GMB Posted October 28, 2008 Share #1 Posted October 28, 2008 Advertisement (gone after registration) I have a Nikon Coolscan V and use Vuescan on a Mac. As I am shooting mostily digital these day, I lost a bit the habit of scanning. Last night a I tried again and the results were quite flat, needing a lot of work with levels and curves in PS. I wonder what setting people use with Vuescan, in particular as regards white point, black point etc. Thanks. Georg Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted October 28, 2008 Posted October 28, 2008 Hi GMB, Take a look here Scanning BW film with Vuescan. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
stunsworth Posted October 28, 2008 Share #2 Posted October 28, 2008 I leave both the blank and white points at low values, 0.1 for example. that produces a flat looking scan that I then adjust using curves in Photoshop. For the film type selection I tend to use T-Max 100 and select a setting to give me a reasonable looking scan. As for the output, I scan everything as 16 bit greyscale. Hope that helps. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted October 28, 2008 Share #3 Posted October 28, 2008 Me too. Overexpose, underdevelop and scan flat. A quick level and curves adjustment brings everything out nicely. Most of my b&w shots on my web pages (see link below) were scanned that way on a Coolscan V, on a Mac, with Vuescan. I output as 48 bit colour tiffs, to allow more tools in PS to be available to me, but convert back to greyscale when I'm finished. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgray Posted October 28, 2008 Share #4 Posted October 28, 2008 I set the black and white points as low as possible. Film is set to Tmax CI=.55. Output as a (flat) 16 bit B&W tiff. Curves and levels in PS. It's way easier to do it there than in Vuescan. I made a quick action that sets the color profile, does levels to 0.1% clipping, saves the tiff, then an editable curves dialogue (with a preset curve that I find good for most of my negatives), sharpening, and save to jpeg. It takes about 2 seconds literally to run through the action and I have a jpg ready for the web. I tried the RGB scan and conversion in PS, but I found it made no difference to me, other than juggling unnecessarily large files. I personally crop to the negative (the whole negative) *in* Vuescan. Leaving the full scan with the white and black borders just ended up making more work for me as well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted October 28, 2008 Share #5 Posted October 28, 2008 One more thing, I tend not to crop and scan the full frame - including some of the border outside of the frame. I use the setting to ignore some of the frame from the calculation of exposure - from memory I have this parameter set to 20-30%. This prevents the border influencing the exposure. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMB Posted October 28, 2008 Author Share #6 Posted October 28, 2008 Steve, Andy, tgray, Thanks for the helpful and quick advice! Georg Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgray Posted October 28, 2008 Share #7 Posted October 28, 2008 Advertisement (gone after registration) One more thing, I tend not to crop and scan the full frame - including some of the border outside of the frame. I use the setting to ignore some of the frame from the calculation of exposure - from memory I have this parameter set to 20-30%. This prevents the border influencing the exposure. Yeah I knew I was missing something in my info. I crop in Vuescan to the negative. If you don't, do the border thing otherwise your exposures are funky. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan States Posted October 28, 2008 Share #8 Posted October 28, 2008 Would suggest you try scanning to a DNG file and then converting in ACR or Elements. You get much better control of a RAW file and can adjust exposure, brightness and contrast of the negative and then invert it in PS. More work, yes, but you get outstanding tonality and shadow detail. Best wishes Dan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted October 29, 2008 Share #9 Posted October 29, 2008 If you scan to a DNG with Vuescan, you get a negative image in ACR, unsurprisingly. ACR cannot invert an image (AFAICS), so it's not that helpful, in my experience. Don't forget to turn off the dust filter / ICE when scanning silver film. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob_x2004 Posted October 29, 2008 Share #10 Posted October 29, 2008 How about someone posts a completely unedited 'flat' off the scanner plus their simply adjusted to show us the difference? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted October 29, 2008 Share #11 Posted October 29, 2008 I'd love to, but don't have access to my desktop system for a couple of days. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andybarton Posted October 29, 2008 Share #12 Posted October 29, 2008 I will do a "what I did" tomorrow if I have time. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob_x2004 Posted October 29, 2008 Share #13 Posted October 29, 2008 My stuff is comparatively 'flat' but most of the tonal range comes back in with resampling down from teh scan size to final picture dimensions. I edit from there. I am only using the Minolta software with the KM5400ii but always found it gave me better results. Crop at 100% no editing no compression. Cranky huh. 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! Resampled to 800 wide but no editing. Simple thirty second subject and background curves adjustment, nothing tricky, and where I would begin editing, if the image was worth it. Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Resampled to 800 wide but no editing. Simple thirty second subject and background curves adjustment, nothing tricky, and where I would begin editing, if the image was worth it. ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/66806-scanning-bw-film-with-vuescan/?do=findComment&comment=699000'>More sharing options...
