done it once or twice, and in those cases it did help. Could I have gotten just as much out of the scan by leaving the number at 0 and using shadow/highlight in Photoshop? I don't know. Next time it looks helpful, I'll do two scans and investigate. I also don't know whether messing around in the scanner software really helps or not. As you know, if you clear all of the items in the Finish column, you can make a scan. Some people think this is as unprocessed a scan as you can get. My feeling is that it's better to get closer to the final file in the scanner software, but I have nothing really to back that up with. I guess the question is: Does making (at least some) adjustments in scanner software work on better data than does working on the file after it's been output, as is the case when working with a raw file from a digital camera.
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
A few months ago (you may remember, as I mentioned it here on this thread), I borrowed a Nikon Coolscan 9000 from my friend to setup drivers for Windows 7. I used a difficult Velvia slide to test the scanner and made some tests and comparisons with the Cezanne using various methods, including clearing the "Finish" column as you mention. I found that for the deep shadows of the slide, I seemed to pull out just a tiny bit more density using a completely unprocessed scan. But it was really, really tiny. The Nikon had a lot more info in the shadows though. That's a positive image though so for shadows on a negative that would be the highlights of a positive...I think the Cezanne does really well with thin densities with either type of film.
For a much more restrained b&w negative though, my thought is that even with 16-bit scanning, it's best to use as much of those 16-bits as possible, by placing the highlights near the top of the scale and the shadows near the bottom. Otherwise, you are probably only getting about 8-bits anyway if the densities are only contained in the middle bits. Could be wrong. I think the question, which has been asked before, is if the setup dialog is pre- or post- scan. Seems like a smart software designer would make sure the bits were used most efficiently by doing it pre-scan, but said software designer may not have been thinking about maximum image quality since that isn't really his job. After scanning the dialog box says "Setup" so I think it must do it post-scan, unfortunately. A newer, nicer software would likely scan in 32-bit floating point and dither down to 16-bit after applying the setup, if the scanner had continued to be upgraded and supported.
Yesterday night I did some scans to 2 BW negatives, one 8x10" developed in pyro and one developed in D-76.
I used your advice to scan, and this is the raw file that I got( I didn't do nothing in Photoshop), even if I don't understand well how to delete the channel I don't need :-)
this first image is 8x10 in pyro at 800dpi
this is a 120mm developed in D-76.
I used over them a plexy satin, but I don't think is a good choise, I would prefer a extra-clear glass to put over, what do you think?
And in your experience what the best resolution I could use for 120mm and 8x10"
At the end of week I have more time to work so surely I could do more experiments.
I cropped a bit the image to put here...
Thanks
Stefano
I scan 120 film at 4000 spi. If you want to scan 8x10 in one pass, than about 1000 spi. Always scan with the long side of the film parallel to the front of the scanner.
Regarding the cover sheet, Screen uses one with a light texture to avoid Newton's rings. You can try clear glass, but you might get rings.
“You often feel tired, not because you've done too much, but because you've done too little of what sparks a light in you.”
― Alexander Den Heijer, Nothing You Don't Already Know
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