Getting the best B&W scans from a Nikon coolscan V (LS-50)

I use only Ilford delta 100/400 films developed in Tetanal Ultrafin

Plus. With the delta 100 I get almost grainless scans, but there are

some white noise. In general I am quite happy about the scans, but

when viewed in 100% mode the pixels seems to be a little too binary

(i.e. either black or white). The later is especially true with

delta 400. The prints (Epson 2100) are good at 30x45cm. Prints are

genrally better than what I can achieve in the darkroom, but they

lack a little in the tonality - i.e. a pearly character. Sharpness

and resulution seems fine.

 

Is there any settings I can set in PS/software I can buy that can

help me overcome the "white-noise" problem with delta 100. How can I

achieve the best delta 400 scans - i.e a little less grain. Are

other 100/400 asa films better for scanning?

(I always scan at full resolution 14bit B/W. Scanning in color(dias)

and converting in PS has not impoved the scans IMHO (but it did on

Epson 2450)

Noise in the highlights can be cured with multipass scanning 4x or 8x - it does make scan times a lot longer though. You may also want to try Vuescan as Nikon scan clips highlights rather agressivley. Vuescan will give you a flatter looking scan but it will have better highlight detail which you can then play with in PS.

Does the LS-50 have multiscan? ( I thought only the ls-5000 had that)

The noise exists in the whole picture. It might be just grain - but it looks like white speckles distributes randomly on the whole film...it does not look like regular grain, but it can be.

 

Can this problem be caused by the scanners problem with silver-based emolutions (i.e. kodachrome and b/w)? I have not tried any other scanner, so I cannot tell. (I have not had any problems with clipping of the highlights...)

Christian

 

You can do multipass scanning on a Coolscan V using Vuescan. I generally use 3x for most films and 5x for Fuji Neopan 1600. This isn't based on any very scientific testing.

"""but it looks like white speckles distributes randomly on the whole film"""

 

Using nikonscan I have the exact same problem with the exact same film (delta 400). I?m looking forward for a solution.

 

Thanks

I never had any luck with regular B&W stock in film scanners. These days I use Chromogenics.

Chiswick wrote: Nikon scan clips highlights rather agressivley

 

Huh? What does that mean? I have Nikon Scan 4.1 and it gives me a histogram of the prescan and allows me to move around the white and black points, precisely, I thought, to avoid clipping.

Have you tried using the GEM function (Digital ICE4 advanced)? I have found that it significantly reduces the visibility of grain and gives results very similar to what you get with a traditional darkroom process. I did not seem to me very usuful with colour negs until I tried it with B&W.

Christian,

Have you tried scanning from a positive black and white film?

Try having your Delta 100 or 400 processed in the DR-5 process

(www.dr5.com) for some amazing results. Not only is the grain

finer than when the film is processed in the traditonal way, but

scanners seem to prefer scanning positives more than they do

negatives. The dmax on your images will be better than what

you're used to getting and particularly with the Delta 100 film,

your highlights won't burn out either.

I have tried a number of films in the DR5 process, but always

come back to the Delta films for overall quality.

Check out the DR5 web site for more info, pricing and exposure

recommendations then send them a roll or two and I think you'll

find you won't be processing your black and white film as

negatives any more<div></div>

I have seen excessive grain and reduced dynamic range on bw scans with my LS-50 (CS V). I have found a workflow that works fairly well in addressing these problems: a) scan black and white negs as color negs in 14 bit; 2) use GEM with a setting of 2 (and no other enchancements). This should produce a smoother scan with decent dynamic range (and you can adjust Analog gain to handle dense or thin negs). Once in PS you desaturate the image, and you have a decent bw scan.

Thank you all. See the tread I started after this too... Well, Vuescan seems to have solved my problems - but I do not quite understand how. I am too quite puzzled by the statement that the Nikon clips the highlights - but something must be done, because even the one-pass vuescan scan impove the picture a lot: the white between the pixels end up looking more like the surrounding pixels. How this can be really really puzzles me - after all the same scan is done, and I have never had any problem with the other highlights. In fact it is mostly the shadows that have bottered me - but that seems to be in the past.

Mark, DR-5 looks promising - something I should look into.