Scanning - Leica + B&W Film + Plustek OptiFilm + VueScan

[MikeMyers]

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While processing the second image, DxO PhotoLab4 includes a toolset named "Nik Collection".  It is a series of filters that can be applied to any image processed in PhotoLab4.  One of the filters has the name "Wet Rocks".  Here's what I get after applying the filter.  It brings out the contrast that makes the image more "alive".

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[frame-it]

8 hours ago, MikeMyers said:

Were you referring to black&white film, color film, or both?  

i would save settings for each type of film stock.

 

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[Steve Ricoh]

8 hours ago, MikeMyers said:

While processing the second image, DxO PhotoLab4 includes a toolset named "Nik Collection".  It is a series of filters that can be applied to any image processed in PhotoLab4.  One of the filters has the name "Wet Rocks".  Here's what I get after applying the filter.  It brings out the contrast that makes the image more "alive".

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I have thoughts... how far does one go with digital filters such that the analogue (film) image becomes almost indistinguishable from a ‘pure’ digital shot?

I find colour originals more malleable to the Nik Silver Effex software.  

 

[Ouroboros]

8 hours ago, MikeMyers said:

While processing the second image, DxO PhotoLab4 includes a toolset named "Nik Collection".  It is a series of filters that can be applied to any image processed in PhotoLab4.  One of the filters has the name "Wet Rocks".  Here's what I get after applying the filter.  It brings out the contrast that makes the image more "alive".

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Just a tip; try not to fall into the trap of simply using the presets from the list of thumbnails in SFX because  a. Your learning curve with Nik will be longer and steeper than it would if you take the time to learn how use the control points for localised editing and the adjustment tools for global editing sympathetically with each other and b. In my experience, many of the presets are generally horrible and destructive, especially with files derived from film scans.  'Wet Rocks' is, imo, particularly nasty.

Otherwise, you're doing ok so take the view that your understanding of the workflow is 100% better this week than it was last week!

  

[MikeMyers]

@Ouroboros - thanks.  For color images, I avoided the pre-sets, and and learned how to use the individual tools.  Watching videos by "photo Joseph" and others was my training, and they preferred to use individual tools.  Last night I was wondering what the possibilities were with Nik & B&W, and out of the long list of choices the only one I sort of liked was "wet rocks".  I didn't use Nik Tools very often, as it was someone else's interpretation of my images, not my own.  Actually, I wasn't intending to use pre-sets at all, I was curious how they would affect my image.  Maybe I was just tired - I ought to have looked at the work that was actually being done by clicking on that pre-set.

I must have been getting tired, too, as after spending what felt like forever removing dust marks, I never thought to do it to the sky.  

Later today I hope to pick up my recently taken negatives, and work on some of them.  

 

The Plustek, and VueScan, no longer seem so "important" to me.  Together they become a useful tool to digitize my film images, and get them into my image editor (DxO PhotoLab4).  It reminds me of something I was taught long ago, "The camera to a photographer should be like a wrench to a mechanic - it's just a tool, to do the job....   and the end result is what's important, not the tool".  For better or worse, the camera didn't make the photograph - I did.  

........and Nik Collection represents what some other photographer did, and it in no way represents what I did myself.  It's addicting, but it's like giving my negative to someone else to edit.  I feel better when I do all the editing, trying to accomplish what my brain thinks might be a good way to view the original image.  Thank you for the reminder.

 

Maybe I  should soon stop posting about this, and just start using it.  I don't want to start shooting film instead of shooting digital.  I'd like to shoot both, using whichever one  feels the most appropriate at the time.  

[MikeMyers]

1 hour ago, Steve Ricoh said:

I have thoughts... how far does one go with digital filters such that the analogue (film) image becomes almost indistinguishable from a ‘pure’ digital shot?

Digital filters can't ADD anything to an image - they work their magic by REMOVING stuff from an image, just like a colored filter in front of a lens.  The more digital filtering I do, the less information from the original image capture is left.  I never thought of it the way you describe it.  The end result may be interesting, but it may no longer represent what it was about the original scene that caused me to lift up my camera and take the photo in the first place.

On the other hand, my eyes have a wonderful way to see "what I think is there", and sometimes that is limited by the ability of a camera to see what my brain was thinking when I first saw the original scene.  The camera is more realistic than my eye/brain.  If I had the ability of Ansel Adams, I would know how to capture what I was thinking.

