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Alex Ragen
30-Jan-2006, 23:06
How to scan B&W negs with Vuescan? I haven't been able to figure this one out, since when I select B&W negs in the Input tab, only XP2 is available as a film choice under Ilford, and there's no Tri-X under Kodak either. Strangely, a lot of color neg films are available. What's going on?
I have tried the available choices and always the scans look washed out and less contrasty than the negs do. I'm using an Epson 4870.
Any explanations as for why the popular B&W films are not available, and how to get around this strange fact?
Thanks in advance.

paulr
31-Jan-2006, 00:49
it's not important to have an accurate profile for b+w film. all the preset does is apply some gamma curve to the scan, in an effort to come closer to some idea of neutral. but you're going to monkey with the curve anyway, so it doesn't really matter.

color neg film is a different story ... if you don't have the right preset, the curves are likely to cross and you'll spend days getting them untangled.

Ed Richards
31-Jan-2006, 07:03
First, make sure you have the current version. Then on the preferences tab, set the histogram display to b&w (black and white points). Then set the film to Tmax 100. You will get a series of choices for D76 and Tmax developer. These represent different contrast curves. Set you black and white points to 0, then try the different curves until you find the one that spreads out the data as widely as possible without clipping. DO NOT try to get the image into final form in Vuescan, just get it scaled. You want the scans to look a little washed out because that means none of the data is clipped. Use Photoshop levels and curves for the fine tuning. If you use these on layers, then you can can tweak them forever and not damage the data.

Brian Ellis
31-Jan-2006, 08:59
It sounds like you perhaps have a wrong selection under the "General" tab. For b&w film you should select "transparency" from the drop down menu in the "Original" box under the General tab and you should select "negative" in the "pos/neg" drop down menu. When you do that you should see all the available b&w films of each brand including Ilford. That's with Silverfast Ai, I'm not sure SE is the same but I think it is.

tim atherton
31-Jan-2006, 09:05
I'm a big fan of just getting a raw 16 bit scan from vuescan (set it in the Output section). This then opens up looking like a really dark negative

Then use NegPos to convert that within Photoshop (negpos has a bit of a learning curve... - I haven't pofiled B&W films with it, just fiddle witht hre basic settings - works great for colour neg too)

Keep hunting around here (and DO read the manual):

http://www.c-f-systems.com/Plug-ins.html

Alex Ragen
31-Jan-2006, 23:33
First of all, thanks to all those who replied. what I conclude from their posts is that with traditional B&W (not C41), unlike with color negs, it doesn't really matter with what film you started. What's important is how to get from the negative to the scanned file. Once the negative has been developed, it's irrelevant (as far as the scanning goes) what the film was, what the developer was, etc. I just have to accept the fact that the scan will not be perfect and that I will have to fiddle with the curve in Photoshop to get it right.

Just the same, IMHO there is no good reason why Vuescan's interface doesn't make this clear. Why should a list of color films pop up in the Color tab when the user chooses B/W negatives in the Input tab? Why isn't the GUI more logical? Choose Generic in the Color tab and the only choice for B/W film is COLOR. Is this some kind of an in joke, so the Vuescan engineers can have a good laugh watching beginners stumble around in confusion? Yes, I should have read the documentation, but why does the GUI mislead users so that they have to read the documentation to understand it? I was in software for a long time, so I know that a good product's GUI can and should help the user and not confuse him/her, if the designer takes the trouble to do it right.

I have tried the suggestions I received and they work. I thank the LFP Forum members for their help, but I fault the Vuescan engineers for obfusticating their GUI to the point where I (and presumably others as well) needed help.

robc
1-Feb-2006, 02:00
do yourself a favour and get a copy of silverfast. I have tried epson scan, vuescan and silverfast and whilst I don't like silverfasts interface it is much more intuitive and provides much simpler control of the scannning process. Especially if you have a difficult negative to scan such as a rescue job on a bad negative.

Warren Weckesser
1-Feb-2006, 05:14
"Vuescan engineers"? There is only one: Ed Hamrick.
He is the author of Vuescan (http://www.hamrick.com/abo.html).
Why not send him an email (http://www.hamrick.com/sup.html) with your suggestions?
(By the way, I agree that the black and white film choice interface is confusing.)

