Inconsistent color with CanoScan FS4000US and VueScan 8.3.42

[bongeiste]

Hello, all. I was wondering if the following had happened to anyone else in this

group or if anybody had any suggestions to fix the following problem.

 

I put my computer and CanoScan FS4000US film scanner in storage at a friend's

house for the summer and just retrieved them. When scanning color negative film,

the images come out dark and somewhat grainy. I found that the issue of darkness

was improved by increasing the white point to 3 in Vuescan, but I've never had

to do this before. I've attached two scans of the same image. Neither image has

been tweaked in any way other than having been resized for posting on this forum.

 

Briefly, the settings I use in Vuescan are:

 

Media: Color negative

Quality: Edit

Lock Exposure

Lock Film Color Base

 

Crop: Maximum

 

Filter

Infrared Clean: Light

Grain Reduction: None

 

Color

Color Balance: White Balance

Negative Vendor: Generic

 

 

The film in question is Fuji Superia X-Tra 400. Neither the scanner nor the

computer has been used during the summer and the house where the equipment was

stored is climate controlled. The brighter image is the image scanned before the

summer while the darker image is the image that I am getting now without

changing the white point from 1. The brighter image was obtained using the same

settings above to the best of my knowledge. I'm not particularly gifted in the

digital darkroom, so I've never played around with the settings much in the past.

 

Any help would be greatly appreciated.<div></div>

[bongeiste]

Here's the second picture.<div></div>

[bongeiste]

I noticed that before my scanner would scan frames with a black border surrounded by white. Now the black border is surrounded by a miasma of colors. Any guesses as to what's causing that? Thanks.

[roger_smith4]

The short answer- the cropping algorithm has gotten worse in recent versions, and the more crap included in the scan, the higher the white point has to be set to cancel it out. Your best bet is to crop to "auto" lock image color, and then increase to maximum.

 

With your current scans, if you crop them in photoshop and then hit curves/autocolor, your image should magically return to normal. Vuescan is very annoying because of "features" like this.

[j_sevigny]

This won't directly answer your question but I, too, have noticed some irritating "aging" in my FS4000, which I also use with Vuescan.

 

Slides that I scanned when the machine was new came out correct, almost perfect, but now, I really have to fight against powerful color shifts.

 

Fortunately, I'm now mostly shooting Tri-X, so color is not so much of an issue. Still, I've noticed some irritating, fine black lines in the brightest areas of my black and white images, which I have to edit out.

 

The scanner is about three years old, and to tell you the truth, I'm looking at buying a Nikon.

[bongeiste]

Thanks for the answers so far. Roger, the algorithm reasoning sounds plausible except that I haven't upgraded versions between the scans. I'm absolutely boggled as to why this would be happening now. Part of me is thinking along the same lines as J in that my scanner is also a few years old and might be suffering from some kind of degradation. Alas, I'm a poor student and can hardly afford to feed myself much less buy a new scanner. I'm desperately hoping for some kind of software fix. The scans look as if an extra layer of noise has been added to an otherwise sharp scan and getting the quality I want is merely a matter of sloughing off that excess coarseness. Wishful thinking?

[kelly_flanigan1]

Here I just often use the stock Canon software with our FS2710 and FS4000US films scanners, and get decent color. With some of our zoo of scanners, the "upgrades" to VueScan, Canon or Epson software are actually annoying; with more auto crop crap that tends to limit ones control.

[bongeiste]

Well, Kelly. I'm going to try Silverfast first. If it comes to me using that Canon software again, I may just wait until I can afford a DSLR and jump to digital. Right now Silverfast and I aren't getting along at all.

[aeiffel]

Never had such an issue with Vuescan, never used the auto crop feature either. BTW I don't get why it's supposed to be annoying when it can be overriden ?<br><br>

Francis, if your version of vuescan is the same and "all tings are equal" on the software side, I'd say the scanner is faulty, makes more sense to me. Try to scan with a different app, preferably one you already used with the FS4000, and see if it behaves differently too.

[roger_smith4]

I use Vuescan extensively with the FS4000US, and the cropping is quite inconsistent. 8.3.43 is a relatively recent version of Vuescan, so you haven't been using it for that long and maybe didn't test it that extensively when you upgraded to it.

 

My recommended workflow: set the exposure and film base color with the advanced workflow.

scan at 64 bit, light cleaning, color balance = none, cropping = maximum

Then in Photoshop, made a present curve or levels adjustment for each type of film you use as a starting point for color correction. This way, Vuescan won't screw anything up.

 

If you want any of my settings and inis for Reala, 400UC, NPZ or other films I use, let me know. I can also give you the levels adjustment presets I use in Photoshop.

[roger_smith4]

Here's your second scan, cropped and autocolored (you didn't upload a very good quality Jpeg, so ignore the compression artifacts)<div></div>

[jtk]

Canon's may not be quite the same as Vuescan/Nikon/Minolta/Epson's approach to the problem. Try scanning without it.

[roger_smith4]

Here's an example from my FS4000US using Vuescan.

 

Picture one: scanner looks broken.<div></div>

[jtk]

..I meant to say that Canon's approach to infared may not be fully consistent with Vuescan/Nikon/Minolta/Epson/Ice's approach. I don't think anybody's claimed it works as well, even with Canon's application. Silverfast's sample version contributes nothing Vs Epson's, I doubt it'd be better than Canon's. Vuescan Vs Nikon Vs Minolta seem comparable except that Vuescan's infared does well at a very low setting, and its light grain reduction is superb, doesn't soften images at all...just reduces grain size to something comparable to good conventional condenser enlargement grain.

[roger_smith4]

And here it is, with a preset levels adjustment I made for Fuji 160C.<div></div>

[roger_smith4]

John's right about the Canon IR. I would consider using Filmget *if* the IR cleaning didn't leave artifacts on my negatives.

It leaves odd digital-noise looking splotches. Vuescan's cleaning may not be as effective, but it doesn't leave extremely objectionable artifacts behind.

[jtk]

I wouldn't call that shot "fixed!" It looks very flat. Perhaps FV's doing something destructive to his scans in the course of being decorative (the "artistic" border, for example).

[roger_smith4]

Well, artistic merit aside, I think the "fixed" scan is comparable to the brighter one he was happy with, and either would be a reasonable starting point for further editing in Photoshop.

[roger_smith4]

Also, the "fixed" scan is my shot, not his, and the "border" is the scanner's negative holder since I scanned with cropping to maximum. Normally I'd crop this out.