Vuescan Help

[Mike Rawcs]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I'm trying Vuescan to process some b&w negs and find no help in Viewscan help.

 

Can anyone explain Black Point and White Point sliders in the Output box? Do these have an effect with b&w scans (they seem to) and if so what default would you recommend that I set them to initially.

 

Thanks,

 

Mike.

[SteveYork]

The best advice I can give for Vuescan is to purchase the colorneg/colorperfect plug-in software for PS. It converts both color and B&W raw images ('plug and chug') w/o having to deal with Vuescan (which is very opaque). And it doesn't cost much.

[Advertisement]

The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[stunsworth]

Mike, the black and white pointers determine what percentage of the dark and the light pixels will be black, and which will be white.

 

So, if they are set to zero, no pixels will be clipped. This may sound like good news, but in fact it will lead to overly flat images. If they are set to a high value - say 10%, then a lot of pixels will be clipped and the image I'll look very contrasty.

 

What I tend to do is to have both set to a low value - say .5%. That stretches the dynamic range of the image a bit. The resulting image is still rather flat, but that means it can be manipulated in Photoshop or Liightroom to give the contrast required.

[Michael Hiles]

I echo Steve's main point. I don't use vuescan, but the principles are the same. A flat negative usually means that you have captured the maximum information available from the negative. You can then adjust etc in your image software (for me Photoshop Elements and Silver Efex Pro). Scanning is not the optimum place for post processing.

[stack62]

Exactly what Steve said will work for most film.

I tend to leave black point at default mode of 0

and white point anywhere between .2% and .5% for B&W film.

I also set colour balance to Neutral

B/W brand to: TMAX-100

B/W type to: D-76 CI=.55

 

Scanner is Nikon coolscan 5000 ED

[250swb]

You mis-typed Mike, you mean the sliders in the 'Color' menu, and yes it is confusing that it comes under colour even for a B&W scan but they do have a big impact on the finished scan. I set the black point to 0 and the white point to no more than 0.25, but most often 0. This is the safest way to scan and removes nearly all the human judgement that can make a wrong call. During scanning I think you want to work purely on facts, and not try to 'pixel pick' using a crude histogram to try and perfect the image. And the facts you are working to in this case are that you know for sure you won't be clipping anything at all because the scan is going to look grey and horrible. When you have the black and white points set you can use the brightness slider to tweak the mid tones, but try to keep them 'mid', nothing extreme.

 

It does no harm starting with a horrid looking flat scan, you are sure to have all the information possible in it from the scanner, and Lightroom or Photoshop are far better at adjusting the tones than trying to get it spot on in the scanning software. With the photograph in Photoshop you have the options of 'Auto Contrast', 'Levels', or 'Curves' to adjust the tones to normal, I usually start with Levels.

 

Steve

[Mike Rawcs]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Thank you everyone; I'm at least on the right track now! I'm currently testing my scans against some Jpeg scans (24mb when opened). The labs scans look great but are not quite full frame.

 

Mike.

[Mike Rawcs]

I'm still having problems with some negatives. I'm using Ilford HP5+ negs and get a posterised scan. In the "Color" menu I using:

Colour Balance = White balance

Black Point = 0.52

White Point = 0.48

Curve Low = 0.25

Curve High = 0.75

Brightness = 1

Brightness Red = 1

Brightness Green = 1

Brightness Blue =1

B/W Vendor = Kodak

B/W Brand =TMax 100

B/W Type = D76 CI=.50

Scanner Colour Space = Built in

Printer Colour Space = sRGB

Film Colour Space = Built in

Output Colour Space = sRGB

Monitor Colour Space = sRGB

View Colour = RGB.

 

Am I doing something wrong here?

Any help most welcome,

 

Mike.

[250swb]

I think it may be the 'film type' you are inputing. I just go for 'Ilford XP2' and it seems to work for everything. I have never understood the rationale behind the film types, especially as they never have been up to date. Treat them all as 'alternatives' rather than anything close to reality. They can't after all compensate for the way you processed the film so they are really fictional presets. But your black and white points are still way over the top after the advice given.

 

But here are the last setting I used for FP4,

 

Black point - 0

White point - 0

Curve low - 0.001

Curve high - 0.001

 

and here is the end outcome of the resulting flat scan after post processing in Photoshop and Silver Efex

 

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/people/283602-having-beer.html

 

and if in doubt set everything to zero and see what happens

 

 

Steve

Edited May 9, 2013 by 250swb

[myshkine]

You mis-typed Mike, you mean the sliders in the 'Color' menu, and yes it is confusing that it comes under colour even for a B&W scan but they do have a big impact on the finished scan. I set the black point to 0 and the white point to no more than 0.25, but most often 0. This is the safest way to scan and removes nearly all the human judgement that can make a wrong call. During scanning I think you want to work purely on facts, and not try to 'pixel pick' using a crude histogram to try and perfect the image. And the facts you are working to in this case are that you know for sure you won't be clipping anything at all because the scan is going to look grey and horrible. When you have the black and white points set you can use the brightness slider to tweak the mid tones, but try to keep them 'mid', nothing extreme.

