Vuescan DNG overexposed

[orbis_vrindalen]

<p>Hi everyone,<br>

I recently prurchased a coolscan 5000 to archive all my parents' old slides. I'm using Vuescan to do all my scanning, and outputting to DNG.</p>

<p>I have however run into a small problem, namely when I open the DNG files in Lightroom. Certain slides seem to be at least 1 stop overexposed, even though the image looks fine in Vuescan. If I save to .tif along with the DNG and open it in Lightroom it looks fine. It also doesn't happen on all scans, with around 80% the TIFF and the DNG look roughly the same. Rescanning the problematic slide makes no difference. Does anyone have any idea what the problem might be? Is the Vuescan DNG format just not suited for this?</p>

<p>The reason that I output to DNG is because I want to use Lightroom to edit the scans but still retain the possibility to go back into Vuescan and change settings, such as the how much IR cleaning should be done (which can't be done in Lightroom). If I save to Vuescan's RAW (TIFF) format, the resulting files will be very underexposed in Lightroom, if I save to a normal TIFF, I lose the ability to go back and change Vuescan settings. So DNG seemed like a good middle ground.</p>

<p>My main goal is to keep the quality as high as I can and retain as much editing possibility as I can.</p>

<p>Any ideas/suggestions?</p>

<p>Thanks in advance,<br>

Orbis.</p>

[mendel_leisk]

<p>You must be saving 64 bit files, if you're post-scan adjusting Vuescan's cleaning. In my experience, anything more than Vuescan's lightest setting did nothing more than soften the overall image. In short, I elected to save the raw with cleaning applied: I was not interested in finetuning the cleaning, and did not want the baggage of a 64 bit file. Also, Vuescan's cleaning is not that hot (compared to ICE), but will suffice if your film is in decent shape.</p>

[aaron_dohrn]

<p>I'am assuming you are using a Nikon FH-3 holder. You probably also don't have Vuescan set to Autofocus always. When you originally insert holder your machine will autofocus, but as you advance the film no focus. This can make the images look overexposed.</p>

<p>+1 on the 64 bit DNG if you want to go back and rerun cleaning. From what I have read the newer versions of Vuescans cleaning and ICE are on par. From my personal experience can't really tell much of a difference, but I'am not a professional photographer. The more current versions of photoshop can open dng 64, but I don't think they can convert them to a regular dng? To do that you will need to rerun them in Vuescan. This could be a problem in 20 or 30 years as there is no guarantee it will be around. I tend to save dng 64 on problematical images and film that I feel that I will need to go back to latter, but I also output as tiff.</p>

<p> </p>

[aaron_dohrn]

<p>Sorry reread post and your scanning slides. </p>

[orbis_vrindalen]

<p>I did a few tests and I agree that the 'light' setting for dust cleaning seems to give the best results. This means that I could probably just keep the setting on light, unless I come across really dirty slides. Even then, cleaning the slide itself would probably yield better results (though I did notice some slides have fingerprints on them which seem impossible to remove, the IR cleaning helps here).</p>

<p>This basically rids me of the need to scan to a raw file, unless there are some other Vuescan specific edits that can't be done in Lightroom? 'Restore fading' gives some pretty good improvements on some scans, but from what I've read it's basically just a colour shift, thus easily done in Lightroom. Is there any reason to keep the IR channel if I save to a normal TIFF, or would it be best to do 48bit RGB?</p>

<p>Concerning the autofocus, I have it set to autofocus on scan. Using the SF210 slide feeder, I assume this means it will autofocus for every slide?</p>

<p>Thanks for the help, much appreciated.</p>

[aaron_dohrn]

<p>Scanning as 64RGBI Tiff will let you open it with Vuescan and reapply different cleaning settings. When you open these files in photoshop they of course look like infrared images. I don't think its possible to have photoshop convert them to 48bit images. To do this you would have to run them through Vuescan again. If you were going to do this I would run them as raw as in raw you can also change the output color space. Changing the output color space is also the main reason to scan Raw. Most printers commercial and mid to low end home are designed to use SRGB currently. There are better color spaces out there and some home printers can do Adobe RGB even today. If you have not researched color spaces to it before committing to a big project. Plan to spend several days at it. At the very least scan as Adobe RGB and use lightroom to convert copies to print down to SRGB.</p>

<p>The acid in finger prints will actually etch the film given time. There is no way to remove them so don't try as this will only damage the film more.</p>

<p> </p>

[janne_moren]

I get a similar problem with Vuescan and the Epson V700. It seems some brightness adjustments aren't actually applied to the file you save, but only shown on-screen. It's not completely consistent, though, and I've yet to nail down exactly what the problem is. Nowadays I treat Vuescan as just a scanner - do straight scans with no adjustments other than the basic film color profile, then do all the brightness and other tweaking in other applications afterwards.