kipkeston Posted October 29, 2008 Share #14 Posted October 29, 2008 Would suggest you try scanning to a DNG file and then converting in ACR or Elements. You get much better control of a RAW file and can adjust exposure, brightness and contrast of the negative and then invert it in PS. More work, yes, but you get outstanding tonality and shadow detail. Best wishes Dan I second this. It's the absolute best way to get the most out of your vuescan/coolscan combo. It's inverted in ACR, so what? Invert it once it gets to photoshop, run levels and I promise it will looking amazing. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgray Posted October 29, 2008 Share #15 Posted October 29, 2008 Here's what my flat scans look like. I had to resize the image so it would fit. But look in the statue's armpit where the shadows are really noisy. Had I printed this in the darkroom, this area would be way down in the shadows, so my curves adjustment reflects this. I think actually in my 'final' version of this negative,, I had added a hair bit more contrast than this. Sometimes with these scans there is a tendency to leave them at way too low contrast because the scanner pulls so much detail out of the shadows. Though it's useful, I don't think that's how I'd normally print them... 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! 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/66806-scanning-bw-film-with-vuescan/?do=findComment&comment=699127'>More sharing options...
stunsworth Posted October 29, 2008 Share #16 Posted October 29, 2008 Sometimes with these scans there is a tendency to leave them at way too low contrast because the scanner pulls so much detail out of the shadows That was my problem when I first started scanning. It somehow seemed wrong to lose any shadow detail, and as a result my final images were flat and grey. I sometimes see images that look like this in the photo forum. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
kipkeston Posted October 29, 2008 Share #17 Posted October 29, 2008 I'll add my examples. I scan DNG with vuescan/coolscanV, open in CS3, invert, auto level and save. It's easy. one two: this would be the flat scan three, just levels Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tgray Posted October 29, 2008 Share #18 Posted October 29, 2008 What is really gained from the whole DNG thing? Its not like scanners produce files like digital cameras that need to be interpolated - they already have the full RGB data for each pixel. So, the DNG file is essentially a TIFF already (I think DNG is actually a derivative of the TIFF format). ACR lets you open up any format now, not just raw files, so you can easily run TIFFs through it. And a flat TIFF file is just as good of a 'raw', unprocessed file as a DNG. Make your changes and then save the final result as a copy. The only real advantage I can see is that any changes you might make in ACR, etc, can be saved non-destructively in the file. However, you need to do the inversion step in Photoshop anyway, which means you are kind of operating blindly in the DNG stage... Edit: I want to be clear, I'm not dismissing the DNG thing, I'm just unclear of what real advantages it offers... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GMB Posted October 29, 2008 Author Share #19 Posted October 29, 2008 How about someone posts a completely unedited 'flat' off the scanner plus their simply adjusted to show us the difference? Ok. First flat out of the scanner and then with some levels and curves. 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! 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/66806-scanning-bw-film-with-vuescan/?do=findComment&comment=699803'>More sharing options...
GMB Posted October 29, 2008 Author Share #20 Posted October 29, 2008 Another more extrem example. The shot was taken at low light. First the flat scan and then with leves and curves. 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! 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/66806-scanning-bw-film-with-vuescan/?do=findComment&comment=699818'>More sharing options...
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