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Re: [OM] [OT] Looking for a good film scanning tutorial

Subject: Re: [OM] [OT] Looking for a good film scanning tutorial
From: Joel Wilcox <jowilcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 08:13:38 -0600
At 12:36 AM 3/5/2002 -0500, you wrote:
[PJ]
Should I use SilverFast AI or Vuescan?

PJ,
Fortunately, this doesn't have to be a "Mac/PC" debate. If you are fortunate enough to have SF bundled with your system, by all means learn to use it. Vuescan is cheap and very useful. I use both, though I tend to use SF whenever I can and Vuescan more in cases where I hit a wall with SF. (It doesn't always resolve the problem with the wall, however.)

If you want some help with SF, you might look at Ian Lyons' site:

http://welcome.to/computerdarkroom

Use his search engine to locate his articles on Silverfast. Lyons is also helpful if you want to set up a color-managed system. Silverfast really comes into its own when you do this. Check out his Photoshop articles and tutorials for this.

[Johnny]
I prefer to use SilverFast with my SS4000 unless there's some fine detail that I'm trying to pull out of the highlights. Once you learn SilverFast your scans will require very little post processing in a photo editor. But, Vuescan, at least on my scanner, is better at capturing detail in the highlights.

Johnny,
I've discovered that if you use the "auto-everything" button in SF it clips the whites pretty tight. Otherwise, that button almost always does a pretty good job. I often follow by selecting the curves tool, where the sliders are amazingly powerful. If you pull the highlight slider to the left, it preserves more highlight detail.

[PJ]
When should I make prescan corrections vs. Photoshop/PaintShop Pro
corrections?

[Johnny]
Some people say to do it at the scanning stage, some say in the photo editor, some say it doesn't matter. I personally prefer to get it as close as possible in SilverFast.

Me too. I usually try to set the scan to come in just a little "soft" so that I do a little work with levels and possibly a general curve adjustment for the right midtones. Vuescan was really made to bring images into Photoshop in a comparatively raw state with all data intact. Sometimes it works very well, but other times the results don't look photographic to me. However, sometimes SF fails too. None of this stuff is automatic, unfortunately.

I want web quality and photo printing quality, so should I go ahead and scan
at max. dpi?

Yes


What's the best way to archive?  CD Burner, extra drive, etc.?

I'll pass on that one. I personally use CDs at the present but would like a better way - DVDs maybe?

I keep getting a bigger HD. <g> I know that's not an answer, but I never quite know when I am done with an image, though I'm getting closer. Some Vuescan users archive the raw scans to CD, which makes some sense. DVD or some other format will undoubtedly displace CD, which only has room for 5 or 6 high-bit raw files! The biggest issues seem not to be the CD/DVD as a concept but the fact that no burned CD appears to be as archival as touted. Plus, there is always the "5.25 diskette syndrome" -- archiving files to media that can't be read in the future. Everyone assumes CD is already a living fossil.

Joel W.


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