Problems Scanning Fuji B&W Film

[Arkady001]

Has anyone else had any issues with scans of the old Fuji 400-PR?

I just revisited some of my old negs from 22 years ago (XP-2 Super, FP-4, HP-5, Plus-X, Tri-X, T-Max etc) most are fine apart from 4 rolls of Fuji 400-PR - the contact sheets look fine and I remember doing some prints back then which were also OK, but for some reason my Plustek 8100i scanner really doesn't like these. I tried all the Agfa, Fuji, Ilford and Kodak film presets and nothing really made much of a difference...

Contrast was off the charts - literally: I had to pull the contrast slider to -50 and the black and mid-tone histogram sliders all the way over to the left, with the white slider all the way over to the right. The histograms themselves all looked normal with a reasonable curve - some even showed no white values on the histogram, but the images still had blown highlights...

Two rolls of Fuji 1600-PR were also bad but not as horrendous as the 400. Weather conditions were bright daylight (March 1999, Northern Ireland), with a low sun and intermittent overcast. I can see cloud detail in the sky on most of the negs as well as good shadow detail, but trying to get the scans to show any of it was a nightmare.
I haven't yet pulled them into Lightroom, so I'll see what that can do tomorrow...
I thought the scanner might be playing up, but the next sheet of negs were XP-2 and scanned perfectly...

 

[ChrisR]

I've forgotten what scanning software you're using, Rob...

 

[Arkady001]

Silverfast Plus LE. Just what came with the scanner...

Update: I discovered another couple of rolls of 400-PR in the neg file which were shot about six months and 18 months after this original set, so no chance the ISO could have been set wrong on the camera, or the film stuffed-up during processing.
Same issue: really, really high contrast on the scans, but detail visible on the negs and 'normal' looking contact sheets... again almost impossible to attain a decent amount of dynamic range on the scan as all the sliders had to be 'maxed out' in either direction...

 

[ChrisR]

I've never used that film, so can't really help. What you describe sounds a bit like Film Ferrania P30, which I found hard to scan.

Maybe it's worth making a linear positive scan to TIFF and then feed it into Photoshop to invert? Just possible you'd have more controls, although my vague memory of Silverfast is that it was pretty powerful that way.

 

[Arkady001]

I've never used that film, so can't really help. What you describe sounds a bit like Film Ferrania P30, which I found hard to scan.

Maybe it's worth making a linear positive scan to TIFF and then feed it into Photoshop to invert? Just possible you'd have more controls, although my vague memory of Silverfast is that it was pretty powerful that way.

Good call, I'll see if that saves more info...