 

It does no harm starting with a horrid looking flat scan, you are sure to have all the information possible in it from the scanner, and Lightroom or Photoshop are far better at adjusting the tones than trying to get it spot on in the scanning software. With the photograph in Photoshop you have the options of 'Auto Contrast', 'Levels', or 'Curves' to adjust the tones to normal, I usually start with Levels.

 

Steve

 

Steve, I mostly shoot color (E6) and scan with a Plustek 7600. I find your comments interesting, and wonder if they also apply to color slides or color film. That is, having a "dull" scanned image with minimum clipping, and then adjusting in PP with LR or PS. Thank you for any input.

[andybarton]

Scanning slides is much, much easier than scanning colour negatives since you have a positive original to use as a base against which you can judge the scan. No need to scan flat, which is absolutely the way to scan B&W and colour negatives.

[Mike Rawcs]

Thanks again Steve (s) and Andy. Steve, I'll try your settings tomorrow!

 

Mike.

[250swb]

Steve, I mostly shoot color (E6) and scan with a Plustek 7600. I find your comments interesting, and wonder if they also apply to color slides or color film. That is, having a "dull" scanned image with minimum clipping, and then adjusting in PP with LR or PS. Thank you for any input.

 

It works the same although you have colour balance to think about as well. So if you have something tricky to scan, and can't stop the blacks from filling in with your regular settings, then going flat isn't a problem. It simply requires a leap of faith that you and Photoshop (or Lightroom) can organise it all properly in post processing. Likewise the colour can be much more easily corrected in post processing than in the scan. All these things apply to people working on their own on individual scans, as most photographers do when they pick one or two to scan from a roll. You still need some sort of universal setting for batch scanning a roll of film. And obvously if you were scanning commercially you would want the final high resolution scans to come out 'finished' so no pp was necessary. So while producing a flat scan would be frowned on in industry terms, it ultimately allows for greater accuracy, and lets be honest an easier job, when done at home.

 

Steve

[Mike Rawcs]

Steve, I tried your setting and all is well; thanks.

I find that I really have to think of the output scans as a "positive/negative" i.e. although now shown in positive form, it still bears little resemblance to what the finished photograph will look like when processing is complete.

I also scanned the same negative at different resolutions. I found the Tiffs at 5400dpi were much more grainy than at 2700dpi, so much so that detail was being lost. This was surprising.

The original scans from Peak Imaging (open as 24mb jpegs) are very good indeed: very clean and in need of little processing. It's such a pity that they are not full frame, although considering that I'm using a rangefinder camera should I pay so much attention to this? probably not.

 

Thanks again,

 

Mike.

[philipus]

I have never understood the rationale behind the film types, especially as they never have been up to date.

 

Neither have I. In fact, I can normally achieve the same result in post regardless of whether the image was scanned with or without setting the film type. For colour accuracy I find the film types in Color Perfect much better (and usually necessary to set).

 

For b&w I find it useful to try (on a preview of the image) different "CI" settings to get an idea of what the image will look like.

Edited May 10, 2013 by philipus

[250swb]

Mike, the real resolution is more like 3600, anything above that and the scanner software (of any type) is needlessly interpolating the output to add pixels, and as the pixels are not 'real' they will degrade the image. If you want to make a larger file it is again better to use Photoshop and let it interpolate the pixels more accurately. Even 3600 scanned at 'real size' or 100% of the original you will get a large TIFF file that after re-sizing will allow a lot of sharpening in post processing. Remember that only the finest grain 35mm films and great technique would allow for sharp 12x8 prints in the wet darkroom, anything larger and you would be relying in the viewer standing a little further away. So keep the sizing and resulting sharpening and overall resolution in perspective when scanning and you will find the Plustek can do a great job.

 

Steve

[stunsworth]

The film types in Vuescan are those that were available as part of the obsolete Kodak Photo CD system. I assume they were based on parameters supplied by Kodak, and the demise of Photo CD is the reason they've never been updated.

[philipus]

I just checked my Tri-X presets and they have white point at 1, which is Vuescan's default. I've always found this to be OK for my purposes.

 

I found the Tiffs at 5400dpi were much more grainy than at 2700dpi, so much so that detail was being lost. This was surprising.

 

What scanner are you using, Mike?

 

Edit: Likely uninteresting, but here's a scan with my Tri-X preset, including white point 1 and Color Balance "None". Flat scan at left and processed (according to my taste, I hasten to add) at right.

 

cheers

philip

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

Edited May 10, 2013 by philipus

[Mike Rawcs]

Philip, I'm using a Minolta Dimage Scan Elite 5400 which I've owned since new (a long time ago). When I scan at 5400dpi the files are very large. I usually use photoshop CS3 to remove any defaults (dust marks, etc) then into Lightroom then Silver Effex Pro. When viewing the results in Lightroom at 1:1 I see more detail in the Tiff files at 2700dpi (just).

 

I still have to print the results but suspect all this pixel peeping will not show when I do.

 

Mike.

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[250swb]

Ah, sorry, I had it in my mind you were using a Plustek for some reason. But it is worth reading a review or two of your scanner and finding out what the native resolution is and stick to that.

 

I had a Minolta Multi Pro scanner and it was very sharp, so sharp it would scan just a layer of grain at it's highest resolution which isn't very good because it just looked like grain and the image was lost.

 

Steve

Edited May 10, 2013 by 250swb