[aaron_dohrn]

<p>I used my SF210 with Nikon Scan so can't really say. The batch process using Vuescan are supposed to be problematic at best.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>I'm using Vuescan to do all my scanning, and outputting to DNG.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Why? A scanner doesn’t produce raw data. If you don’t have true raw (non demosaiced) data, there’s about zero reason I can think of to save as DNG and do so without the proper scanner settings to result in something that doesn’t look under or over exposed. Make it look as you desire in the scanning host and save out a high bit TIFF or similar, then use Lightroom to catalog the data but not globally alter the color and tone (stay away from the Develop module). The scanner interface is the develop module so to speak. </p>

[mendel_leisk]

<p>Vuescan's RAW workflow, from beginning to end with Vuescan, using tiff format Raw, works pretty good for me. I might do some more work in Photoshop, but I find can get what I want with Vuescan's Color Tab, working with the RAW. Maybe Vuescan's RAW isn't technically a raw file, it's simply the data as it came from the scanner, still gamma 1.0, without histogram adjustments. Traditionally tiff format, dng if you want.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>Maybe Vuescan's RAW isn't technically a raw file, it's simply the data as it came from the scanner, still gamma 1.0, without histogram adjustments.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Its not a raw, nothing like it. And in fact, none of the limitations of raw (interpolated color from a bayer array). Its true RGB color from a trilinear CCD. The gamma is totally immaterial too. The capture or original isn’t linear like raw. You can capture in a TRC 1.0 gamma with any scanner if you setup the input profile for that. That also doesn’t mean its the best native gamma for that device. If you scan high bit, no adjustments and then tone and color correct in Photoshop OR scan in high bit and use the scanner software, the net results are the same. It all depends on what software tool you prefer. Generally, scanning software is much faster (it applies the “corrections” when it scans. In Photoshop you have a big file that you have to work on). DNG is a TIFF like format that can contain rendered or non rendered, true raw data. Assuming that scanning into a DNG is somehow an advantage is no more true than scanning in TIFF vs. PDF if the software supported this format and all settings were equal. </p>

[orbis_vrindalen]

<p>

<p>-Aaron: Lightroom seems to open the 64 bit TIFF files without a problem. Though I did use Lightroom 3 Beta 2, not sure if that makes a difference. I am currently using AdobeRGB for everything, and I have my screens calibrated, so i think i'm ok on that front. I haven't had any problems so far doing batch scans with Vuescan (apart fromt he occasional jam with the SF-210).</p>

<p>As for which format to use, I would prefer to do all my edits in Lightroom, not in Vuescan. So I have two options:<br>

1. 64 bit DNG, use Lightroom to correct the exposure of the previously described problematic slides<br>

2. 48/64 bit TIFF, which seem to work fine in Lightroom.<br>

(3. Use Vuescan's TIFF RAW, but that gives problems with Lightroom, so not really an option)</p>

<p>From what I understand, there's no real advantage to using DNG over TIFF, so at the moment I am leaning towards TIFF as that seems to give the least problems so far. The only other thing left to decide on in this case would be whether to go 48 bit or 64 bit. As long as Lightroom gives no problems with 64 bit images, I might as well keep the IR channel, harddrives are cheap enough these days.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the replies, I think I'm finally getting my head around some of this.</p>

</p>

[orbis_vrindalen]

<p>Ok, I have finally settled on scanning to 48 bit TIFF files and doing my processing in Lightroom, but now I have come across another issue. For some reason I can't get Vuescan to embed the Adobe RGB profile. <br>

I have Photoshop set up to warn me when there is no profile, or when there is a profile mismatch. When I open a scanned image in Photoshop, I get a warning that the image has no embedded profile. In Vuescan I have 'Color->Output color space' set to Adobe RGB and 'Output->TIFF profile' is checked. The same problem occurs when I save to jpeg. If I assign Adobe RGB to the image in photoshop, the image changes, which seems to me confirms the fact that there was no profile.<br>

Am I not understanding something properly, or doing something wrong?</p>

[digitaldog]

<p>You really don’t want to be using the Develop module in LR for this task. Its not raw data. You certainly don’t want to use untagged documents in LR (it assumes the data is sRGB). <br>

