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Plustek Scanners and SilverFast 8 Software


Martin B

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After digitizing for quite a while all my 35 mm negatives via photographing them with 1:1 macro lens, tripod, and LED light table, I decided now to get the plustek 8200i Ai scanner with SilverFast 8 software. Main reason for it was correct color calibration of color negatives. To do the color calibration manually in PS or LR is not always easy.

 

Posting here to hear from others who use a plustek scanner with SilverFast software. So far I am very impressed by the scanner and the software. I updated to the SilverFast 8.8 version which has a lot of options - tricky part is to figure out what is mainly needed for a good color calibration of a scan and what is more optional. I prefer to use the internal settings for films to choose from - the color calibration of the scanned color negative appears fairly correct afterwards that only minimal adjustment is needed. I also like the infrared dust scan and automatic subtraction from the photo - it works really well and leaves other image parts intact.

 

One thing I struggle with is the archive mode of the negative - the only option to save the file in RAW as DNG. I didn't find yet a way to get an automated color calibration after the negative was scanned with the archive mode. I would prefer to have the scan saved as DNG but would like to have it processed like it is offered for all the other image file modes as JPG, TIFF etc. Is there a way to do this easily?

 

What is your best / most proficient workflow using plustek scanners and this software? Did you encounter any drawbacks?

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I am sure there are other software packages for post processing and scanning out there, but at this point I do not want to use more than the software which I already have. PS, LR, and SilverFast need to suffice. The SilverFast software certainly has a learning curve and unfortunately the enclosed manual is very poor in its description of functions and workflow. But the program itself has many options which most likely even won't use.

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Come to think of it, I think you're right. Mark D Segal and Todd R Shaner, who wrote a long article on "camera scanning," recommended two ways of dealing with color negative film: first running the DNG files through MakeTIFF (free software) to create "linear TIFF", and then using either ColorPerfect or SilverFast.

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I performed some comparison testing with a B&W negative today to see which is the best way to scan with the SilverFast 8.8 software. I found this worked best in the WorkFlow Pilot:

 

Source: Negative

Task: Black and White

Bit Depth: 16 bit

Negafix Settings: Vendor - Ilford, Filmtype - HP5+, ISO/ASA - 400, CCR checked, standard settings for exposure and tolerance

Multi-Exposure: Standard setting "on"

After the following prescan, I found that always the frame has to be adjusted. It never remained in place!

Scan Dimensions: I tested it first with 7200 ppi, then with 3600 ppi --> Is there a way to choose another resolution manually within this workflow than only selecting from three given ppi options?

Automatic Correction: kept Histogram unchanged, made a slight S-curve within the following Gradation tool. 

Auto-Adaptive Contrast Optimisation Tool (AACO): unchecked the box, didn't use it

Selective Color to Grey (SC2G): didn't do any changes here

Unsharp Masking (USM): tested it with and without - my conclusion was to disable this function, too. Otherwise the final image appeared too grainy. 

Smart Removal of Defects (SRD): disabled for B&W scanning purposes

 

Below the results - first as comparison the final scan done with photographing the negative with Sony A7R and macro lens using a LED light table. Post processing in PS (channel inversion, tonal curve adjustment, B&W color setting, level and contrast adjustments)

File size as full JPG is 22.3 MB

p38059736-5.jpg

 

The Plustek 6200i Ai scans look the same - full JPG file size @ 7200 ppi is 19.5 MB, @ 3600 ppi is 14.7 MB. The SilverScan 8 software only allows to save as TIFF in 16 bit mode scanning, so I just saved them as uncompressed JPGs in PS since the TIFF files were very large. There was no visible loss in resolution on the screen and for the demonstration here by doing this (clearly for printing purposes you wouldn't do this!). 

 

Below the 100% crop areas of all three images for comparision.

First again the crop from the photographed negative:

p118412359-5.jpg

 

Second the 100% crop of the scan @ 7200 ppi:

p98672378-5.jpg

 

Third the scan @ 3600 ppi:

p92563758-5.jpg

 

Conclusion: All of them are very similar, but I wouldn't go below 3600 ppi scanning to avoid losing visible resolution at 100%. The method to photograph the negative with a 36 MP FF sensor holds up very well against the high resolution scans. To be honest, photographing the negative was still faster than scanning it!

