Slide Scanning. Where am I going wrong?

[andybarton]

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The last scan is much better because you don't have the massive dynamic range problems that you do with the others.

[}{B]

Thanks, I will. I've been scanning tonight and have got much better files out than before (TIFFS rather than TIFF RAW) so I'll have a play with software later.

I think I'm getting closer to what I'm trying to achieve. It may not be to everyone's taste but it's close to what we saw.

Pete

 

Look at the rocks in the foreground of the first photo, some of them display a cast also visible in the edge of the cloud. If VueScan has an eyedropper tool to adjust colour casts by clicking onto the grey point in the photo this is where to look for that point. One of the larger rocks on the right looks to be a mid grey tone similar to that in a photographers grey card. If there is such a tool in VueScan try another scan of this subject and click the eyedropper on that rock and see what you get.

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[Stealth3kpl]

Do you think it's better to click greys in vuescan or in subsequent software?

Pete

[Stealth3kpl]

Grey rock clicked. To me it brings magenta into the cloudbase top right.

 

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Probable cause: Grey rock is not grey but greyish.

[wlaidlaw]

I changed my old Canoscan for an Epson V700 at the beginning of this year, mainly to scan a lot of slides, at which the Canoscan was very poor and my old Polaroid Artixscan film scanner had gone up in smoke about 18 months ago. I would have expected to use Vuescan, which I had used for years and previously found very good. I did not think it worked very well with the V700, with 'not great' colours and blocky shadows. I went back to using the packaged Epson slide/film scanning software with the V700 and then corrected in CS3 (this is the version that is in the old G5 Powermac I have in my UK digital darkroom). I found the Epson software gave me a product which was much easier to correct than Vuescan. However, I saw that the V700 driver on Vuescan has been updated recently, so maybe it will be better when I get back to the UK in October. I would give the Epson software a go and see how you get on. It is at least a free option.

 

Wilson

[}{B]

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The best way to judge whether the neutral grey object you have chosen to click on to is truly neutral is to look at the original slide not a scan that already has a colour cast. Unless of course the original slide has aquired it's own cast through age or poor storage.

 

Find a slide that is correctly exposed and contains some object, a rock for example, that looks to be a neutral mid grey. Not too dark and not too light it should look much like a photogrphers grey card.

[Stealth3kpl]

I'm surprised to find that in slide/image (rather than colour negative) mode there isn't an option for white balance (left click on a grey patch, double right click to undo). Therefore I'll have to click a grey in post.

In Vuescan, am I supposed to alter the red/blue/green white points to best balance the colour? (see bottom left of the attached image).

Pete

 

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[}{B]

Sorry going to have to pass on that in favour of someone who actually uses VueScan. All I will say is that the photo looks a good one to use as it contains a bit of everything including white clouds and grey rocks.

 

If it were me I'd twiddle with the sliders one at a time until I had worked out what effect each one has. I assume that VueScan lets you see the effect of moving the sliders before you reach the final scan phase.

[Guest nephilim]

I'm surprised to find that in slide/image (rather than colour negative) mode there isn't an option for white balance (left click on a grey patch, double right click to undo).

 

I'm scanning a roll of Ektar at the moment. Remembering the recent Vuescan & ColourPerfect thread I not only locked exposure and film base colour but also film colour. The result was a white point close to the black point (image was useless) and no option for white balance. As soon as I unticked the "lock film colour" box, everything looked & worked as usual. Feeling a bit confused...

 

Btw, I visited the Lake District last year... a truly wonderful place!

Torsten

[Stealth3kpl]

I didn't have a problem with "lock film colour" (or maybe I did but didn't realise it!) I assumed it should be ticked from these but looking again maybe it shouldn't be ticked. I've another film coming soon so I'll have another go.

Pete

 

Better colour neg scanning with VueScan. | Urban Motion

 

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Flickr: Discussing VueScan lock exposure tutorial in I Shoot Film

 

 

I'd just like to point out I'm using my mum's computer at the moment and those aren't my bookmarks!

