Minolta 5400: Why can't I get the right colors/contrast/brilliance of slides?

[margaret_s.]

I just received my new Minolta 5400 scanner and after scanning 3

slides (Velvia 50) I'm ready to go back to the pro lab to have them

scanned! OK now that I've vented, onto specifics.. I downloaded a

trial version of Vuescan and found no significant difference in

using that software vs the Minolta Scan Utility. Here are my main

complaints: <P>

1. The scans are showing up <I><B>waaay</B></I> darker than the

original slides so I'm losing a lot of detail. When I try adjusting

the brightness/contrast, I get <i>some</i> improvement but nothing

compared to the original.<P>

 

2. The reds aren't properly reproduced. My slides show this deep,

intense blue-red and when scanned I get an ugly orangy tomato- red

color! Aaack! Adjusting the red via the color selector doesn't

produce acceptable results (or it screws up the other colors),

neither does fiddling around with PS post-scanning. The other colors

are also off but not as much as the reds.<P>

 

3. My slides are <I>tack-sharp</I> and the sharpness, brilliance and

contrast are completely lost in the scanning process! I end up with

a very soft looking image. I tried to do a manual focus but I don't

see a difference. Using the unsharp mask helps somewhat but I still

find the result unsatisfactory. I must be doing something wrong..

Anybody else encountering these problems??? Any suggestions/profiles

to use to get accurate results? If you want to see 2 of the photos I

scanned (and spent hours adjusting in PS and they're still not

right!) please click on my name and go to: Boats, Piers and

Harbours. Surely there must be an easier way?<P>

 

Thanks in advance for all your help. I'm sure I'm not the only

scanner-challenged soul here.

[gary_nebel]

Margaret,

 

I don't have an answer to your problem. However I also have had problems with the 5400 and Velvia 100. I had a Nikon 4000 scanner before and opted for the higher resolution of the 5400. I have no technical background in scanners but for what it's worth, when using the Nikon with Velvia I could increase the analog gain to push through the dark areas. It almost seems that the Minolta doesn't have enough punch to deal with the Velvia emulsion.

 

The results using the 5400 with Provia 100 however, are far superior to the Nikon in delivering the color and contrast of the slide.

[jonathan_ratzlaff]

What resolution are you scanning at? How are you adjusting the brightness and contrast in PS. Is you monitor calibrated? What type of settings are you using on your scanner? There are any number of issues that will affect your scan. If you are using vuescan, try these settings. Scan mode 35mm slide, media type- image. for colour settings use, white balance, set the white point, to .01, black to 0, set the monitor profile to what you are using. You should get results that match your slide. Start on auto exposure. Usually works well. Set the exposure to ensure that the highlights have detail. And use the brightness control on the colour tab ( this is a gamma correction ) to set the midtone levels. This is the way I scan with my scanner.

 

Use levels or curves to set the midtone levels.

If you are using the scannning software, use the levels and or curves to set your scan exposure levels. Also ensure that the colour space you are using is Adobe 1998, not sRGB

[leif_goodwin8]

Margaret: There are a number of issues here. Firstly, how do you adjust the contrast and brightness? There are many ways to adjust the brightness. You can boost the analog gain i.e. the exposure, but this might burn out highlights. I prefer to adjust the gamma point on the levels editor (left most button on the image correction panel). Slide it to the left. Have you turned on auto-exposure? This is on the settings dialog and the check box should be checked. However, the problem here is that the colours will not be accurate. (This is true of all scanners, not just the Minolta.)

 

However, there is a better alternative. Go to www.coloraid.com. There you will find IT8 calibration targets including one for Fuji Velvia. Order one, then you can create a profile for using your scanner with Fuji Velvia. (You might also get a small packet of German sweets!) You can create the profile using freeware as described here:

 

http://www.photographical.net/scanner_profiling2_2.html

 

Then just scan with NO correction but (I think) it is okay to check auto-exposure. Open the scan in Photoshop, and when a dialog about profiles appears, select the profile that you have created, and select the convert to RGB option. That's it. If you find the scan is too dark/light, just adjust the gamma point in curves. If it is very bright/dark, then it would be better to adjust the scan settings and re-scan the original.

 

I have scanned Kodachrome 64, Kodak Ektachrome 100SW, and Fuji Sensia/Provia/Astia without problems. I am sure you can get good scans without much trouble. (I have a Velvia slide somewhere which I'll try out of curiosity.)

[leif_goodwin8]

Margaret: Blimey. I see what you mean! Wowsy. I have just scanned a Velvia slide and it is indeed very very very dark. I boosted the analog gain, and slid the gamma to the right and I saw no change.

 

I reckon this is a bug. Hopefully it is not in the hardware. I would recommend that you contact Minolta.

