[Leica] Process and scan to disc question

[Christopher Crawford]

Gerry,

I¹ve used Vuescan for 13 years now. The low contrast results you are
getting are normal, you just have to do some curves adjustments in
Photoshop. The low-contrast scans are actually a good thing, if you¹re
willing to do the work in PS to adjust the final tonality, because they
capture every bit of data in the neg without clipping. Even contrasty negs
scan well.

Check out my Vuescan tutorial. There¹s a written version and a YouTube
video if you like videos better. Here¹s the link:
http://crawfordphotoschool.com/digital/scanning.php

-- 
Chris Crawford
Fine Art Photography
Fort Wayne, Indiana
260-437-8990

http://www.chriscrawfordphoto.com  My portfolio

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Christopher-Crawford/48229272798
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On 3/17/16, 4:38 AM, "LUG on behalf of Gerry Walden"
<lug-bounces+chris=chriscrawfordphoto.com at leica-users.org on behalf of
gerry.walden at icloud.com> wrote:

>Thank you Richard. I had just checked and come to that conclusion. At the
>moment I am shooting Fuji 400CN, and I am getting very poor scans through
>Vuescan with an overall lack of contrast which looks like fogging.
>Silverfast is doing a good job.
>
>Gerry
>
>> On 17 Mar 2016, at 08:35, Richard Man <richard at richardmanphoto.com>
>>wrote:
>> 
>> Silverfast does not scan as Raw, only Vuescan does, IIRC.
>> 
>> 
>> On Thu, Mar 17, 2016 at 1:30 AM, Gerry Walden <gerry.walden at icloud.com>
>> wrote:
>> 
>>> Thank you Richard for your considered and informative answer. Now I
>>> understand. I am not sure Silverfast will scan as any raw format but I
>>>will
>>> carry on scanning as .tiff for now while I look at things.
>>> 
>>> Gerry
>>> 
>>>> On 17 Mar 2016, at 07:41, Richard Man <richard at richardmanphoto.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> Gerry, there are two aspects of B&W scanning that you need to
>>>>consider:
>>>> 
>>>> 1) scan as negative or positive. Some people scan as "B&W neg" and
>>>>some
>>>> people scan as "(RGB) positive" then invert in Photoshop or the like.
>>> Some
>>>> people claim that certain scanning software ALWAYS clip if you scan as
>>> B&W
>>>> neg (I believe NikonScan is one of them) so option 2) gives more fully
>>>> tonal result.
>>>> 
>>>> 2) Save as Raw/DNG or TIFF/JPG. Note that TIFF is "full quality" where
>>> JPG
>>>> is compressed, but otherwise they are the same in this discussion.
>>>> Certainly, always save as TIFF rather than JPG as you want the highest
>>>> quality.
>>>> 
>>>> If you save as TIFF/JPG, then usually you have the scanner software
>>>> applying some tone curves and such, so that the image looks pretty
>>>>good
>>>> already, then it's minor way in LR/PSD to get to the final image. In
>>>>this
>>>> regard, it's rather like having a digital camera saving the images as
>>> JPG.
>>>> 
>>>> If you save as Raw/DNG, then the scanner software will try to
>>>>maintain as
>>>> much information as possible, e.g. minimal tone curves and exposure
>>>> adjustments, so that it can be processed further post-scan. The
>>>>downside
>>> is
>>>> that it takes a bit more work in LR/PSD to get to the final result.
>>>>The
>>>> upside is that if you improve your LR/PSD skills or if better
>>>>processing
>>>> software are to become available, then you can go back to the original
>>>> Raw/DNG file and redo it.
>>>> 
>>>> ***
>>>> Personally, right now I scan as B&W neg or save in TIFF format. With
>>> medium
>>>> format /4x5 (I rarely shoot 35mm film any more), there is so much
>>>> information from those scans that I do not think it's worthwhile to
>>>>use
>>> the
>>>> other options.
>>>> 
>>>> YMMV.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 11:48 PM, Gerry Walden
>>>><gerry.walden at icloud.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> A number (Peter, Lluis etc) have mentioned scanning b&w as either
>>>>>.tiff
>>> or
>>>>> even .dng. I cannot see any obvious advantage to this, so could
>>>>>somebody
>>>>> pease enlighten me. I tried a couple to .dng which was a pain in
>>> Lightroom
>>>>> as they came out as negatives and the sliders worked the wrong way.
>>>>>I am
>>>>> currently scanning as .tiff but (to be honest) don¹t really know why.
>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>> 
>>>>> Gerry
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Gerry Walden LRPS
>>>>> www.gwpics.com
>>>>> +44 (0)23 8046 3076 or
>>>>> +44 (0)797 287 7932
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Leica Users Group.
>>>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> --
>>>> // richard <http://www.richardmanphoto.com>
>>>> // On Facebook: http://facebook.com/richardmanphoto
>>>> // On Instagram: https://instagram.com/richardmanphoto
>>>> 
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Leica Users Group.
>>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>> 
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Leica Users Group.
>>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> // richard <http://www.richardmanphoto.com>
>> // On Facebook: http://facebook.com/richardmanphoto
>> // On Instagram: https://instagram.com/richardmanphoto
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Leica Users Group.
>> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>
>
>_______________________________________________
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