If you use Silverfast I would appreciate your advice on workflow

[robin_barnes]

<p>I have recently bought a Plustek 7600i with Silverfast Ai Studio 6.6. I also have Photoshop Elements 8 (for Mac) and am currently learning to use both pieces of software. I would appreciate any advice on workflow and the Silverfast settings to use. I will be scanning Kodachrome slides and have calibrated the scanner with an IT8 target for that film. <br>

My first thoughts are to use Silverfast just for scanning and do all the adjustments in Elements but it may be that there are things that are best done with Silverfast before transferring the files to Elements. <br>

Also I am not entirely clear as to how I should configure the software in order to produce completely unadjusted scans so would be very grateful for some guidance on that. </p>

[benny_spinoza]

<p>I sold my Nikon 9000 scanner recently, but I did have the pleasure of using it with SilverFast for a few years. Good that you have Studio. That saves time. Just scan with SilverFast Ai into 64 bit HDRi files. Then open the raw files with Studio, where you can adjust the histograms and contrast to your liking. I usually find that I prefer no contrast applied. That is, my contrast curve is just a straight line. So I first hit the auto-adjust button that looks like a camera iris, and then bring the contrast curve back to a straight line.<br>

But here is a little secret: I found that using the built-in icc profile for Kodachrome that comes preloaded with SilverFast usually gave better results for Kodachrome scans than my custom generated icc profile from my IT8 Kodachrome target. And here is another secret: I bought CaptureOne software because I'll probably go digital and wanted to learn how to use it, but I found out that it works great on the TIFFs generated by Studio. It's automatic white balance tool usually improves the white balance from SilverFast. And it has other cool stuff. Just download a demo to try for 30 days. That's what I did.</p>

[robin_barnes]

<p>Thanks for your response Benny. I will give your workflow a try but I can't scan at 64 bit HDRi. The 7600i just offers me 48>24 Color (default setting), 48 bit Color and 48 bit HDR Color (not HDRi) plus corresponding 16 bit Greyscale settings which I assume are for black and white film. I had been thinking of using 48>24 Color because, as I understand it, Elements can't do much with 48 bit files so I would have to convert them to 24 bit anyway but this setting will allow me to use 48 bit for anything I do within Silverfast but the output will be 24 bit. <br>

I admit to not being clear as to what the differences between 48 bit Color and 48 bit HDR Color are. It would nice if there was some decent documentation for Silverfast or better still a "Missing Manual" book.<br>

Interesting that you found the preloaded Kodachrome profile gave you better results than the one generated using your IT8 target. I did a comparative test which showed of that of the two it is my "Target" profile which produces the more accurate colours. I will have a look at CaptureOne.</p>

 

[robin_barnes]

<p>Somehow managed to post the above twice! Deleted the second one as best I can but can't get rid of the title line!</p>

[benny_spinoza]

<p>Maybe you lucked out and got a better IT8 target than me :). Strange that you can't save into 64 bit HDRi. The extra 16 bits is the infrared channel. This tells me that your software will perform the ICE clean up before outputting a raw 48 bit HDR file. The difference between 48 bit HDR and 48 bit Color is that the former is a RAW file that only SilverFast Studio can read, whereas the later is an ordinary TIFF file that any program can read. (Or if you save it as a 48 bit Color jpeg, it is a jpeg file that just about no software program can read!)<br>

CapureOne express is about $130. It may appear strange, but I am dipping my toes into the digital world in backwards fashion. I first chose a RAW converter and am learning how to use it before buying a digital camera. But as I learned from my scanning years, software IS the darkroom. It is just as important as the capture hardware, whether that hardware is a digital camera or film camera.</p>

[robin_barnes]

<p>I may have got a better Kodachrome target than you but it caused me a few problems as discussed in the thread I started in this forum earlier in the week. The software kept reading the target barcode incorrectly and then, consequently, searched for a reference file that didn't exist! I am very grateful to Tom River for telling me how to get round this problem (details in my previous thread).<br>

Going back to your workflow - is using 48 bit HDR Color rather than just 48 bit Color analogous to, in digital, shooting raw instead of jpeg and if, I use it, will Silverfast, after I have finished making adjustments, let me save as a Tiff that can be read by other software? </p>

[benny_spinoza]

<p>Sort of. 48 bit HDR is proprietary to SilverFast. It is sort of like shooting RAW. But when you process 48 bit HDR with Studio and save as either a TIFF or a jpeg, then it is saved in standard format and can be read by other programs. The newest version of SilverFast scanning software, version 8, looks much better than 6.6. As of now, I don't think there is a new version 8 of Studio. I think SilverFast is working on it. Are you using Lion?</p>

[robin_barnes]

<p>I thought that would be the case so I'll play around with 48 bit HDR and see if it suits me. No! - don't laugh I am still using Tiger! So I can't use software like Silverfast 8, Lightroom 3 or Aperture 3. My iMac is now 5 years old so I will probably get a current model later this year and get up to date on the software front. However I don't envisage moving up to Silverfast 8 as I just bought my Plustek to digitize my slides and that shouldn't take more than about 3 months after which I will be fully digital. <br /> Thanks for your help.</p>