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I've been using a Leitz BEOON copy stand with a Focotar-2 lens to digitalize Tri-X film with an M-Monochrom. The results are close in look to scans I've made with the Imacon Precision III (6300 ppi real resolution and 4.2 dMax) in both dynamic range and resolution and very fast. 

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I haven't tried the Plustek, but perhaps my experience with the Imacon Precision III is not really OT. To make a long story short, I gave up trying to use it when I went back to film nine month ago because I found that it loses sharpness on at the trailing end of the 35mm frame (as the negative is fed into the scanner in portrait orientation). Further research showed that Imacon scanners require periodic maintenance fairly often. After some hours of searching the web, I found out that the cause of the sharpness loss is slippage of the drive belts that feed the holder mechanism. I would have to replace these belts, and perhaps some springs and plastic wheels. The belt problem also makes the film frame shift in the holder as it goes into the scanner, so that a small portion of the scan is often cut off. I now remember from ten years ago that I often had this problem, but didn't know there was a solution. By the way, there is no batch feed solution for this scanner — and one full res (6300dpi) 35mm scan takes 15 minutes. 

 
As I don't want to make a career out of the care and feeding of this Imacon scanner, I'm just dumping it. I couldn't sell it with a good conscience. Basically, even if I was prepared to spent $14,000 on a new  Hasselblad X1 — same 6300dpi resolution as my Imacon but twice the speed — I don’t think it would make sense because I don’t believe the the drive mechanism on the new scanner has changed. That means these Hasselblad scanners only make sense (beyond the price issue) in a photo lab environment, where they can be serviced and maintained regularly. 
 
Of course the Plustek is so much less expensive that one would worry about maintenance issues. In other words, I'd rather get the Plustek than the Hasselblad/Imacin scanner. Once burned...
 
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I haven't tried the Plustek, but perhaps my experience with the Imacon Precision III is not really OT. To make a long story short, I gave up trying to use it when I went back to film nine month ago because I found that it loses sharpness on at the trailing end of the 35mm frame (as the negative is fed into the scanner in portrait orientation). Further research showed that Imacon scanners require periodic maintenance fairly often. After some hours of searching the web, I found out that the cause of the sharpness loss is slippage of the drive belts that feed the holder mechanism. I would have to replace these belts, and perhaps some springs and plastic wheels. The belt problem also makes the film frame shift in the holder as it goes into the scanner, so that a small portion of the scan is often cut off. I now remember from ten years ago that I often had this problem, but didn't know there was a solution. By the way, there is no batch feed solution for this scanner — and one full res (6300dpi) 35mm scan takes 15 minutes. 

 
As I don't want to make a career out of the care and feeding of this Imacon scanner, I'm just dumping it. I couldn't sell it with a good conscience. Basically, even if I was prepared to spent $14,000 on a new  Hasselblad X1 — same 6300dpi resolution as my Imacon but twice the speed — I don’t think it would make sense because I don’t believe the the drive mechanism on the new scanner has changed. That means these Hasselblad scanners only make sense (beyond the price issue) in a photo lab environment, where they can be serviced and maintained regularly. 
 
Of course the Plustek is so much less expensive that one would worry about maintenance issues. In other words, I'd rather get the Plustek than the Hasselblad/Imacin scanner. Once burned...

 

 

So far I can only say good things about the Plustek 8200i Ai scanner itself. The 7200 ppi scan of a 35 mm negative took about 3-4 minutes, half the time for the 3600 ppi scan using the settings mentioned above. Plustek scanners for larger negative sizes seem quite expensive what I have seen. Since I only shoot 35 mm film and have no intention to vest into medium or large format cameras at this point, I decided to stick to a 35 mm format limited scanner.

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I've never tried the Plustek, but what would make me pause is the 3.6 dMax, which equates to 2 stops less in dynamic range than that of the 4.2 dMax of the Imacon I've used — 0.3 in dMax being equivalent to 1 stop (i.e., doubling the dMax). I think my BEOON setup gives me results similar to what I had with the Imacon. I like a scan/digitalization where I have plenty of room for keeping good highlight gradation, which is one of the things I like about film, particularly shooting in bright, harsh tropical light. 

