[Leica] Scanning HELP

[hoppyman at bigpond.net.au (G Hopkinson)]

Luis. The differences may be what settings you use with each program.

I agree that you have captured an excellent tonal range in the first pic.
I only tried Silverfast briefly as mine (that came with an Epson scanner) 
had some driver issue that crashed my computer when I
tried it.
Vuescan should be faster than the Epson software. Flatbeds are not very 
fast, of course.
I'll send you some settings to try. (Daniel's setting for scanning his 
lovely Rollei stuff!)
I haven't had much success in using the bw film presets in Vuescan.
Two suggestions, don't try to alter the tonal range when you scan. But be 
sure that no tones are being clipped. If you see clipping
you can then adjust the exposure in the scan. As long as you capture 
everything you then can adjust better with levels and curves in
Photoshop.
Try scanning the bw as a colour slide, then reversing the image in 
Photoshop. (suggested by my fine art printing guy here).
I've found that this gave me better tonal range on a contrasty neg than 
scanning as a bw.

Cheers
Hoppy

-----Original Message-----
Subject: [Leica] Scanning HELP

Hi all,
 
I need some help and advices about what can I do with my scanning problem.
 
First point: I'm scanning with a EPSON 3170, and I'm absolutely fully
satisfied and happy with the results, IMO I obtain better detail and tones
than scanning with Silverfast (too contrasty/hard), or Vuescan (Too
soft/smooth, loss of details, but better on the shadows). Please compare
these three pictures (For Vuescan and Silverfast I've used the trial
versions):
 
This one was scanned with the Epson 3170 software, for me is perfect:
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/luisrq/Scann-Test/01-Epson_w.jpg.html
 
This one with Silverfast, contrast is more hard/strong, certain loss of
details
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/luisrq/Scann-Test/01-Siverfast3_w.jpg.html
 
This one with Vuescan, more soft, more shadows details, please see an
important loss of details on the left corner
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/luisrq/Scann-Test/01-vuescan_w.jpg.html
 
 
Up to here, your question could be, what are you asking for?. 
 
HERE IS THE ORIGIN OF THE PROBLEM: when I scann with the Epson very dark
negatives the resulting image is:
 
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/luisrq/Scann-Test/08-Epson_w.jpg.html
 
usually with an important loss of parts of the image, for this reason I've
started the tests with Vuescan and Silverfast:
 
With Silverfast
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/luisrq/Scann-Test/08-Silverfast2w.jpg.html
 
With Vuescan
http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/luisrq/Scann-Test/08-vuescan_w.jpg.html
 
As you can appreciate Vuescan produce more detail on the shadows, but the
overall image quality I like is the one with the EPSON, and here is my
question:
 
Could somebody tell me what can I do to avoid this problem with the Epson?
 
Beside this, IMO is more friendly work with Silverfast tahn Vuescan, on this
one every change you do it refresh and takes an enormous time!, on the other
hand Silverfast has a wide range of films type to scann, you can better
define the resolution..., I like more the Silverfast software, but not the
final image.
 
 
Your comments and help will be really appreciated,
 
Thanks in advance
Luis

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