V500 Workflow help

medwaygreen

medwaygreen

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Richard
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Good Morning,

I have already searched the F&C forum for information without success, I have started to scan all my 35 and 120 negs at home on my V500 and I have tried different combinations of settings and I am finding the results a little flat and uninspiring. I would be grateful for any advice on workflow settings that you have found produce good results straight from the scanner with the need for minimal Photoshop work.

The biggest problem area seems to be B&W and I use mainly T-Max 100 for 120 and and basic C41 for 35mm, but your thoughts on colour would also be welcome.:thumbs:

Many thanks.
 
For neg film it is neccessary to induce some contrast in them as they are naturally somewhat low contrast and the scanner will record them like that, after scanning all you really need to do in photoshop etc is to set the levels and increase the contrast a bit using curves (+ some unsharp mask as scans are also a bit soft, like RAW files). Thats pretty much how I do all of my scanning, with Vuescan outputting only the inverted scan with no black or white points set.

Colour neg is a bit more difficult I find, but usually a slight bump in saturation gets them looking somewhat better.
 
Thanks, Samuel, but I am looking to try and obtain acceptable scans without the use or very minimal Photoshop work. What workflow do you use for your V500.

Richard.
 
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I don't have a V500! I use a Reflecta Proscan 7200.
Generally if you want to get good scans you will need to do some work on the contrast etc as the scanner will just give you what it sees, I don't know what programme your using to scan, but if you can set the black and white points in it then that will be a great help, you just get a lot more control over the output if you do it afterwards. Think of it as selecting a paper grade, as the scanner sees it by default it will come out as Grade 1 (i.e low contrast) so you need to increase the contrast to get it up to where you want.
 
With my Epson scanner, I do a raw linear scan with Vuescan and then flip it using Colorperfect. This gets me about 85% of the way, but I find I'll always need to make final adjustments in Aperture 3 (e.g., curves, dust removal, sharpening)..

I have found this workflow delivers the most consistent results and minimises my time fiddling with each individual image.
 
Richard,

I'm using the V500 too and was also a bit disappointed at the outset with the results....all very grey and flat.

I'm not sure if you want to do minimal PP in general or just to comply with the POTY competition rules.

If the latter....don't worry....seems you can get away with anything :)

My routine for POTY is to merely import the scan into PS and hit auto tone and auto contrast buttons and then resize etc for competition rules.

This gives a reasonable result and in my opinion is the kind of minimal PP intended.
 
Thanks Steve, No not really to do with the POTY comp, in fact with Minimal PP being disregarded so much, this may well be my last month, as the great interest of the comp for me was the fact that I not experienced in the art of PP and therefore saw this as a much more level playing field, oh well that's life.

My question is aimed at the fact that I would like to get the very best from my negs within the V500 process, which I do not feel I am at the moment.
 
Richard

I have been using a V500 for a few months now and I am really pleased with it. I use the Epson scanning software that came with the scanner and Lightroom 4 to tidy up and tweak the image. I use PhotoShop Elments clone stamp tool to remove dust. I am not into PP so spend as little time on this as possible.

I use the scanning approach set out here:

http://photo-utopia.blogspot.co.uk/2010/11/scanning-with-epson-v500.html

I have found this really useful. The only difference in my workflow and the recommendation in Photo-Utopia is that I also move the output sliders out almost all the way when scanning. Lots of people have said they think this makes no difference, I have to agree to differ as I notice a definite difference in my scans when I do this. There is a bit of trial and error.

So my workflow can se summered as:

1. Load the negs
2. Jet blow them well to try and remove the dust
3. Preview scan in Epson scan
4. Select each neg in Histogram adjustment
5. Move the input sliders to the edge of the histogram
6. Move the output sliders to almost the outer edges of their range
7. Scan
8. Open in LR4
9. Adjust exposure, contrast and clarity.
10. Tweak colour as appropriate
11. Save and open in Elements and use clone tool to remove the dust the blower always misses!
12. Save, file and post to Flickr


My pictures are generally cr*p but that is down to my questionable skill as a photographer. The scanning bit is one of the stronger links I the chain!

Hope this helps
 
Jao said:
So my workflow can se summered as:

1. Load the negs
2. Jet blow them well to try and remove the dust
3. Preview scan in Epson scan
4. Select each neg in Histogram adjustment
5. Move the input sliders to the edge of the histogram
6. Move the output sliders to almost the outer edges of their range
7. Scan
8. Open in LR4
9. Adjust exposure, contrast and clarity.
10. Tweak colour as appropriate
11. Save and open in Elements and use clone tool to remove the dust the blower always misses!
12. Save, file and post to Flickr
Click to expand...

Just interested to know why you add the extra stage in Elements and why you don't use the clone tool in LR?
 
RaglanSurf said:
Just interested to know why you add the extra stage in Elements and why you don't use the clone tool in LR?
Click to expand...

I expect it's because Elements clone tool has a "content aware" feature (same as its big brother Photoshop CS) which, IMO is far superior to the clone tool in LR.
 
RaglanSurf said:
Just interested to know why you add the extra stage in Elements and why you don't use the clone tool in LR?
Click to expand...

I would love to give a good technical response but my PP skills and knowledge are quite limited, the honest answer is that I find the clone stamp tool in Elements 9 much easier to use when removing dust and scratches.

wickerman said:
I expect it's because Elements clone tool has a "content aware" feature (same as its big brother Photoshop CS) which, IMO is far superior to the clone tool in LR.
Click to expand...

This is better technical answer even though I am not sure I fully understand it. David's technical knowledge is superior to mine.
 
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