If that is true, how far can I go to make the photograph represent what I felt and saw at the moment I took the photo?  (.....and in the photos above, the Nik Collection photo is not what I remember.  The previous image I posted is what I remember.  

Does all that filtering make the image into a "digital" image, rather than a "film capture"?  I think it does.  As to whether that is good or bad, I can't answer.  Is it acceptable to bring out detail in a film image that wasn't really noticeable when I took the photo?  For example, is it fair to bring out the detail in the shadows?  Ansel would have used settings that he KNEW would capture that detail.

How does one define the difference between a "digital image" and an "analogue (film) image"?  Once both are inside of a computer, does it matter?  Should both be treated the same way, or differently?

[Steve Ricoh]

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47 minutes ago, MikeMyers said:

Digital filters can't ADD anything to an image - they work their magic by REMOVING stuff from an image, just like a colored filter in front of a lens.  The more digital filtering I do, the less information from the original image capture is left.  I never thought of it the way you describe it.  The end result may be interesting, but it may no longer represent what it was about the original scene that caused me to lift up my camera and take the photo in the first place.

On the other hand, my eyes have a wonderful way to see "what I think is there", and sometimes that is limited by the ability of a camera to see what my brain was thinking when I first saw the original scene.  The camera is more realistic than my eye/brain.  If I had the ability of Ansel Adams, I would know how to capture what I was thinking.

If that is true, how far can I go to make the photograph represent what I felt and saw at the moment I took the photo?  (.....and in the photos above, the Nik Collection photo is not what I remember.  The previous image I posted is what I remember.  

Does all that filtering make the image into a "digital" image, rather than a "film capture"?  I think it does.  As to whether that is good or bad, I can't answer.  Is it acceptable to bring out detail in a film image that wasn't really noticeable when I took the photo?  For example, is it fair to bring out the detail in the shadows?  Ansel would have used settings that he KNEW would capture that detail.

How does one define the difference between a "digital image" and an "analogue (film) image"?  Once both are inside of a computer, does it matter?  Should both be treated the same way, or differently?

Loads of good points there...

In essence it’s what pleases the eye of the photographer I suppose. From a personal point, the more I take the harder it is to please myself.  Like Garry Winogrand I take photos to see what it looks like in a photo, often / mostly very different from what I imagine. I’m not in the mould of Adams whatsoever.

[MikeMyers]

1 hour ago, Steve Ricoh said:

I’m not in the mould of Adams whatsoever.

Gee, I'd like to think that of myself too, but what I think and so has been molded by so many people, starting with Professor Phil Davis at the University of Michigan, who forced me into "his mould" so I could pass the course, then all the photography magazines I used to read every month, and then to magazine editors who told me what THEY wanted, and to https://www.sportsshooter.com, and then feedback from so many forums, and I can't forget the people teaching how to do photography online.  Even over the past few weeks, I thought I knew how to scan, but now I know I was so wrong.  Ansel Adams has been a solid reference for most of my life, and while I can't be another Ansel Adams, what I learned from him has helped me a lot.  I accept that once I take the shot, the resulting image has ALL the information I can work with from then on - no way to add more, and anything I do with/to it is by removing something until what's left is what I want.   .....then too, I learn things that later I realize are counter-productive, programs and tools that detract from the image, even if they "look" better.  All of the above, for me, is wrapped around the "photojournalists rules of ethics", which was burned into my brain a zillion years ago.

What I enjoy most about this forum, is that so many people here know so much more than I do, so it is usually a great learning experience.  

What I enjoy most about a film camera is that it strips away all the "stuff" that can be done to influence the captured photo.  No menus, just a lens, the shutter, the film, and the shutter release which is what *I* do to capture what I see.  With film, I have to think more about what I'm doing, to capture what I see on whatever type of film I'm shooting on.

I used to think that buying a digital Leica with no LCD screen on the back was too silly to contemplate.  Quite often, I find myself turning the rear screen "off" and shooting as if I was shooting film.  One of these days I'll look into how one configures all the gazillion digital camera settings without the LCD.

 

Meanwhile, back to planet earth, as I look through my old negatives, so many memories come back, what I was thinking when I captured those photos.  I turn back into my younger self, when I first got involved with my Leica M2 (which eventually got stolen).  I got a summer job at Olden Camera, saved up my money, and before I headed off to the University of Michigan, I bought what I thought was the "best" camera for me, a black Leica M2 with 50mm Summicron.  Maybe these memories are why I'm now enjoying my replacement Leica cameras, an M3 and another M2.

