Help/advice Scanning w/ Hasselblad Flextight X5

[DennisD]

I have access to a Hasselblad X5 "Flextight" scanner to scan a batch of my 4x5 B&W negatives.

I would appreciate advice from anyone who has experience scanning with this type scanner.

I understand that scans should be on the flat side for further processing in PS. I would expect to scan in Greyscale (16 bit) since the negs are b&w, but someone i know suggested I might get better results in RGB 16 bit mode. I question this.

Thanks for any tips or general guidance with respect to settings or experience you've had with this scanner.

[Lenny Eiger]

Scan in RGB. This gives you control of which channel you want to use. The Red channel is often the most noisy. In PS if you just choose grayscale, PS will choose mostly the Red. Why? Because they're not photographers... I have heard different percentages quoted, from 69% to 100%. (Scanners use similar percentages in their conversion.) You want to be in control of this.

When you get your RGB scan, open it in PS and use the channel mixer to select which channel. I use 100-% green most of the time, but on occasion it's 80% Green, 20% Blue. I enlarge it to 100% and look at it... Once the channel mixer has done its job, then I convert to grayscale.

Most people make the mistake of trying to get the image to look like what they want at this stage, often using the convert to b&w function in PS. However, what you are looking for here is to get a smooth grain, and maintain all your detail in the shadows, etc. One uses curves and masks to get the image to look like what they want later...

Lenny

[DennisD]

Thanks, Lenny.

I want to be clear on what you said.

Although my negs are b&w, not color, I should still scan in RGB mode in hopes that one of the channels, when opened in PS, will show less noise. I.e. one channel of the RGB scan when seen in PS may be more favorable than another.

I don't quite understand, but I know you're the "scanning pro" and wanted to be sure you understood my originals are not color.

Thanks for confirming.

[bob carnie]

If you are scanning bw negatives on Imocan I recommend 16 bit greyscale, if your images are colour but you intend to go to BW then what Lenny describes is the way I would proceed.

I have found the green channel of colour images to hold the most good info, followed by the red channel , most time the blue is of no use- but not always

I use the apply image feature and I blend the red into the green with various blending modes, usually 60 percent green 40 % red, and I will drop the blue channel.
Your file size will be smaller in greyscale and you will avoid the dumping of channels... you are talking about BW original negs?

Thanks, Lenny.

I want to be clear on what you said.

Although my negs are b&w, not color, I should still scan in RGB mode in hopes that one of the channels, when opened in PS, will show less noise. I.e. one channel of the RGB scan when seen in PS may be more favorable than another.

I don't quite understand, but I know you're the "scanning pro" and wanted to be sure you understood my originals are not color.

Thanks for confirming.

[Lenny Eiger]

Thanks, Lenny.

I want to be clear on what you said.

Although my negs are b&w, not color, I should still scan in RGB mode in hopes that one of the channels, when opened in PS, will show less noise. I.e. one channel of the RGB scan when seen in PS may be more favorable than another.

I don't quite understand, but I know you're the "scanning pro" and wanted to be sure you understood my originals are not color.

Thanks for confirming.

I do understand. I shoot b&w myself and scan them in 16 bit RGB.

Yes, my take on the consensus of pros is that they would all recommend using RGB to scan in. This takes the decision-making process out of the hands of the scanner software and puts it in your control.

There are a lot of possibilities. Bob mentions Apply Image and others like Calculations. These are all good. Most of us choose the simple way, which is to grab primarily the green channel with the Channel Mixer. The differences are quite subtle in these techniques. It would take a fairly extreme scan to make a huge difference.

However, the difference in letting PS (or scanner software) choose the red channel for you is not particularly subtle. You get a lot more noise, especially with CCD scanner (like an Imacon).

Hope that's a bit more clear...

Lenny

[DennisD]

Thanks Bob and Lenny,

I greatly appreciate your thoughts and suggestions. I will try scanning a series of negatives in both grayscale and RGB and compare the results.

At first I had some difficulty wrapping my head around the concept of scanning a b&w negative in RGB, reasoning that all three channels would appear identical.

However, Lenny's suggestion of picking the least Noisy channel in RGB does make sense - provided my untrained eye will be able to discern differences, especially if the differences are small.

Thanks again.

[Cesar Barreto]

I would also add that one may find differences in RGB channels when scanning b&w negatives due to chromatic aberrations and I thinks it's particularly annoying when you nottice the image changing place when you travel through the channels. So after a first look I may just discard red and blue channels, convert to grayscale e go ahead from there on PS.

[JeRuFo]

With my Epson scanner I usually try to find the channel with the highest resolution and thus with the sharpest grain. Noise is far less of a problem than resolution differences. Sometimes i find the standard channel mix is often a good tradeoff between resolution and noise, though i often replace the blue channel with the one with the highest resolution.
I'm not experienced in these matters at all, I just pick what looks good to me. The advice to not assume that the channel mix is always optimal the way the software presents it to you is always sound, always see what you like best.

[bob carnie]

A real tip that helps is if the workstation is a mac, go to applications>utilities>Digital Color Meter.app

have this on your desktop, set up in CIE L*A*B* Use a small apeture size , i use the second from the left.

the L numbers will go from 0-100 Black to White- think about the 10 zones that AA talks about in his books.

with this meter you can put points on highlights with detail,,,, and shadows with detail...

keep your high lights around 90-92 and your shadows 5-7 on the L reading.

this will ensure that you are putting detail where it is needed at the end points... the flextight software is not that great IMO for reading info so this meter is invaluable as you can read info as you work in real time.
I do not use the scanner without this device active for colour and black white, btw I would stay in 16bit greyscale if you are scanning black and white negs, absolutely no reason to be in RGB.

[sanking]

Does the Flextight software allow one to save just the Green channel if the scan is made in Gray Scale, or is the saved file a mix of the Red, Green and Blue?

If you have a scanner and driver that allows you to scan in Gray Scale selecting just the Green channel I would recommend this over scanning in RGB. I have compared results several times with B&W negatives and never found any advantage to mixing the channels in RGB over just selecting Green channel when scanning in Gray Scale. But not all drivers allow selecting just the Greeen to save, in which case it might be better to scan RGB then throw away the B and R, or mix them if you think there is some advantage.

Sandy