Scanning Workflows/Settings

[byron_fry1]

Hey guys, I just got hooked up with a Nikon V and am doing my own black and

white developing then scanning. I need some suggestions on how I should have

this baby set for eeking out the best quality. I know I should be using vuescan,

but for now while I am learning the ropes of this scanning beeswax I am going to

stick with the nikon stuff. So I need to know how would I go about setting my

exposures on this beast, or should I let it go auto? What Dpi should I be at,

its scanning a 4000 right now, but using a crop the size of the neg so it just

gets blown up in photoshop. I know this is wrong, but I am not sure what is a

good size to set it at? I should also be using 14 bit right? and How about

colour space, I am using BW so should I just have it set to greyscale or to an

rgb? Any help is appreciated.

[Craig_Cooper11664875449]

Byron,

 

I more or less only scan B&W film in 135 and medium form with both Nikon 4000 and 9000 scanners. Basically turn off all adjustments in the scanning software - do it all later. B&W scans (or basically neg scans) on the Nikon will usually look flat, muddy, toneless and horrible straight out of the scanner with no adjustments. As long as your histogram isnt clipping you should be fine. Colour space at the scan level isnt going to make much difference to you. You can leave it without then assign whatever your working space is when you post process. Theres no benefit to keeping a B&W scan in RGB versus greyscale and its a 3 times as big file. People will argue that 2^14 * 2^14 * 2^14 potential values from RGB are beter that just 2^14 in greyscale but most of those RGB values are colour values, in greyscale its just a lot of options to get the same thing.

 

Scanning DPI I guess is up to you and what you want to do with the scan after. Personally I scan at 4000 dpi. Given its B&W and will need some tonal manipulation after the scan, I would use the greatest bit depth possible (14) to avoid posterisation in post processing.

 

Personally, I dont like Nikonscan and use Vuescan myself. Others will recommend Silverfast but I have never used it and have no issues with Vuescan. Scanning will appear pretty straight forward when you start but it can take some time to work through all the little issues as they crop up. Have fun...

[jeffrey_prokopowicz]

For best quality, for "settings" choose b&w mono, 14-bit grayscale.

 

In the toolbox under "crop" make sure "Keep this crop" is checked and set output resolution for 4000ppi. The output size section is unchecked.

[Robert_Lai]

Byron,<p>Scanning and post-processing is time intensive. I stuck with Nikon Scan for a very, very long time. It works fine, but Vuescan just works way better. It has a large film database, so that parameters for a lot of color and B&W films have already been set for you. The ability to perform a multiexposure scan (one normal scan, a second scan for the shadow details, and then automatic merging of the images) really brings out the full tonal range that film is capable of recording. Vuescan will also embed scanner color profiles, whereas with Nikon Scan, you have to do a RAW scan, then embed the color profiles with your editing software. I've gone back to rescanning images using Vuescan that I've had difficulty working with through Nikon Scan 4.0.2. I really suggest that you try at least the free download trial of Vuescan.<p>If you want to use Nikon Scan for now, scan at 16 bits, ICE off, and GEM 3 should give decent results. DEE, Analog Gain, Scan Image Enhancement are all off. Always use the 4000 samples/inch resolution, especially if you plan to crop.<p>If you use Capture NX for the post-scan processing, then it will not accept 16-bit grayscale images. It will only accept 48-bit RGB. Color space really doesn't matter with black and white images.

[jeffrey_prokopowicz]

I use Nikon Scan 4 for most of my b&w scans, and Vuescan for some. I prefer NS 4 after using both, and comparing results.

 

I sometimes use GEM set at 2, and everything else OFF.

 

The advantage of grayscale is much smaller file sizes, about 45MBs each, plus the images look more like b&w should look, out of the box.

[brian_ellis19]

"Theres no benefit to keeping a B&W scan in RGB versus greyscale and its a 3 times as big file. "

 

Just thought I should point out that this isn't a unanimous opinion. A lot of people think it's best to scan a b&w negative in rgb. There was an article along these lines in "Shutterbug" a couple years ago in which the author purported to explain why rgb was better for b&w negatives. Personally I've always scanned b&w negatives in grayscale but that's because I scan 4x5 and 8x10 negatives. rgb files from negatives that size are just too cumbersome to work with and I've never been convinced that rgb really does give better results. So I'm not arguing here, just pointing out that there is a school of thought that thinks there's a benefit to scanning b&w negatives in rgb.

[jeffrey_prokopowicz]

The best way to find out for yourself, about whether to scan b&w negatives RGB or grayscale, is to scan the same negative both ways and compare. I use Adobe Bridge for this because it allows me to instantly switch between the images by clicking on the thumbnails.

 

My observation is that the RGB scan looks like a color image trying to be b&w, and the grayscale looks like a b&w image, and they do look different, no question about it.

[obakesan]

So, what would happen if you converted your scan to LAB then desaturated it?

 

Is this perhaps what the scanner hardware / driver system does effectively when scanning into RGB?