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Edited August 31, 2021 by MikeMyers

[MikeMyers]

Back to work.

I've learned here that my scan should be configured to capture all the data from the negative, meaning I will see a "dull" grayish image in the scanned image.  I will then restore the contrast, blacks, and whites, in my image editor.

It seems logical that I adjust the image in my editor, such that the histogram doesn't "clip" the  black or whites, which is what I've done below.  Is this a valid setting to capture as much information as possible from the scanned image, and to also create the effect I like in Ansel Adams' prints where the darkest part of the image is pure black, and the lightest part pure white?

 

Another question.  Scanning my 35mm negatives at 7200 dpi, my scanned image (cropped) is 8528 x 6729 pixels.  How large can a 35mm film negative be "enlarged" to capture the full potential of the negative, but no more?  When I printed in my old darkroom, I made 8x10 or 11x14 prints.  I had trays to make 16x20 prints, but rarely did that.  If I wanted to make a huge print, a tripod was mandatory, along with a cable release.  I suspect I could scan at 3,600 dpi, and nobody would notice the difference.

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[philipus]

Just in case it helps I posted thoughts on my workflow on my site:

https://philipus.com/my-workflow

It's a bit obsolete because I rarely wet mount these days with my CS9000 but perhaps some of the text helps you. There are some Vuescan settings there to try if you like.

My aim is always to scan so that I get the most information in the image – the typical "dull-looking" scan. It goes for b&w, c41 and transparency (though in light of how the latter works the difference between the flat/dull scan and the final scan is much less than for the other two). I should add that I scan C41 "linear" in order to be able to invert the image in ColorPerfect. That may be different to what you wish to do. Note that you can also use ColorPerfect for b&w, as strange as it may sound.

About Vuescan's ini files. I actually only use three, one for each type of emulsion. Vuescan's built in so-called profiles are, to use a technical term, rubbish (imho). I read somewhere (on the internet, so it must be true lol) that they are actually some old Kodak Image Disc profiles that Ed Hamrick included. I typically shoot a pretty wide range of b&w – XP2, TMX, Fomapan, Double-X, Tri-X to name a few – but scan them all with the same settings. It's the same with the other two emulsion types, though I usually mainly shoot a few different film types of c41 and transparency. I do the same in Flexcolor for my X1 actually, three simple profiles.

All that said, everyone can set up the scanning software like the want to of course. It's a matter of finding a workflow that one is happy with.

Feel free to ask questions if you want about the Vuescan settings, in case something is unclear.

Philip

On 8/30/2021 at 3:17 PM, MikeMyers said:

@frame-it - that's the problem.  In a few months I'm likely to have dozens of saved ".ini" files, with no idea what the settings are, or how they differ.  I guess I'm old fashioned - if I take the above five images and print them, not only can I know what my settings were, I can verify that I'm using the same settings in the future.  Ed Hamrick doesn't seem to think this is important - and maybe in a year or two from now, I'll know this so well that I'll never need the printouts.

I'll be scanning again later today, maybe with the images I captured last week, and I expect to use the same settings, unless someone here suggests changes.  This was for Ilford ASA 100 film, and the film I'm shooting currently is Tri-X 400.  Maybe that requires modified settings?

Slowly, I'm getting more and more familiar with all the configuration settings - MUCH better now than last week.  

(I suspect that most people just set this up once, and forget it.  Maybe I'm making much too big a deal over learning this?)

I had sort of organized my film negative collection from a lifetime ago, from when I went to college to when I stopped shooting film.  They're all in strips of 6 images, in large sheets that go in a multi-ring binder.  I went through all of them yesterday, writing on each page what those negatives were of.  An A7A "Light Pad" I bought from B&H made this much easier, and I used software on my iPhone to see the negatives as a "positive".  I went through several apps I downloaded, until I got disgusted and did a search on Google - and found an excellent (and free) app from Kodak that does what I want.  You can read about it here:

       https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kodak-mobile-film-scanner/id1446701931

I can even save the "positive" images on my phone image gallery if I want to.

