bad vuescan slide scans........

[kevin_johnson3]

I've been using Vuescan for a little while now and have had great

results scanning negatives. But for slides, not to much luck. I

noticed today that when I preview a slide, it seems to look ok, but

when I actually scan the image, the color shifts and looks very red

and saturated. I think that I have everything setup correctly. The

only thing I can think of is that I don't have the correct output

settings. Anyway here's what I have:

<p>

Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated<p>

<p>

thanks<p>

<p>

********************<p>

INPUT

<p>

scanner: Scan Dual III<p>

Media type: image <p>

bits per pixel:48<p>

*********************<p>

COLOR

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color balance: manual (I ususally right click image for neutral)<p>

WP: 1-2<p>

BP: 1-3<p>

scanner space: Minlota icc n or p<p>

scanner it8 data: scanner.it8 (default)<p>

Printer color space: adobe RGB (it this correct?)<p>

Output color space: adobe RGB<p>

Monitor ICC: spyder calibration<p>

*****************************<p>

OUTPUT

<p>

Output tiff: yes<p>

Size reduction: 1 (is this correct?)<p>

Tiff file type: 48bit rgb<p>

Output RAW: yes

<p>

[krisheylen]

Media type should be set to "Slide film" instead of "Image". I hope it's only this. Good luck. Kris.

[rich815]

Kris, I do not think that is the problem as Ed Hamrick, creator of Vuescan, recommends using "Image" and not "Slide Film" in his help manual. I've been doing it that way with good success for years too.<p>Only thing I can think of is that somewhere a color space issue is causing you problems. Perhaps turn off all or most color space settings and do a raw scan, then deal with that in PS later.

[mendel_leisk]

Tiff reduction setting "1" is ok. It means no reduction to image dimensions (pixels) is done. This is somewhat confusing.

 

I concur with Richard, "Image" setting should be ok, as opposed to "Slide film". The difference is very subtle. The slide profiles seem to introduce color cast, as well. I find staying with "Image" reduces the factors involved, such as selecting a profile. Ed Hamrick say to use "Image" with "Neutral" (or "Manual"?). Here's an excerpt from "Adjusting Color Balance" page of Vuescan User's Guide:

 

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Sometimes VueScan's white balance algorithm doesn't cope well with unusual lighting. For instance, the light from a sunset will be adjusted so that the ground appears gray instead of orange and scans of flowers will appear less intense than they should.

 

The best approach to solving this is to change "Color|Color balance" from "White balance" to "Neutral". In addition, if you're scanning slides, make sure you've set "Input|Media type" to "Image".

 

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I'm in the middle of this, as well, and haven't settle on a best approach. Some suggestions you could try:

 

1. If you don't have it, get latest version Vuescan; white balance has been revised.

 

2. Set "Color|Scanner Color Space" to: "built-in"

 

(I've emailed Minolta re their profiles. They have not confirmed (nor denied) using these profiles with Vuescan is beneficial/necessary. Also, I BELIEVE I read here on Photo.net, someone asked Ed Hamrick re these, and he said they were not intended for use with Vuescan)

 

3. Set "Color|Color Balance" to: "White Balance" (try "Landscape" and "Portrait" alternates if you like, but I find "White Balance" most neutral) for usual, and "Neutral" for sunsets, flower close-ups, and the like.

 

(I've tried right-clicking neutral point, never seem to get it right. What bugs me with this approach is it's too subjective. Perhaps if you photograph neutral grey card on frame 1, right click it, then use those settings for rest of roll.)

 

4. Set both white point and black point to 0.

 

5. For comparison and/or alternate approach, open Vuescan raw file in Photoshop, go to pulldown "Image|Mode|Assign Profile", and set to "Dimage Scan Dual3 (posi input)" (or something like that: I'm guessing what yours will say, I have Scan Dual II). Then, go to pulldown "Image|Mode|Convert to Profile", and set to "your preferred color space" (I stick with sRGB, you prefer Adobe RGB). Be sure to save with a different name.

 

Compare this profile converted raw file with Vuescan White balance image of typical bright day lit scene. They should be quite close. Vuescan will have a little more punch, due to expanded histogram. With sunsets, flower close-ups, and the like, the Vuescan white balanced image will seem somewhat washed-out, evidencing the need to switch to neutral. Occasionally, the differences are surprising. With some day lit images I tried, the converted raw file (Provia100 scans) were yellowish, and the Vuescan white balance seemed more neutral.

[mendel_leisk]

This is Vuescan white balanced:

[mendel_leisk]

This is converted raw file:

[mendel_leisk]

This is "Color Slide", with "Generic|Color|Slide" profile:

[david_f._stein]

Mendel has given excellent guidance. For starters, I would always work with White

Balance and Built-in for the scanner and film profiles. If you are choosing scanner.it8,

that is really only used to profile the scanner, then you select the scanner profile that

was generated-it must have been accomplished using Vuescan's newer Profile Scanner

feature, which would in this case require a 35mm transparency target and the

associated data file, although Vuescan will let you use a generic data file. (The

alternative is a separate profile creating program like Monaco EZ Color). Why not also

use your Minolta software on a few slides and compare with Vuescan? Last, I am sure

you are doing it, but make sure you crop away any space outside the slide's image

area. GOOD LUCK ....

[kevin_johnson3]

You guys are great. Thanks for your help. I'm going to follow your suggestions tonight and see what I get.

 

cheers

[helge_gundersen]

Mendel: Hamrick wrote that the Minolta profiles were of no use

with Vuescan. Perhaps their intended use is to assign them in

Photoshop when importing a raw scan. It seems that one other

poster here (Øystein) has a scanner which is miscalibrated or

something at the factory, and that one of those profiles happens

to help him when using Vuescan.

[upscan]

Mendel: Good Job! Thanks for an excellent posting. Looked at the two pictures you attached which quite interestingly show telling differences. The raw shows slightly yellow clouds, the second shot shows the clouds with a light magenta cast. Neither was really neutral at least to my eyes. A touch of more blue to the first or a little more green to the second should give neutral balance. Nice shots both.