Digital BW, The Print

Dear all:

I've been using the Nikon Coolscan ED 4000 for 18 months only to scan
B&W negatives (Agfa APX 25, TMax 100 and 400) to print them on A4/A3+
papers (using mostly the PiezographyBW plugin with MIS Quad inks).

I use Nikon Scan 3.1.2. (I have tried Vuescan but was not convinced).

My settings: Mono neg, greyscale, 16x resampling, 14 bit output.

I usually play with the gain settings but do not use the Nikon Scan
curves.

After hundreds of scans (with different kind of negatives and
different ways of process), I am still disappointed with:

- the poor histograms I obtain in PS
- the gap in shadow area (from 0 to 25/30, no data at all!) which is 
quite annoying for printing with the PiezographyBW plugin since it 
requests strong blacks...

Is there any tricks I missed?

What are your settings when scanning B&W negatives?

Thank you for your help.

JM Humbert
Paris, France

"Jean-Marc Humbert"  wrote:

> After hundreds of scans (with different kind of negatives and
> different ways of process), I am still disappointed with:
> 
> - the poor histograms I obtain in PS
> - the gap in shadow area (from 0 to 25/30, no data at all!) which is 
> quite annoying for printing with the PiezographyBW plugin since it 
> requests strong blacks...


With B+W negs you are not going to get a full histogram when brought into 
Photoshop as the scanner has no problem with the density of b+w negs. With 
color slides you'll get a full histogram and maybe clipping too.

After the scan - in Photoshop use Levels to set the end points - both shadow and 
highlights. That should get you a nice black.

John V.

Thursday, November 7, 2002, 2:39:15 AM, Jean-Marc Humbert wrote:

JMH> I use Nikon Scan 3.1.2. (I have tried Vuescan but was not convinced).


Not to sound flippant but try harder with Vuescan. NikonScan is awful.
As for exact settings for B&W with Vuescan it really varies, not only
emulsion to emulsion but exposure to exposure. Do not try for a
"perfect" look from the scan but for a good, wide histogram. This will
look flatter than desired after the scan but then 16-bit levels and
curves tweaking in Photoshop is FAR better than using the scanner
software for corrections and possible clipping of the histogram edges.

I tried Silverfast Ai and it seemed to do an ok job but I cannot
imagine why anyone would pay $300 for it.

Best regards,
 Richard  

mailto:richard@...

L i n k s  t o  m y  g a l l e r i e s:
http://fujirangefinder.com/document.php?id=246

Jean-Marc,
I tried the Silverfast demo on my Nikon and was disappointed by the frequent
crashes it caused (PS 5.5/Mac OS 9.1 at that time) and what I found to be a
not exactly intuitive interface. The film presets are a nice convenience,
but I shoot just a few stocks regularly and have worked out my own
adjustments. My 2 cents.

I am having excellent luck scanning negs as positives in 3.1.2, then
inverting in Photoshop. Sometimes this makes a big difference, sometimes not
so much. The main improvement I notice with certain films is an end to the
sort of muddy, underexposed look I used to get with negs that I knew were
perfectly exposed. As for the deepest blacks, aren't you limited by the
slight tint of the film base? I think you'll have to make a shadow levels
adjustment in the scan software or PS.

One other thought--have you ever tried a side-by-side test of scans done
with different levels of multisampling? I did, and found that in 99% of my
scans, anything over 4x made no noticeable difference. I still use 16x
sometimes, but it's more out of superstition than any hard evidence. ;-)

Regards,
Doug

> Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2002 14:18:22 +0200
> From: "Loris Medici" <loris.medici@...>
> Subject: Re: For those using the Nikon ED 4000 to scan B&W negatives
> 
> 
> See Silverfast Ai 6.0 @ http://www.silverfast.com
> It is a very powerful tool (for negatives especially)..
> I scan as Grayscale negative (using specific profiles for 50+ films) and
> output 16bit to PS. Very smooth and wide histograms...
> 
> Regards,
> Loris.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jean-Marc Humbert" <humbertjm@...>
> To: <DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 12:39 PM
> Subject: [Digital BW] For those using the Nikon ED 4000 to scan B&W
> negatives
> 
> 
>> Dear all:
>> 
>> I've been using the Nikon Coolscan ED 4000 for 18 months only to scan
>> B&W negatives (Agfa APX 25, TMax 100 and 400) to print them on A4/A3+
>> papers (using mostly the PiezographyBW plugin with MIS Quad inks).
>> 
>> I use Nikon Scan 3.1.2. (I have tried Vuescan but was not convinced).
>> 
>> ...
>> - the poor histograms I obtain in PS
>> - the gap in shadow area (from 0 to 25/30, no data at all!) which is
>> quite annoying for printing with the PiezographyBW plugin since it
>> requests strong blacks...
>> 
>> Is there any tricks I missed?
>> 
>> What are your settings when scanning B&W negatives?
>