[MikeMyers]

8 hours ago, philipus said:

I typically shoot a pretty wide range of b&w – XP2, TMX, Fomapan, Double-X, Tri-X to name a few – but scan them all with the same settings

I wish there was an easy way for you to do this, to be able to show me all your settings, but the only way I've found so far is to make "screen shots" of all my VueScan settings.  If you ever have some free time, and can post them here, I'd love to compare your settings to my own settings, document what is different, and then change to use your settings.  

I scanned a photo of an old steam locomotive a few hours ago, posted a copy, then went on to do other things.  When I came back to look at it a few hours later, it looked horrible.  So I un-did some of the trick stuff (Local adjustments) in PhotoLab4, fiddled with the brightness some more, and finally got something that I think is "finished".  If I still like it in the morning, I'm done.  I'll post it here - it is scanned at the same settings as I used before, but this was a color negative.  Not knowing what to change, I left things the same as I've been doing for black&white.  It took what felt like a lifetime to get rid of the dust and debris - the negative has had a rather difficult life.  It should have gone into a glassine envelope back in the 1980's or so.  

Also, so far, my Leica negatives have looked pretty good to me.  This color negative didn't look as nice.  I probably used my Nikon F4 for this.  I got the camera out again and looked it over - it now looks so strange, and I don't remember much about it.  Feeling a bit flustered, I got out my old Nikon F2, and that felt right at home in my hands.  It's more like a Leica I guess.  It's in perfect shape, but the battery that powers the Photomic stuff up on top was dead (no surprise), so for $6 I ordered a new one.  

I thought I remembered being so careful when I took the steam locomotive photos, as it was a "once in a lifetime" opportunity.  Maybe it's my imagination, but my Leica photos seem to be sharper than my Nikon SLR photos.  It's probably me, not the camera gear, but I've thought that for many years now.  

Maybe you can answer something for me.  If my goal is B&W photos, and if I compared my photos from my M10 with identical photos I took with a M10 Monochrom, would I notice a difference?  Then, how would both of them compare with a B&W photo taken on a film Leica?  Would I see a difference in a full-screen image?  I suspect I'd see a difference in a 16x20 enlargement, but how about in "regular" image sizes?

 

I may have questions for you about VueScan settings if I compare what you do with what I'm doing now (as shown in the images I posted a while ago).  I haven't changed anything.  Resolution is still at 7200 dpi.  Right now, scanning seems to be very straight forward - the real work comes when I start editing my image after scanning.  I'm still using PhotoLab4, as I'm more familiar with it now than the others.

OK, here's the latest scan of the steam locomotive.  Width is set to 2,000 pixels.

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[philipus]

In terms of settings I use what I posted wrote in the article on my site. Those are my "ini" files, one for b&w, one for c41 and one for transparency.

Re your question about the digital photos I'm afraid I don't have any idea at all. But judging by what discussions I've seen here, though, there is probably an ENORMOUS difference between the M10 and the M10M. That is meant as a joke, but it seems to me that digital photographers obsess over minor differences between sensors, sensor types and lenses. I'm really happy that I don't have to be part of that quagmire. Film is film.

On the second part of your question the answer is, I'm quite sure, yes. Film will naturally look different. It will look like film and there will be grain. Certain emulsions at larger film formats will have, a bit, the clean look that digital has, but will still retain the qualities of film, which digital will of course lack. But small negative sizes like 35mm will rarely have that same clean look, though they can, all depending on the entire image chain, from exposure, through development, to scanning (as applicable), and printing. It will, however, look like film, in all its visceral luscious glory. 

I am not familiar with PhotoLab4. I'm afraid I haven't even heard of it. I use Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop CS6 with ColorPerfect. The image below seems a bit unsharp to me, almost like it's an enlargement of a 35mm negative. I suspect this is due to the scanner and not your settings.

From what I've read the Opticfilm 8200ai has an effective scanning resolution of 3250dpi. Scanning at 7200dpi will not give you more image detail; it will only result in a bloated image file due to interpolation. The best results will probably come from scanning at the effective optical resolution of the scanner.

As I mentioned before I think you'd see a significant improvement in scan quality if you were to digitise using your digital M cameras. One reason for this is that the Opticfilm seems to lack autofocus. When you digitise you have full control. Even micrometer differences in the film plane will affect the scan quality and a scanner that lacks autofocus is unable to cope with those differences.

