Pyro negatives and Silverfast

[Harley Goldman]

I have tried and tried to scan pyro negatives with Silverfast Ai and an Epson V750. The histogram loads heavily to the right and highlights are toast. I have tried every film profile listed and played with the curves of the profiles. I have scanned as a negative, color negative, positive, grayscale, 48 bit color, etc. with no luck.

I take the same negatives and use Epson Scan, no problem at all.

Also, I use a non-pyro negative with Silverfast and no problems. That is not much of a help, though, as pyro is the only developer I use.

Epson Scan works fine and I use it, but I just happen to prefer the user interface of Silverfast. I was curious if anyone else with pyro negs has had the same Silverfast issues. I contacted tech support and they were utterly useless. I have loaded the latest and greatest version, etc.

[domaz]

Is there a way in Silverfast to specify what RGB channel to make grayscale from? If so try changing which channel you use and re-scan.

[Peter Gomena]

I scan all my PMK and Pyrocat HD negatives with Silverfast Ai with no problem. I scan as a negative in 16-bit grayscale using white light. Go to the "options" settings boxes and be sure your gamma setting is down around 1.8 to 2.0, and be sure you do not have "prescan draft" or "scan draft" checked.

Peter Gomena

[Tyler Boley]

Is there a way in Silverfast to specify what RGB channel to make grayscale from? If so try changing which channel you use and re-scan.

Pasted from an old post-
"In Silverfast, try this- On the "General" page hit the options button, then the Special tab.
The channel you select for Color Filter is what will be used for grayscale scans, "White" will be some mix of all channels. There has been some debate on this list about it, possible implying that it does not function with some scanner models, but it works as it should for me and I've used it with several scanners and Silverfast for about ten years.
Which channel you should select depends on the scanner.
Tyler"

I'd add, it also depends on the film, staining developers, for example, may want a different channel. More straightforward B&W films.. you may want to investigate whci channel has less scanner noise with your particular scanner.

[Harley Goldman]

I checked the gamma setting. It was 1.8 so I tried 2.0. The histogram is still crammed to the right. I scanned the same negative with Epson Scan and it is fine.

Thanks for the suggestion, though. It was worth a try.

[Harley Goldman]

I also tried scanning white and other channels. Again, no difference. Maybe I am just destined to use Epson Scan. It works fine, I am just not fond of the interface.

[Dave Aharonian]

I've been scanning my pmk negs for ages with silverfast and have no problem. I scan them as 48bit rgb files. They tend to have a strong warm colour cast but in PS I convert them to grayscale.

[Tyler Boley]

Is there a way in Silverfast to specify what RGB channel to make grayscale from? If so try changing which channel you use and re-scan.

I also tried scanning white and other channels. Again, no difference. Maybe I am just destined to use Epson Scan. It works fine, I am just not fond of the interface.

I was just answering the question about selecting R, G, or B channels in the software. Other controls will dictate the tonal spread...
Tyler