Jean-Marc Humbert writes:
 > Dear all:
 > 
 > I've been using the Nikon Coolscan ED 4000 for 18 months [...]
 > 
 > After hundreds of scans (with different kind of negatives and
 > different ways of process), I am still disappointed with:
 > 
 > - the poor histograms I obtain in PS
 > - the gap in shadow area (from 0 to 25/30, no data at all!) which is 
 > quite annoying for printing with the PiezographyBW plugin since it 
 > requests strong blacks...
 > 

Here's a site that talks about the problems scanning negatives on the
LS8000.  My LS4000 exhibits the same behaviour.

http://www.marginalsoftware.com/LS8000Notes/autoexposure_not_working.htm

For black and white, I've had good luck scanning as a positive (which
gives me an inverted image) and then flipping it in Photoshop (usually
using the levels dialog to invert it and set the black and white
points at the same time, curves is cool too, but simply inverting
sometimes is "icky".).

I find color corrections challenging when I'm flying by the seat of my
pants, so I've had less success w/ this approach for color negs.

I can get Vuescan to give me ok results, but I'm hampered a bit
because I'm tied to MacOS 8.x and am therefor running an older version
of vuescan.  I'm worried about keeping my Leaf45 running if I upgrade
to 9.x, so...

g.

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Richard Sintchak 
<richard@c...> wrote:
> Not to sound flippant but try harder with Vuescan. NikonScan is 
awful.

I hope this is not a silly question, but can tha analog gain controls 
be accessed via Vuescan and, if so, how?

Thanks and regards,

Colin Conway

Colin:

VueScan can not access the analog gain feature of the Nikon scanners 
(analog gain being the brightness of the LEDs). HOWEVER, VueScan can 
contol the exposure of each LED (how long the sensor collects 
light).  Analog gain and exposure control achieve essentially the 
same goal.

Check out the User's Guide under Device Tab, RGB/infrared exposure. 
If I remember correctly, the Device|Options type must be set to 
Advanced for the exposure control features to be visable.

Jeff Randall

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "colingruk" 
<colin.conway@b...> wrote:
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., Richard Sintchak 
> <richard@c...> wrote:
> > Not to sound flippant but try harder with Vuescan. NikonScan is 
> awful.
> 
> I hope this is not a silly question, but can tha analog gain 
controls 

> be accessed via Vuescan and, if so, how?
> 
> Thanks and regards,
> 
> Colin Conway

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "Jeff Randall" 
<jrandall@c...> wrote:
> Colin:
> 
> VueScan can not access the analog gain feature of the Nikon 
scanners 
> (analog gain being the brightness of the LEDs). HOWEVER, VueScan 
can 
> contol the exposure of each LED (how long the sensor collects 
> light).  Analog gain and exposure control achieve essentially the 
> same goal.
> 
> Check out the User's Guide under Device Tab, RGB/infrared exposure. 
> If I remember correctly, the Device|Options type must be set to 
> Advanced for the exposure control features to be visable.
> 
> Jeff Randall


Thanks once again, Jeff, for your prompt and helpful response. I have 
checked the user's guide and will try it out when I get time, maybe 
at the weekend.  

What I want to do with a B&W negative (XP2) is do two scans, one 
normal and the other with more shadow detail, and then combine both 
scans in Photoshop to reduce the harsh gradients I am getting on skin 
tones when moving from about 60% to pure black.  I am getting better 
scans with VS than Nikon. I am scanning as a positive and inverting, 
but there is still room for improvement.

Best regards,

Colin

--- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@y..., "colingruk" 
<colin.conway@b...> wrote:
> 
> What I want to do with a B&W negative (XP2) is do two scans, one 
> normal and the other with more shadow detail, and then combine both 
> scans in Photoshop to reduce the harsh gradients I am getting on 
skin 
> tones when moving from about 60% to pure black.  I am getting 
better 
> scans with VS than Nikon. I am scanning as a positive and 
inverting, 
> but there is still room for improvement.


Colin:

I've half-heartedly tried blending two scans a couple of times (one 
optimized for the shadows and one for the highlights) without a whole 
lot of success. Let the group know about your experiences.

Thanks.

Jeff Randall