As an aside, many years ago I compared the results from my old Coolscan V ED and my Canon 5D mkII with the 100/2.8 macro. I posted them here. If ever my scanners die I will definitely look into a digitising solution.

Scanning has quite a significant learning curve which can be frustrating, but once one sets down a few fixed parameters and don't stray from them it will get a lot easier. It's similar to developing film – stick to a formula and hammer down the workflow before changing things. This is really important.

Below is a Vuescan guide that is unconnected with Ed Hamrick but it may help put you on the right track to get out of the box scans that are a good starting point. If you want to read a book about Vuescan there is The Vuescan Bible by Sasha Steinhoff. It's an overkill for just getting acceptable scans out of a scanner, but it's useful for more advanced stuff. It is also entirely unnecessary, in some way, because everything in it can be learnt and understood by (slightly time-consuming) trial and error using the below guide and Hamrick's online help file. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20140825063205/http://www.photoshop-tutorials-plus.com/support-files/vuescan_manual.pdf

 

3 hours ago, MikeMyers said:

I wish there was an easy way for you to do this, to be able to show me all your settings, but the only way I've found so far is to make "screen shots" of all my VueScan settings.  If you ever have some free time, and can post them here, I'd love to compare your settings to my own settings, document what is different, and then change to use your settings.  

I scanned a photo of an old steam locomotive a few hours ago, posted a copy, then went on to do other things.  When I came back to look at it a few hours later, it looked horrible.  So I un-did some of the trick stuff (Local adjustments) in PhotoLab4, fiddled with the brightness some more, and finally got something that I think is "finished".  If I still like it in the morning, I'm done.  I'll post it here - it is scanned at the same settings as I used before, but this was a color negative.  Not knowing what to change, I left things the same as I've been doing for black&white.  It took what felt like a lifetime to get rid of the dust and debris - the negative has had a rather difficult life.  It should have gone into a glassine envelope back in the 1980's or so.  

Also, so far, my Leica negatives have looked pretty good to me.  This color negative didn't look as nice.  I probably used my Nikon F4 for this.  I got the camera out again and looked it over - it now looks so strange, and I don't remember much about it.  Feeling a bit flustered, I got out my old Nikon F2, and that felt right at home in my hands.  It's more like a Leica I guess.  It's in perfect shape, but the battery that powers the Photomic stuff up on top was dead (no surprise), so for $6 I ordered a new one.  

I thought I remembered being so careful when I took the steam locomotive photos, as it was a "once in a lifetime" opportunity.  Maybe it's my imagination, but my Leica photos seem to be sharper than my Nikon SLR photos.  It's probably me, not the camera gear, but I've thought that for many years now.  

Maybe you can answer something for me.  If my goal is B&W photos, and if I compared my photos from my M10 with identical photos I took with a M10 Monochrom, would I notice a difference?  Then, how would both of them compare with a B&W photo taken on a film Leica?  Would I see a difference in a full-screen image?  I suspect I'd see a difference in a 16x20 enlargement, but how about in "regular" image sizes?

 

I may have questions for you about VueScan settings if I compare what you do with what I'm doing now (as shown in the images I posted a while ago).  I haven't changed anything.  Resolution is still at 7200 dpi.  Right now, scanning seems to be very straight forward - the real work comes when I start editing my image after scanning.  I'm still using PhotoLab4, as I'm more familiar with it now than the others.

OK, here's the latest scan of the steam locomotive.  Width is set to 2,000 pixels.

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[MikeMyers]

29 minutes ago, philipus said:

From what I've read the Opticfilm 8200ai has an effective scanning resolution of 3250dpi. Scanning at 7200dpi will not give you more image detail; it will only result in a bloated image file due to interpolation. The best results will probably come from scanning at the effective optical resolution of the scanner.

 

29 minutes ago, philipus said:

Below is a Vuescan guide that is unconnected with Ed Hamrick but it may help put you on the right track to get out of the box scans that are a good starting point. If you want to read a book about Vuescan there is The Vuescan Bible by Sasha Steinhoff. It's an overkill for just getting acceptable scans out of a scanner, but it's useful for more advanced stuff. It is also entirely unnecessary, in some way, because everything in it can be learnt and understood by (slightly time-consuming) trial and error using the below guide and Hamrick's online help file. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20140825063205/http://www.photoshop-tutorials-plus.com/support-files/vuescan_manual.pdf

Thank you for the information - I remember asking if I should be using 7200 dpi or 3600 dpi, and what you wrote confirms what I was thinking.  