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Update: Yesterday I scanned my first full B&W film with 39 frames using the Plustek 8200i Ai scanner with SilverFast software. I was able to speed up the process considerably by disabling the multi-exposure function (set it to "off" by clicking on the icon) and using a medium resolution of 3600 ppi which is sufficient enough. After the workflow is established to scan with SilverFast, you can simply keep it as is instead of starting the workflow all over again for each negative to scan. Just move the slider to the next negative, change the file name, and press the prescan icon. After adjusting the frame, press the scan icon, and SilverFast will use all previous settings to do the scan. One TIFF file is about 36 MB file size which is a good enough resolution for my purpose.

The scanned files only need minor post processing - I sometimes had to change the tonal adjustment curve a bit in PS.

Edited by Martin B
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  • 2 weeks later...

What has your experience been with color positives?  I just started with the 8200 (which comes with Silverfast 8), but the results are really quite poor from a color and perceived dynamic range perspective. 

 

I had a Nikon Coolscan which was completely acceptable for my needs...particularly with slides.  I was just looking to duplicate that level of performance.

 

It may well just be user error though as I'd be very surprised if the quality of positive scans is really as bad as I'm currently seeing.  I've been using the Silverfast work flow tool.  Looks like it may be time to get under the hood with it.

 

Any experience that you can share with color slides is appreciated.

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What has your experience been with color positives?  I just started with the 8200 (which comes with Silverfast 8), but the results are really quite poor from a color and perceived dynamic range perspective. 

 

I had a Nikon Coolscan which was completely acceptable for my needs...particularly with slides.  I was just looking to duplicate that level of performance.

 

It may well just be user error though as I'd be very surprised if the quality of positive scans is really as bad as I'm currently seeing.  I've been using the Silverfast work flow tool.  Looks like it may be time to get under the hood with it.

 

Any experience that you can share with color slides is appreciated.

 

Good question which I hereby answer in post #15 below! But first let's look at color negatives - I used the same setup in SilverFast 8.8 as described in posts #6 and #12 with the following changes for color negatives:

 

Negafix Settings: Vendor - Kodak, Filmtype - Ektar, ISO/ASA - 100, CCR checked, standard settings for exposure and tolerance

iSRD - Dust and Scratch Removal: Turned on with "Correct" mode

SRDx - Dust and Scratch Removal: Turned on with "Correct" mode on bright effects (rest with automatic standard settings)

 

I added the dust and scratch removal tools since the grain is so low here that it doesn't interfere with the removal tools. Automatically after the prescan the colors were adjusted according to the Negafix settings described above. I kept 3600 ppi as resolution and 48-->24 bit color negative setting which led to a 50 MB TIFF file (compressed as JPG in highest quality about 15 MB). Below is the result of one of the scanned and converted negatives. I only had to do some minor manual water residue spot removal which was left behind on the top of my negative after development. The photo below is directly from the scan, no additional saturation or contrast adjustment. I am quite happy with it - the colors look quite natural for me as I remember them when taking the photo.  

 

p2155109802-5.jpg

Edited by Martin B
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For color slide scans it is getting a bit more tricky because the software unfortunately does not have a tool like NegaFix for slides where you can enter the film that the software can adjust colors accordingly. With slides, this needs to be done manually in SilverFast:

 

Source: Slide

Task: Color restauration (allows to choose the resolution according to ppi settings!)

Bit Depth: 48 --> 24 bit

Multi-Exposure: Setting "off"

Scan Dimensions: 3600 ppi

Automatic Correction: kept Histogram unchanged, made a slight S-curve within the following Gradation tool. 

Global Color Correction: here you need to manually adjust the color settings of the prescan

Selective Color Correction: didn't use it after the global correction, unchecked the box

iSRD - Dust and Scratch Removal: Turned on with "Correct" mode

SRDx - Dust and Scratch Removal: Turned on with "Correct" mode on dark effects (rest with automatic standard settings)

 

The scan below is the original TIFF file (50 MB) which I converted into a JPG file after doing some minor spot removal which were left behind even after dust and scratch removal in the tool settings. No further saturation or contrast adjustments were done. I took this slide photo about 4 years ago with Fuji Velvia slide film and had it developed in an external photo lab at the time. 

 

p2155138442-5.jpg

Edited by Martin B
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Thanks for the replies!

