Flatbed Scanning - give me your tips!

PopeBuckfastXVI

Hi all,

I just picked up an Epson v550 and have just started down the path of scanning negatives with Vuescan. So far I've tried 35mm Neopan 400 and 120 Portra 160, have issues with sharpness but I think the film may have been slightly curled - I can work on that, but obviously open to tips.

What I'm wondering about is the array of options when it comes to doing the actual scan, can anyone share their workflow when it comes to scanning either 35mm or 120 using a flatbed an vuescan?

I'd appreciate any and all tips - I've done forum search and picked up a couple of old threads, but would really appreciate one of the resident experts perspectives, Daire and Pete I'm looking in your (crystal clear scan) direction!

Thanks in advance!

WheresMyCamera?

I'm interested in hearing how your getting on with that too. Just about to purchase a V550 myself. Where did you pick yours up from? (Also don't mean to hijack the thread)

PopeBuckfastXVI

WheresMyCamera? wrote: »

I'm interested in hearing how your getting on with that too. Just about to purchase a V550 myself. Where did you pick yours up from? (Also don't mean to hijack the thread)

That's ok! Best price I could find was on Amazon.

PaulieC

Tip #1: teach someone else how to use it :P

Lyaiera

I've only done black and white negs (which the ICE thing doesn't work for.)

I usually scan the roll at a low resolution, maybe 800dpi, black and white negative setting in the Epson software. This is more or less my contact sheet. Anything I want to work on I scan individually at 2400dpi, colour positive, 24bit tiff. I'll generally use medium dust removal but I'll use high if it's particularly bad. I don't do any sharpening or curve adjustment on the scan and leave everything to post in Photoshop. With the working scan, first I invert the negative, I set the individual RGB values to properly frame the negative, then I'll adjust curves, clone stamp to do dust and spot removal and finally I'll sharpen.

It's been working ok for me, although I know a lot of people go with a betterscanning negative holder for better results with curved negatives. http://www.betterscanning.com/ My big problem at the moment is that my stand development in Rodinal has let me down a bit, so I'm going to have to change up my development process.

And remember, the flatbed scanners will never be amazing. They work for negatives but they're not designed for high-end use. If there's something you really want to use then you're going to have to go with a professionally drum scanned negative.

DaireQuinlan

I have a flatbed (crummy canon yoke) for medium format and a vastly superior Nikon for 35mm. I use vuescan for both, and the same process.

I use vuescan to scan each frame to 48bit tiff, applying no colour correction or levels. For the Nikon I use medium IR dust removal, for the canon I dust spot the negs myself, it's painfully slow doing an IR pass.

I crop, colour correct, and level the scans in photoshop.

I used to do the advanced scanning workflow that Hamrick recommends, i.e. scan to 64bit RAW tiffs including an IR channel, and then process them all again into actual images with another pass across the RAWs in vuescan. I found this laborious and didn't really notice any appreciable difference so I started doing the above instead. I also used to do that 'base colour' procedure in vuescan for negatives but again didn't really see any benefit to outweigh the hassle of doing it.

PopeBuckfastXVI

Thanks for the responses!

How do you do the colour correction in PS, when I didn't apply a profile for the portra negative in vuescan it came in very blue (inverse of the orangish neg I guess?). How do you use PS to correct that, do you just manually drag curves till it looks ok, or is there a more scientific process?

magicbastarder

does the 550 allow for wet scanning?
given the extra hassle involved, it's probably only useful for shots you want to be particularly picky about, but it should eliminate some of the issues associated with neg curl, and allows the scanner to be more precise with the focus point.

DaireQuinlan

PopeBuckfastXVI wrote: »

Thanks for the responses!

How do you do the colour correction in PS, when I didn't apply a profile for the portra negative in vuescan it came in very blue (inverse of the orangish neg I guess?). How do you use PS to correct that, do you just manually drag curves till it looks ok, or is there a more scientific process?

I allow vuescan to do the orange mask removal, using the 'default colour negative' or whatever it is. The best way to get rid of it in Vuescan is to do the 'base colour' adjustments before your scan but I've never found it worthwhile in terms of end-result.

The file I get from vuescan is dark and un-contrasty. I level each channel quite conservatively initially in PS and then work it from there by hand.

Advanced workflow from Hamrick ...
http://www.hamrick.com/vuescan/html/vuesc15.htm

PopeBuckfastXVI

Thanks Daire, really appreciate your input!

PopeBuckfastXVI

magicbastarder wrote: »

does the 550 allow for wet scanning?

I don't think so - you an use the betterscanning.com neg holder though, which I might look into after a while.

TBH I really want to scan for web, not really print as such - I had gotten a bit jaded with photography and working with film has really reinvigorated me. I'm not really caring about having huge megapixels or making massive prints, just want to be able to share shots on 500px and /r/analog, but get a bit better than the tiny default scans from the local lab.