[Leica] Scanning Software

[timothy.nelson at yale.edu (Timothy Nelson)]

Adam Bridge <abridge@dcn.org> wrote:
>I routinely, about once a quarter, compare scans from the latest version of
>VueScan with the Nikon software. I don't see a difference.

Adam, now instead of astonished, I'm mystified, because I do this 
comparison with each new release of NikonScan, too. What's your 
secret for scanning TriX with NikonScan? I've been scanning for a 
couple years now, and have yet to find any adjustments or settings 
within NikonScan that avoids highlight clipping with my TriX negs and 
at the same time profiles the capture onto a full shadow-to-highlight 
range, with normal contrast negs. Some negs produce both highlight 
and shadow clipping within NikonScan, regardless of how I adjust 
white and black points or the exposure. Thin TriX negs are OK, Delta 
100 negs are OK, but I have 30 years of TriX negs that were developed 
for darkroom printing, and NikonScan just couldn't deal with many of 
them, even with analog gain adjustments. No problems with VueScan, 
which squeezed them all into the 0-255 range with just default 
settings, so it was indeed a software, not a hardware limitation. I 
tried very hard to get NikonScan to work, because these negs were the 
main reason I wanted the scanner in the first place, and I was 
concerned initially that the scanner was the limitation. Nikon 
Support was not able to help me on scanning negatives, and I came 
across at least one website largely dedicated to testing and 
discussing the inherent limitations of NikonScan for handling 
negative scans, with various suggested work-arounds. Rich Pinto, who 
patiently got me up and running with the scanner, worked with me on 
this issue, and finally rescued me by suggesting I give VueScan a 
try. It wasn't until then that I discovered what my scanner was 
capable of doing. The GUI just wasn't an issue for me--seemed pretty 
obvious how to use it, and it was irrelevant in any case because VS 
worked for me and NS didn't.

I find the same limitations in the current version of 
NikonScan--unless they are thin or low contrast, NS can't contain my 
TriX negs.
Tim