Edwin Ho Posted July 16, 2014 Share #1 Posted July 16, 2014 Advertisement (gone after registration) I have been scanning black and white negs using Canoscan 8800F with VueScan. The results are not good with much noise in the dark areas. Is this normal? The two film types I scanned was Ilford FP4 Plus ISO 125 and Kodak BW400CN ISO 400. Any suggestions are welcomed. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted July 16, 2014 Posted July 16, 2014 Hi Edwin Ho, Take a look here Noise in Black and White Scan. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
andybarton Posted July 16, 2014 Share #2 Posted July 16, 2014 Have you turned off any IR cleaning function in Vuescan? Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
joeswe Posted July 16, 2014 Share #3 Posted July 16, 2014 I have been scanning black and white negs using Canoscan 8800F with VueScan. The results are not good with much noise in the dark areas. Is this normal? The two film types I scanned was Ilford FP4 Plus ISO 125 and Kodak BW400CN ISO 400. Any suggestions are welcomed. An example would help to determine if normal or not. Some noise in the very thin areas of the negative is probably normal, but for me this is mostly apparent with night time shots, where you often have larger areas that are "underexposed" in the sense they are just plain black or show very little texture. This type of noise can be cured by moving the black point a bit into the curve to the right in the scanning software or in post scan editing. This will let the blacks appear like blacks and not noisy and greyish. On a properly exposed negative shot in normal daylight situation the shadow areas shouldn't show a significant amount of noise, but this can also depend on the quality and settings your scanning hard- and software. Scanning 35mm film with flatbed scanners is far from ideal in that respect. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edwin Ho Posted July 16, 2014 Author Share #4 Posted July 16, 2014 Have you turned off any IR cleaning function in Vuescan? No I did not: I have set infrared clean at "light". Should it be turned off? Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted July 16, 2014 Share #5 Posted July 16, 2014 Yes, it must be turned off when scanning silver based film. The BW400CN should be OK as that's a C41 film, but FP4 is definitely a no-go Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted July 16, 2014 Share #6 Posted July 16, 2014 No I did not: I have set infrared clean at "light". Should it be turned off? As Andy says, turn if off for 'traditional' b&w films. The IR clean sees the film grain as dust and goes bonkers*. * that's a technical term. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edwin Ho Posted July 16, 2014 Author Share #7 Posted July 16, 2014 Advertisement (gone after registration) An example would help to determine if normal or not. Some noise in the very thin areas of the negative is probably normal, but for me this is mostly apparent with night time shots, where you often have larger areas that are "underexposed" in the sense they are just plain black or show very little texture. This type of noise can be cured by moving the black point a bit into the curve to the right in the scanning software or in post scan editing. This will let the blacks appear like blacks and not noisy and greyish. On a properly exposed negative shot in normal daylight situation the shadow areas shouldn't show a significant amount of noise, but this can also depend on the quality and settings your scanning hard- and software. Scanning 35mm film with flatbed scanners is far from ideal in that respect. Here is one of the shots. The first shows noise in the dark area. I took your advice and moved the black slider in LR towards the right in the second photo. 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! Quote Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/230604-noise-in-black-and-white-scan/?do=findComment&comment=2631603'>More sharing options...
Edwin Ho Posted July 16, 2014 Author Share #8 Posted July 16, 2014 As Andy says, turn if off for 'traditional' b&w films. The IR clean sees the film grain as dust and goes bonkers*. * that's a technical term. Thanks, but there was also noise with C41 film as in BW400CN. I will rescan the Ilford FP4 Plus with IR clean turn off and see what happens. BTW I have just posted a shot from Ilford FP4 Plus.It was scanned with IR clean on "light". Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edwin Ho Posted July 16, 2014 Author Share #9 Posted July 16, 2014 As I have mentioned before, I am a newbie learning to scan by trial and error. I would appreciate if someone can post a suggested input and output list for traditional and C41 black and white negs. I do own "The VueScan Bible" by Sacha Steinhoff. To be quite honest there are times I really feel frustrated trying to understand and follow the instructions in the book. It will be nice if there is a "do list" for different type of scanning needs to help beginners. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
philipus Posted July 17, 2014 Share #10 Posted July 17, 2014 (edited) I never bought that book, simply because I've read that it is not good. Instead I have found the free Vuescan Manual better. Following the steps will give you a useable scan. Also, there's a really good eBook by Gerard Kingma which I found useful "The illustrated guide to film scanning". It goes into a bit more detail. Imo well worth the little cost. Then don't forget to read Hamrick's help pages. There's a lot of info there. Oh also check out the Color Perfect plugin and the info on the website. Tim Gray's write-up is a pretty good starting point for b&w, I have found. This tutorial is also useful, though slightly less user-friendly. Here's another write-up for colour neg film Edited July 17, 2014 by philipus 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brenton C Posted July 18, 2014 Share #11 Posted July 18, 2014 Vue Scan "Bible"-- don't tell me... It's those 10 commandments, inspirational in theory, but shamefully unattainable in practice that mess it all up. Quote Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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