It's another scan, man

My Betterscanning negative holder arrived and today was the first chance to have a play with it. The main improvement is that it comes with some special glass which sits on top of your negative and makes sure it is flat; a huge problem before with my large, curly medium format negatives. It also offers height adjustment and I spent an hour or so scanning the same image with different height settings on the holder, before deciding that an increase in height of 0.2mm was the best; but the improvement is very small.

I also played around some more with the Vuescan software and was able to produce a much more contrasty image. Then I found an option that allowed the software to pick the grey point based on non-existent colours in the black and white negative; but the different choices did make a difference and I decided that making grey from perceived blue made my subject stand out the best.

More improvements no doubt to come, but here is the latest scan of my test negative:

And here is the scan I made a week or so ago:

Feels like progress.

Comments 🔗

2013-08-04 | Fimgirl says

You’re still missing the full Blacks and Whites. Your first image was perfect for post processing as it’s exactly what a scan should look like for subsequent digitising, I.e. flat with all the tonal range intact, no clipping at either end. I spent 30 seconds in CS6 and produced a very sharp image with rich blacks and bright whites with all the tones in between. Post processing is the answer. Curves is the tool. Produce an “S” shape, I.e. pull in the blacks, open up the whites and adjust mid range to taste.

Another tip. On my Epson V750 with the Betterscan holder And ANR glass I found +0.38 for 120 as the optimum.

Try scanning B+W negs as a positive. Invert in Photoshop and convert to aRGB. Bigger file. More tonal range.

That’s what I do!

2013-08-04 | Spike says

Thanks for your feedback. I do know you are rather good at this stuff so your help is appreciated. Have sent you a mail.

2013-08-04 | Fimgirl says

Of the images I have sent “testc” would be my interpretation. A graveyard, a mourning female, lost love, soft and dreamy, wistful pensive, thoughtful. Dark!

Maybe you have another interpretation.

2013-08-04 | Ron says

This is so much better. Congrats! It’s nice to have the proper gear.

2013-08-04 | Andrew says

Another advantage of scanning as a positive and inverting is that it will allow you to use photoshop filters on the image which will not be available to you if it is scanned as a grayscale - ie:-Nik Silverefex will not work on a grayscale image, only a colour image and Colorefex will do some interesting things as well with the color channels available from scanning as a positive…

2013-08-04 | Andrew says

also (not tried yet ) bet wet scanning could possibly give the best results on a flatbed scanner - you can check http://www.wetmounting.com/index.html Cheers

2013-08-05 | Spike says

My imagination is no match for yours; neither are my Photoshop skills.