I've got an Epson 10000XL. I've been using it for scanning documents for years. I bought it to scan film but then didn't shoot any film so the film scanning attachment has been in a box until today.

Very quickly I have come to realize that scanning a B&W negative is going to be another learning curve in the chain.

The manual says scan in 16 bit gray scale. Is that correct?

Resolution and Output: I am using 2400 dpi and the output is 8x10 (4x5 negative). Is that right?

Auto exposure seems like a bad choice. Curves doesn't work like Photoshop curves but I tried it anyway. The first scan was terrible...

It could be a bad negative. It looks ok on a light table but ok is relevant to the fact that I really don't know what I'm doing Yet...

Any scanner advice out there?