What am I doing wrong? (Scanner related)

norters

norters

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Hi all.

I picked up some Tri X negs today and have started scanning but for some reason they are coming out like this:

1194.jpg


I use the software that came with the V500 and have never had this problem when I scan colour. Also, on the image type drop down list the black and white option is greyed out :shrug: so these are scanned greyscale. It's annoying!
 
What's wrong with it? You have a black and white image from black and white film that looks fine, were you perhaps pointing the lens another direction and expected a picture of the door indicating a serious fault? :naughty:
 
Probably not the best image to illustrate the problem. This one shows it a lot clearer.

239.jpg
 
Alan Clogwyn said:
What's wrong with it? You have a black and white image from black and white film that looks fine, were you perhaps pointing the lens another direction and expected a picture of the door indicating a serious fault? :naughty:
Click to expand...

There's almost no detail, it looks like an oil painting.

Was it accidentally scanned using 8-bit instead of 16-bit? Not sure if it causes that, but it's a common setting to accidentally hit...
 
freecom2 said:
There's almost no detail, it looks like an oil painting.

Was it accidentally scanned using 8-bit instead of 16-bit? Not sure if it causes that, but it's a common setting to accidentally hit...
Click to expand...

I've tried 8 bit, 16 bit, even all the colour options! Quite demoralised now :( The anomaly doesn't show in the previews but on the scans it's there.
 
Ah yes the second is a lot clearer! Looks like you've cocked up with the tone curve somewhere, or the scanner is about to die.

My Minolta does that mildly in B&W Negative mode with hefty curve adjustments, but strangely not in B&W posotive mode.
 
I had that issue a few times with my V500, can't remember exactly how i got rid of it but i think it went away after rebooting the scanner and PC. I wouldn't worry about it though, only happened a couple of times to me.
 
I had something weirdly similar but with colour being shifted and missing detail. It just needed a download from epson's site. I was using vuescan though. Worth having a trawl on their site in case there is an update out or if you've just updated and it was ok before I'd revert to older version.
 
robhooley167 said:
I had that issue a few times with my V500, can't remember exactly how i got rid of it but i think it went away after rebooting the scanner and PC. I wouldn't worry about it though, only happened a couple of times to me.
Click to expand...

That was going to be my next step. Just scanned some Xp-2 negs 16 bit greyscale to check and they came out fine.

Looks like a reboot is in order.
 
Was digital ICE on? That usually gives some weird results if used with B&W.
 
walsh said:
Was digital ICE on? That usually gives some weird results if used with B&W.
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Yes! It was. I always use it on my colour negs. Trying again now without it to see if that solves the problem...

...As I was typing the previous sentence, the scan finished without ICE and it has worked fine. Apart from the scratches which will now have to be cloned out and healed! Thank you sir. You are a gent :thumbs:
 
Oh it is the ICE thing, completely forgot about that. Definitely happened to me before, but a bit of clicking and unchecking options usually uncovers the culprit soon enough :)
 
I don't use ICE because, weirdly, I enjoy cleaning up the negs. I can happily spend 10 minutes on each image dotting out spots and dust with the content aware tool or the clone stamp.......I really am a sad old git.
 
I don't mind cleaning the scans up. It's just that my cloning and healing skills are pretty basic and when it comes to marks and scratches over detail on the negatives like railings or buildings I get really stuck!

Looks like I'm going to have to practice!
 
Andysnap said:
......I really am a sad old git.
Click to expand...

:lol:

norters said:
I don't mind cleaning the scans up. It's just that my cloning and healing skills are pretty basic and when it comes to marks and scratches over detail on the negatives like railings or buildings I get really stuck!

Looks like I'm going to have to practice!
Click to expand...

Lightroom, it's the way forward. It has the easiest cloning/healing tool I've used.
 
RaglanSurf said:
:lol:

Lightroom, it's the way forward. It has the easiest cloning/healing tool I've used.
Click to expand...

Lightroom is good but CS6 is so much better. I did the monthly fee thing for it and it really makes a difference.
 
Jim,

What is this monthly fee thing of which you speaketh?
 
I find my Epson 4490 does weird things to negatives if I leave the auto sharpening selected by accident.
 
Ah, I see, thanks for that. I think I shall stick to Elements at the moment then.
 
Andysnap said:
Ah, I see, thanks for that. I think I shall stick to Elements at the moment then.
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As above. I worked out it would take about 3 years for the paying it off in one to catch up so went for paying monthly. It was cheaper as I signed up for 12 months.
 
Digital ICE doesn't work on b/w film because it uses an IR light source to detect dust, unfortunately it also detects the silver particles in b/w film and makes a b*****s of the scan, that's why there is no option to scan b/w film with ICE..:)
 
With SilverFast you can add a mask (or more with the AI version) for areas to be included or excluded from their equivalent of ICE. I used it a LOT for the thousand or so Kodachrome slides from Australian and New Zealand (Kodachrome was also silver-based, like mono film). Slides that you liked enough to project a few times over the years gather a lot of dust (and get into entirely the wrong places, which can make for some interesting detective work). Just let the ICE-equivalent do its work on the sky, spot-heal the few really obvious ones in the landscape...
 
ChrisR said:
With SilverFast you can add a mask (or more with the AI version) for areas to be included or excluded from their equivalent of ICE. I used it a LOT for the thousand or so Kodachrome slides from Australian and New Zealand (Kodachrome was also silver-based, like mono film). Slides that you liked enough to project a few times over the years gather a lot of dust (and get into entirely the wrong places, which can make for some interesting detective work). Just let the ICE-equivalent do its work on the sky, spot-heal the few really obvious ones in the landscape...
Click to expand...

With Kodachrome it does highly depend on the individual slide (likely the degree of the cyan layer as thats the layer which absorbs the most IR light) - I scanned a couple of my dads Kodachrome 126 slides from 1968 and compared the effect of with the Vuescan IR scratch and dust removal and without, the without scans were distinctly sharper than the with. However when I tried it on a 35mm Kodachrome from 1977, it did as it said with the dust and scratches gone but when looking at 100% I could not see any reduction in sharpness. The only real reliable way of using it with Kodachrome is to use the Nikon Super Coolscan 9000ED as that was designed from the start to be compatible with Kodachrome unlike all the other programs/scanners which claim to be Kodachrome friendly but either don't stand up to the claim or have to be very carefully and selectively applied.
 
s162216 said:
With Kodachrome it does highly depend on the individual slide (likely the degree of the cyan layer as thats the layer which absorbs the most IR light)
Click to expand...

You're right: SilverFast has an option that lets you preview the IR scan at 100% and adjust the amount of dust/scratch removal. Some slides would be fine and some were just great blocks of red showing the silver areas.

Some of the artefacts introduced were beyond loss of sharpness: smearing plus sometimes large areas that were completely altered. Ektachrome was so much easier, but I hadn't used much of it!
 
My ICE is....a blusher brush/END

:lol:


In fact, I don't use any of that stuff, ROC, GEM, ICE, I just want the scanner to scan and not fanny about with anything..:p
 
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