Ed Richards
1-Feb-2006, 07:42
Vuescan is less than 1/3 of a comperable Silverfast package with IT8 profiling and the like, plus it will run as many different scanners as you have. For me, that makes it worth taking a little time to figure it out. Once you figure it out, it gives you a lot of control and the ability to do a 4800 DPI scan and output a 2400 DPI file. Maybe we should collect vuescan tips for B&W and do a faq. Ed Hamrick is also very reponsive to suggestions and has made some changes in the recent versions that make LF scanning work much better - better virtual memory management so you can make BIG scans and downsample them inside Vuescan.

The tip on working on RAW files is good - I did that for a while and it works very well. For most of my negatives I can do fine with the Vuescan conversion, as long as I am careful to not clip. If you set up any of these programs to get the best looking image on the screen, you are clipping at both ends and you limit your ability to fine tune later.

paulr
2-Feb-2006, 08:12
"Just the same, IMHO there is no good reason why Vuescan's interface doesn't make this clear."

how about consistency? vuescan's interface doesn't make anything else clear either ;)

that being said, it's a good program and can give you first rate scans, especially from bw negs. i actually think its greater weakness is the inteface for color scans. it lacks anything like a curves tool, which is what color correction really demands. i've still gotten good scans from color negs, but it's much more difficult than it needs to be.

tim atherton
2-Feb-2006, 09:05
If I can remember it's history correctly, the profiles in Vuescan originated from the series of profiles Kodak produced for it's PhotoCD format (anyone remember that...?) - They are both of about the same vintage - and that is why it seems a rather odd selection of films, somewhat frozen in time.

As Vuescan evolved (and it does so every few days), I think most people tended to use it as the scanning end of a personalized workflow, rather than an end in itself.

Most of Ed's efforts have gone into making it compatible with almost every scanner under the sun.

It will still do a first rate job with colour transparency film. Also B&W using one of several approaches mentioned above (as well as NegPos - I've found picking one of the TMax CI profiles and tweaking it does work well)

For colour neg it was always a bit hit and miss - again, I've found a RAW colour scan + NegPos is excellent (I prefer it to silverfast - others don't - btw, with Silverfast, part of what you are paying for is the production of new/up-to-date profiles). Indeed, if you make the effort to profile your own choice of colour neg films with NegPos it is one of the best I've seen for converting colour neg scans

Frank Petronio
2-Feb-2006, 09:52
What 8x10 color neg film(s) are you using Tim?

tim atherton
2-Feb-2006, 09:57
Mainly Fuji NPS and Portra 160 (and a bit of 400) - it's mostly stuff I bought cheap that was a bit out of date

Kirk Gittings
2-Feb-2006, 10:01
I use Vuescan and Silverfast almost everyday. SF on my 4990 and 1800f and VS on my Nikon 8000. I use Vuescan on the Nikon because there is an issue with SF Digital Ice and the Nikon. Plus, SF is almost 400 bucks for the Nikon. If it were not for those issues I would use SF for everything. Vuescan does raw generic scans very well and has some niffy file tricks that Ed is fond of pointing out, but if you prefer to do much manipulation in the scanning stage (and there are many good arguments to do that) as I do. Vuescan is very basic and awkward compared to SF. In addition if you need Digital Ice, as I do on commercial color negs, SF is superior, VS at the lightest setting does not clean enough and on the medium setting softens the image detail considerably. SF cleans pretty thoroughy with minimum detail loss. So it is really a question of what features you need and your workflow.

Kirk Gittings
2-Feb-2006, 10:27
Tim a question. I have two workflows with color negs, a high volume medium quality commercial flow, and my low volume high quality fine art flow. I suspect that using a neg/pos workflow would slow down the former considerably, since SF's neg profiles seem entirely adequate. Wouls you agree with that?

Prashant
10-Feb-2006, 05:14
It is not a direct answer but I prefer to scan BW negs as slides and then invert. I recently scanned the very same film with Minolta Dimage Multi. If the neg is properly exposed the results are spot on and need minor adjustment to taste.
Vuescan does a very good job for color negs.