Wayne,
Where (roughly) are you located? Perhaps a friendly forum member nearby could stop over and help out. Showing someone helps much faster than describing how to do it. That said, for your needs, this isn't hard.
Wayne,
Where (roughly) are you located? Perhaps a friendly forum member nearby could stop over and help out. Showing someone helps much faster than describing how to do it. That said, for your needs, this isn't hard.
“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
I'm out in the wilds, about an hour from nobody. :-) Thanks guys I will just read the tutorials and will probably get all I need there. I only have a couple I want to scan now, but when I want to become a pro I'll know where to come.
Scan B&W in colour, not B&W. Then you can tone your prints.
Prints?
Wayne,
If you scan your B&W negs or prints in RGB you can further tweak them in Photo Shop by saving the best looking channel and working with that, or you can use the Channel Mixer to good effect. Here's a nice tutorial about using the Channel Mixer. Light's Right Studio-B&W Conversion Using the Channel Mixer.
--P
Preston-Columbia CA
"If you want nice fresh oats, you have to pay a fair price. If you can be satisfied with oats that have already been through the horse; that comes a little cheaper."
I dont have Photoshop. I think the scanner came with Adobe Photo Elements or something like that but I've never been able to make it work, presumably because its such an old program. Dont recall exactly. So that leaves me the other two programs it came with, Epson and Sillver Something.
Wayne , Here is a few things I do as a matter of course which may help.
Keep humidity up in room,
clean film as best as possible before scan, use canned air to help.
I always scan at a resolution that best suits my printing needs, I error on larger file size..
I always set my aim points on the outside or rather I do not clip, I look for a flat , file with as much information as possible , I do not make the scan look like a good BW photograph.
I do not sharpen at scan stage, but leave for post in PS
All work to make the file look good is done in PS
I think that people are missing the extremely low res that Wayne will be using.
For the web, an image at 700 pixels by 500 pixels at 72 dpi should be fine. Web images should be in the sRGB color space. Since Wayne isn't using another image editor, he'll have to scan at that res (or close), and use the adjustments in the software to get a look he likes, including a little sharpening.
If he ever want to make prints or use Photoshop, than recommendations would change dramatically.
“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
Also, start out with the auto settings in the preview, most of the time it's pretty good. Tweak from there if you are not happy.
Wayne, I agree with Anthony. Tell your Epson Scan program that you are scanning Color or Grey Scale. Black and White setting will come out flat and listless, no depth, like newsprint looks. I have an Epson 3170 Photo. It's scan driver recognizes both color and BW negs. Reverses the neg too when scanned so you get nice positive.
Your Epson is much fancier than mine. I'd think you have lots of scan controls. Try downloading updates to the program at Epson's site to see if you get better results.
To process your scans, there is an open source, free program called Gimp that is quite powerful. Much like Photoshop without the cost. Try googling GIMP for Windows v2.6.11 to download. They have Windows and Mac versions too.
Tom
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