Here’s what is happening under the hood. You are (LR is) converting the original data to a ProPhoto RGB, gamma 1.0 processing color space. Even if you fed LR this from the scanner, its going to convert it to process the data. I still can’t see why you would want to treat this kind of data as raw when it isn’t or use the scanner to produce the best global tone and color corrections at the scan stage OR just hand off high bit data to Photoshop (slower) to do what the scanner driver should provide in the first place and do so faster.</p>

[orbis_vrindalen]

<p>As far as I understand, the Lightroom develop module does not need/expect raw data does it? So what would the difference be between processing in Vuescan and processing in Lightroom, as both will be working on 16 bit per channel files, and nothing is lost. I'm guessing that the fact that LR converts to ProPhoto RGB first might be the issue then?</p>

<p>But aside from that, say I only use Vuescan to do processing. My final output file should have a profile embedded, right? This is where I seem to have issues at the moment, if I process my file in Vuescan, the output does not have an embedded profile (when I open it in PS, I get a warning that there is none). </p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>As far as I understand, the Lightroom develop module does not need/expect raw data does it? So what would the difference be between processing in Vuescan and processing in Lightroom</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Its built to process raw, it can process rendered images. But all images undergo another conversion to its native color processing space which is totally unnecessary when you can avoid that and simply produce a TIFF directly from the scanner software itself. </p>

[orbis_vrindalen]

<p>Ok, thanks for clearing that up, you've convinced me to do my processing in Vuescan.<br>

Any ideas on why Vuescan won't embed a profile in my output?</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>

 

 

<p >Any ideas on why Vuescan won't embed a profile in my output?</p>

 

 

</p>

</blockquote>

<p>

 

 

Sorry no, but it should. I’d ping Ed there, he can probably give you the settings needed. I can’t believe it can’t do that.

 

 

</p>

[don_essedi]

<p>"You really don’t want to be using the Develop module in LR for this task. Its not raw data."</p>

<p>Are you recommending not importing scanned photos into LR (or just not to use the Develop Module), or only not importing untagged scanned photos, and that tagged ones can be brought into the Develop Module?</p>

 

[janne_moren]

Vuescan's color balance, brightness and curve editing tools are pretty bad. There's every reason to get your image out of Vuescan and into a good editor as early as possible. And RAW converters are made to do exactly this initial editing so there's no reason not to use one if it's flexible enough. I use UFraw for this; any other modern converter would work nicely too.

[orbis_vrindalen]

<p>Just a quick update, my profile issues have been resolved. I'm still not sure what exactly the problem was, but I'm now using a fresh windows install and everything works as I want it.</p>

<p>Thanks everyone for all your replies.</p>

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>Are you recommending not importing scanned photos into LR (or just not to use the Develop Module), or only not importing untagged scanned photos, and that tagged ones can be brought into the Develop Module?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>You can and should import them to use the DAM functionality and even print them. Just stay away from Develop if you’ve done all the heavy lifting in the scanner driver. Untagged files are always bad, everywhere! </p>

[mattb1]

<p>Personally, I liked NikonScan better than vuescan or silverfast. I couldn't see any advantage to using vuescan on a Nikon scanner. Cheap scanners with limited software support are good candidates for vuescan. Not trying to say that vuescan is bad, but that NikonScan is better on a Nikon scanner. </p>

<p>IMO you are better off learning to get a good histogram, use the tools in NikonScan, scan to 16bit in a lossless format, use a wide gamute color space, and maybe wet mounting. That is about all you can do IMO.</p>

[don_essedi]

<p>Doing the "heavy lifting" in the scanner may work for slides ex kodachrome, but silver b&w and color negative film can require work in post. Those I scan 'flat' and open in PS for various reasons, then import into LR and use Develop, or LR import then send to PS. I'll have to experiment around that now, I guess. I haven't noticed anything bad happening in Develop no matter how they get there.</p>

<p>Vuescan's controls are not very...granular, compared to Nikonscan. However I've found that both produce similar results at their defaults, and both are pretty good, If that is letting the driver do the "heavy lifting", decent results can be got for negative color, but b&w is still...well a many-faceted experience.</p>

 

[digitaldog]

<blockquote>

<p>Doing the "heavy lifting" in the scanner may work for slides ex kodachrome, but silver b&w and color negative film can require work in post.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>So much depends on the hardware and software. I’ve run drum scanners (Howtek to ScanView), Leafs, Imacon’s, Epsons. They all handle negs differently. Good software and hardware can reduce the need for very much if any global tone and color after the fact in Photoshop. SliverFast does a decent job on color negs. So did the Imacon once you setup the correct settings for that particular neg. Since exposure and processing affect the orange mask so much, one has to diddle around but no more so than doing it quick and clean in the scanner and working in Photoshop afterwards. </p>