 

I have managed to get the color more reliably, but I'm still struggling with the overall image quality.  I'm not trying to criticize the examples posted above, but that is pretty much representative of what I'm seeing as well, and I was hoping for better.  The scanned data resolution is certainly large enough, but the actual information resolution is really quite poor.  Projected, or under a loupe, the slides that I'm scanning retain incredible detail, but scanned,  not so much.  It's hard for me to judge the examples above not knowing how much detail was available in the positive.  All I know is that my Coolscan provided scans with resolution and color that rivaled what I got out of my digital cameras at the time (e.g. Nikon D100).  Dust and scratch removal at the time was certainly a pain, but other than that, it was actually really good.

 

I'm not saying that I can't get that out of the Pulsetek, but I'm not there yet...

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Thanks for the replies!

 

I have managed to get the color more reliably, but I'm still struggling with the overall image quality.  I'm not trying to criticize the examples posted above, but that is pretty much representative of what I'm seeing as well, and I was hoping for better.  The scanned data resolution is certainly large enough, but the actual information resolution is really quite poor.  Projected, or under a loupe, the slides that I'm scanning retain incredible detail, but scanned,  not so much.  It's hard for me to judge the examples above not knowing how much detail was available in the positive.  All I know is that my Coolscan provided scans with resolution and color that rivaled what I got out of my digital cameras at the time (e.g. Nikon D100).  Dust and scratch removal at the time was certainly a pain, but other than that, it was actually really good.

 

I'm not saying that I can't get that out of the Pulsetek, but I'm not there yet...

 

So far I didn't focus too much to optimize slide scans with the Plustek scanner since I no longer shoot slide film and have only slides from one slide film. I am not aware that focus shimming is an option with the Plustek. Slides sit a bit "higher" within the slide tray due to their plastic framing compared to negatives which sit directly on the plastic tray and a bit closer to the scan unit inside. It might be better to photograph slides as comparison in a setup like shown below - with a macro lens at f/11 you avoid slight focus differences within the frame. Before I got the Plustek, I digitized all my negatives this way. Biggest challenge with this solution was with color negatives - to adjust the colors in PP was a pain in the neck and one main reason for me to go with the Plustek. 

 

p1621655572-5.jpg

Edited by Martin B
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 I am not aware that focus shimming is an option with the Plustek. Slides sit a bit "higher" within the slide tray due to their plastic framing compared to negatives which sit directly on the plastic tray and a bit closer to the scan unit inside. I

 

 

I have a Plustek 8100 but the "slide" holder is packed up in the loft so I can't compare to the negative holder. I would have hoped the slide holder would have a deeper seat to adjust the actual position of the film in the scanner but I meant to suggest that as slide mounts vary, and interestingly you refer to plastic most of my legacy material is Kodachrome in thinner card mount and the OP does not specify, individual height adjustment of the slide in the holder may help obtain optimum quality. I am aware "shimming" the entire holder as a unit is not possible and my phrasing was clearly not precise enough to indicate I meant the individual slide slot.

Under best conditions I obtain results from both the 8100 and V850 from 35mm that bear comparison well with each other but have never scanned slides in the Plustek I thought that focus could be degrading the results if as you say the position is different experimenting would do no harm, even unmounting a less precious slide and scanning in the negative holder could be a useful experiment perhaps.

Edited by chris_livsey
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I have a Plustek 8100 but the "slide" holder is packed up in the loft so I can't compare to the negative holder. I would have hoped the slide holder would have a deeper seat to adjust the actual position of the film in the scanner but I meant to suggest that as slide mounts vary, and interestingly you refer to plastic most of my legacy material is Kodachrome in thinner card mount and the OP does not specify, individual height adjustment of the slide in the holder may help obtain optimum quality. I am aware "shimming" the entire holder as a unit is not possible and my phrasing was clearly not precise enough to indicate I meant the individual slide slot.

Under best conditions I obtain results from both the 8100 and V850 from 35mm that bear comparison well with each other but have never scanned slides in the Plustek I thought that focus could be degrading the results if as you say the position is different experimenting would do no harm, even unmounting a less precious slide and scanning in the negative holder could be a useful experiment perhaps.

 

Good points - I found a digitized photo of the same slide which I took using my tripod/camera setup as shown above (ignore the difference in color cast which I manually controlled each time but didn't adjust to each other). You can clearly see a better sharpness here compared to the scanned slide - I don't see this difference when scanning negatives. I suspect it is related to the focus shift. Unmounting the slide from the frame and using the negative holder instead of the slide holder might in fact be the best option. 

 

p1380750120-5.jpg

Edited by Martin B
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