Re: Scanning for Stitching with Vuescan

Sandy, First I apologize for the confusion, I inadvertently copied all of
Ed's message to me, including his signature, and pasted it in my message to
the list. To the best of my knowledge, Ed's not a subscriber and he can't
be blamed for my errors and omissions.

With the 2450, VueScan doesn't provide the option of locking the film base
either. Unfortunately, the only way I've found to do it is to scan a raw
file first and then scan from that file to my final BW tiff. Fortunately,
scanning from a raw file is much faster that scanning from the 2450 so it
doesn't add that much time to my workflow and, better yet, so far Ed's
solution seems to work. Of course, the raw files take up a huge amount of
disk space but I've been making them anyway to avoid handling the plates
more than is absolutely necessary.

With respect to the color settings, my knowledge is rudimentary but I
understand that, while VueScan may be set to scan a BW negative, it's
actually scanning RGB. The conversion, if any, takes place when the file is
written. You can see this clearly in the preview if you move one of the
color sliders in the color tab to +4 and leave the other sliders where they
are.

Scanning with color balance set to none works well because it prevents
VueScan from making it's own tonal adjustments but the resulting scan is
usually far from perfect. I'm more comfortable adjusting the levels and
curves in PhotoShop so that's fine by me. You can also scan with color
balance set to manual and adjust the various sliders to get your scan closer
to final. I've found the second approach helpful with certain of these
plates that have a very dark, greenish brown stain, sort of like pyro on
steroids.

Thanks for the information on the 4870. It certainly sounds like a
worthwhile investment.

Regards,

Steve

----- Original Message -----
From: "Sandy King" <sanking@clemson.edu>
To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2004 10:59 AM
Subject: Re: Scanning for Stitching with Vuescan

> Ed,
>
> I thought about locking the film base color but how do you do that
> with a 16 bit grayscale scan? With the media type set to B&W negative
> I can see the menu with exposure lock but I don't see any thing for
> film color lock. Is that describdd in the VueScan user's guide? The
> negatives do have a lot of color, though, as they are pyro stained.
> But even a partial scan of a 12X20 at 800dpi in RGB is much too large
> to work with.
>
> It does help a lot to set the clipping to 0 but with the gray scale I
> did not figure the color settings mattered.
>
> BTW, I have a solution for your scanning. It is called the Epson
> 4870, with a transparency scanning area of 6X9". I just got one of
> these to replace my 2450. And the 4870 is super for medium format
> negatives. I have done a few color prints from scans of 6X9 cm Fuji
> negatives and the quality is just outstanding. I have not used it yet
> for 35mm scanning but reviews indicate that you can come very close
> to the quality available from some dedicated 35mm scanners,
> especially if they are over a year or so old.
>
>
>
> Sandy
>
>
>
>
>
> >Sandy, I feel your pain. I'm about half way through a project of
scanning
> >260 5x7 glass plates on my 2450 and I'm having the same problem. I have
had
> >some success by setting clipping to 0, the color adjustment is set to
none,
> >the white point to 0 and the leaving remaining sliders on the color
> >adjustment screen set at 1.
> >
> >I asked Ed about this and here's his response:
> >
> >You also need to lock the film base color. It's varying with
> >each scan, which causes the problem you're seeing.
> >
> >This is described in more detail in the VueScan User's Guide,
> >in the "Advanced Workflow Suggestions" section.
> >
> >Regards,
> >Ed Hamrick
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Eric Neilsen" <e.neilsen@worldnet.att.net>
> >To: <alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca>
> >Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2004 9:38 AM
> >Subject: RE: Scanning for Stitching with Vuescan
> >
> >
> >> Sandy, Not being a Vue Scan person and using my Epson 3200 - Is it
> >possible
> >> that your scanner is giving too different exposure based on the heat
of
> >the
> >> lamp? The Epson warms up before scanning and before you calibrate it
if
> >> needs to be fully warmed up. Can you reverse the order of scanning or
do
> >an
> >> additional scan of your first 1/2 of the negative?
> >>
> >> Eric Neilsen Photography
> >> 4101 Commerce Street
> >> Suite 9
> >> Dallas, TX 75226
> >> http://e.neilsen.home.att.net
> >> http://ericneilsenphotography.com
> >>
> >>
> >> > -----Original Message-----
> >> > From: Sandy King [mailto:sanking@clemson.edu]
> >> > Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2004 9:56 AM
> >> > To: alt-photo-process-l@sask.usask.ca
> >> > Subject: Scanning for Stitching with Vuescan
> >> >
> >> > I am using the Vuescan software to scan 12X20 images with my Epson
> >> > 836XL 12X17 scanner. This has to be done in two passes and I stitch
> >> > the files together in Photoshop.
> >> >
> >> > I am having a problem. After the first scan I lock the exposure down
> >> > so that in theory there should be no difference in density between
> >> > the first and second scans. In practice, however, there is enough
> >> > difference in density between the two scans so that when they are
> >> > stitched together one side is visibly lighter than the other.
> >> >
> >> > Since there are a few Vuescan users on this list I am hoping that
> >> > someone with more experience with the software than me can explain
> >> > what I need to do to get equal exposure on both scans.
> >> >
> >> > Sandy King
Received on Sat Feb 21 15:55:29 2004