I'll also check out "The Vuescan Bible", but will read the link you posted before I do any more scanning.

[leiceria]

If I scan B&W negatives I use two scanners. First Epson 750 for contact-sheets with Epson software and a resolution of 2400 ppi. Then I scan the best negatives with a Nikon 5000 with 4000 ppi. The software is Vuescan. In a german tutorial I found a special method scanning b&w negatives. I use it with success. See the pdf-file below.

Gruß

leiceria 

Vuescan Schwarzweiß.pages.pdf

[MikeMyers]

I think I'm missing something.  Here is a copy of the VueScan settings that you linked to, and a copy of my current settings.  I do see some minor differences.  Blackpoint is 0.001 and Whitepoint is 0.01 - should I be using those numbers, instead of zero?

 

 

 

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[MikeMyers]

For the first several years I spent in Ann Arbor, before I started working, one of my favorite places to hang out was the local railroad station.  I could spend hours there, never knowing what kind of trains might be passing through, or better yet, stopping.  I remember the New York Central engines, with this fancy paint job, and was. thrilled when this one stopped.  Something I knew back then, but forgot for many years (until my friend in India, Chitra, pointed it out) was that photographs without people are boring, compared to when I can get someone into the photo and bring it to life.  I never spoke to anyone, but my eye was watching both my subject, and people who might add interest to the photo.

With PhotoLab4, I scan the image with no intent to adjust anything, other than to use my settings (as in the previous response) to create a "flat", minimal contrast image.  I usually adjust the curve to make blacks blacker, and whites whiter.  Then it seems like I always need to spend an hour or so eliminating dust specs, scratches, and so on.  PhotoLab4 offers many tools to fine-tune the image, including pre-sets.  I don't use pre-sets - the only way I'll get to know and understand the tools, is by doing it manually.

At some point I need to step back, squint my eyes, so the image is no longer sharp and set the final crop so the image feels "balanced".

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[leiceria]

vor einer Stunde schrieb MikeMyers:

I think I'm missing something.  Here is a copy of the VueScan settings that you linked to, and a copy of my current settings.  I do see some minor differences.  Blackpoint is 0.001 and Whitepoint is 0.01 - should I be using those numbers, instead of zero?

Yes, try it and use the last 3 settings and the instructions in Output.

Gruß

leiceria

[MikeMyers]

I am looking at https://web.archive.org/web/20140825063205/http://www.photoshop-tutorials-plus.com/support-files/vuescan_manual.pdf

Early on,  the filter setting for sharpen is selected.  That sounds wrong; sharpening should come last.

I'm ignoring color settings for now - I'm just doing B&W.

Under Color,   they have Black point at 0, and White point at .3, while my settings for both are zero.

Under Output, they have TIFF file type as 48 bit RGB, while I have it at 16 bit gray for B&W

They have it sending the output directly to the editor.  For now, I selected "default" so I see the output before I open it in an editor.

They have Display raw scan checked.  I left it unchecked.  What does this do or mean?

Several of their PREFERENCES are different from what I'm using, but nothing here seems critical to the output?????

 

This seems to be for a very old version of VueScan.  I think I should work with something more like the software I've got on my Plustek.

 

Thank you!!

 

 

[philipus]

I've never seen that Vuescan could set it at decimals like that actually, but 0,01 or 0,001 shouldn't make a big difference to 0. Sometimes Vuescan will default to 1 however, and that sucks because it means that anything below or above that (on the histogram) will be pure black or pure white respectively and that you lose image information in those areas.

1 hour ago, MikeMyers said:

I think I'm missing something.  Here is a copy of the VueScan settings that you linked to, and a copy of my current settings.  I do see some minor differences.  Blackpoint is 0.001 and Whitepoint is 0.01 - should I be using those numbers, instead of zero?

 

 

 

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[MikeMyers]

10 minutes ago, philipus said:

I've never seen that Vuescan could set it at decimals like that actually, but 0,01 or 0,001 shouldn't make a big difference to 0. Sometimes Vuescan will default to 1 however, and that sucks because it means that anything below or above that (on the histogram) will be pure black or pure white respectively and that you lose image information in those areas.

Sounds like a good reason to leave the setting at zero. ??