 

Pete

Edited September 1, 2010 by Stealth3kpl

[Julian Thompson]

In Vuescan, am I supposed to alter the red/blue/green white points to best balance the colour? (see bottom left of the attached image).

 

In my experience this will drive you nuts, means that every shot needs to be balanced and also I was never able to get nice reds right out of Vuescan and I spent ages. Just like you have!

 

Can't understand what's wrong with colorpos just like you do with negatives ?

[Stealth3kpl]

 

Can't understand what's wrong with colorpos just like you do with negatives ?

 

I've had limited success. The files come out quite small and there seems to be a lot of noise in shaddow areas. I may revisit it. Really I'm waiting for someone familiar with Vuescan to pipe up and give us the low-down. I can't believe there're only 2 of us using it!!

Pete

[BennehBoy]

@Stealth3kpl

 

Hi there, I'm the author of the tutorial on Urban Motion (aka benneh.net ), in my experience, you really don't need to worry about locking film base colour for slide, it's a function solely designed to 'filter out' the orange base mask of colour negative film.

 

In fact I can't remember the last time I even locked the exposure when using vuescan, nowadays I pretty much always just export a 48 bit RAW scan and adjust in colorperfect with final tweaks using a selective colour layer in photoshop.

 

Getting colour correct is always going to be a tweak process if you want perfect results - the key is finding a workflow that is simple, efficient, and gets you as close as possible without herculean efforts.

 

I've a raft of colour neg and slide scans on my flickr Flickr: BennehBoy's Photostream and I'd be happy to discuss how I achieved any of the colour balancing in those (although they are far from perfect!).

 

Ben

[Stealth3kpl]

Thanks Ben,

Last night I tried the same and was much happier with the results though I was outputting TIFF instead of RAW, and white balancing in Vuescan (now that I've found that option). Thanks for your offer of help. I'm at work at the moment but may be able to give it some attention over the weekend.

Pete

[wlaidlaw]

Thanks Ben for the useful article about Vuescan on your website. One of the issues I may be having with my recent efforts on Vuescan and the Epson V700, is the latest bunch have all been mounted slides so there is no opportunity to scan the base film. I had forgotten I had done this before when my previous efforts with the Artixscan had been using film strips and rolls. Ben is there any way round this for mounted slides?

 

Wilson

[BennehBoy]

Locking the base colour is a pointless exercise for slide film, you only do this for colour negative film so that vuescan can subtract the orange film base cast from your images. Slide film by its very nature does not have a film base colour.

[Julian Thompson]

The files come out quite small and there seems to be a lot of noise in shaddow areas

 

I don't understand why this is happening to you Pete.

 

If you set it exactly as you do with negative film - ie to push out a raw tiff, 2x downsampling, multi pass, no colour balance etc... then just scan and open in colorpos. Then do the gamma adjustment and bingo that's it - easier than negative film.

[Stealth3kpl]

There comes a time when you you think "s#d this, lifes too short - just scan the bl**dy things in".

This is what I've done so far just scanning TIFF and white balancing in Vuescan then messing around with levels and colour balance in Capture NX2. If I scan RAW TIFF the histogram is well over to the left and opening with ColorPerfect doesn't seem to give me very nice colours compared to my feeble frustrating efforts with my laborious method.

Comments welcome.

Pete

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[}{B]

VueScan must be very complicated compared to the software for my Minolta Scan Elite 5400. I found it relatively easy to create a profile for Fuji Sensia and Kodachrome 64 and I can apply one of these to any scan of a Fuji or Kodak slide.

 

I do some minor tweaking in Lightroom if required but a correctly exposed slide will scan and print from Lightroom with no adjustment except for sharpening and give what I consider an acceptable A4 size print.

 

I've tweaked one of your photos in Lightroom do you think that it shows any improvement?

 

 

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