[neil_parker]

Velvia 50 seems to scan OK for me, I just tried 4 slightly marginal slides, and with the automatic expoosure setting, 16 bit, I got fairly accurate renditions of the slides. Then I tried tweaking a bit with the 'exposure control' rather than image correction. A couple of the slides responded well to minor tweaks with the exposure or a color channel, at least in the prescan view. When I scanned them, by selecting all 4 index images and hitting scan, they scanned with the original automatic exposure setting, forgetting, apparently, the localized changes I had done with the exposure control on 2 out of the 4 images. If you want these individual changes to 'stick' you have to scan each frame individually, as far as I can tell.

 

I am still trying to come to terms with the Dimage Scan software. I read somewhere that if you make level or color changes in the 'image correction' panel, and you are working in 16 bit mode, these changes are actually 8 bit, and lose more information than if you just scan 16 bit un-edited, then tweak it in photoshop. So far with both negs and slides, I have had pretty good luck doing minor color & density tweaks with 'exposure control', then doing the serious correction if necessary in PS.

[mjd]

Margaret: I had a similar problem with one slide on my new Elite 5400, after having scanned a bunch with excellent results. Please go to the Custom Wizard window (second to last icon on top toolbar), and set "Auto exposure for slides" under Preferences. Also check "Autofocus at scan" otherwise the scanner will not autofocus your slides and the software will not remind you that you're in manual mode. Later, in the same wizard, choose "No image correction" under Image correction. See if that works...

[costas_lymbouris]

Do as Marcelo suggests, I have found that you get dark images and colour casts when the "autoexposure" setting is not set.

 

Do a prescan with the autoexposure set, then select the exposure tab to make adjustments to the exposure, including gain and R,G and B exposure values. You can then get a well exposed image for final processing in Photoshop rather than using the scanner post-exposure controls.

[Craig_Cooper11664875449]

Margaret,

 

Not in an attempt to tell you how to fix your problem but also realise that Vuescan extracts nothing more from your scanner than the original software. Its strengths are in how it presents the controls - a lot more intuitive than the original software usually - its adjustment functions such as curves which are really only of value if you are looking at the scanner output as your final output (ie no photoshopping), and some useful actions performed in its own software space such as the long-exposure scan (if your scanner supports analogue gain control of the CCD).

 

regards

Craig

[leif_goodwin8]

I can reproduce youir problem if I select "16 bit linear" in the scan settings. It works fine with "8 bit" or "16 bit". Give it a try ...

[margaret_s.]

Thank you all so much for your suggestions and answers. I went and tried them all (Leif, I haven't gone to coloraid.com yet or tried to create my own profile for Velvia 50 but I will). I even tried scanning color negatives to see what would happen. They all came out way too light! Go figure. Jonathan, I did end up recalibrating my monitor and that made a difference. I had it calibrated previously to match color output on my Epson 2200 but I think it was a little off relatively speaking. It's better now.

 

As for resolution, I'm scanning between 2700 and 5400 and 300dpi (for photos intended for print) depending on the purpose of the scanned photo. <P>

 

Here are the settings which ended up working for me: <P>

1. Setting "autoexposure for slides ON"<BR>

2. Setting "autofocus at scan"<BR>

3. Tweaking Master and RGB values under "Exposure Control" (This makes a huge difference!) Unfortunately, it doesn't work to use the same setting for all slides. One would think it's all relative and that it should work, but it doesn't. So I end up customizing the settings for each slide individually which is really tedious but until I figure out a better solution, this is the only thing that works.<BR>

4. Further corrections with the tone curves. This seems to really help bring out detail from the shadows without affecting image quality.<P>

 

I still had to tweak further in Photoshop such as unsharp mask and some color corrections but overall this process seemed to yield <i>much</i> better results than before. I'm still not getting the brilliance that's on the original slides and maybe that's impossible. I don't know. Also, the sharpness isn't there but I read somewhere that photonet compresses the images and they're already compressed when saved as JPG's, so that could be part of the problem.<P>

By the way Neil, I'm going to try shooting a roll of Provia 100 and see how that works. Thanks for the suggestion. (I suppose I could always go digital and save myself all this headache.. ;-)<P>

 

Again, HUGE thanks to everybody! You've been a great help!!<P>

Cheers, Margaret :-)

[StanleyBeck]

Gary,

 

An interesting comment on your part. I have a Minolta Dimage Dual II, and I've almost always found the scans to be dark, and dismissed it on the fact that most scanner images are dark.

 

However I recently scanned two slides, and the Kodachrome image was very dark, and the slide made with Kodak Eletechrome 200 (definately not my favorite film) scanned nearly perfect. I was coming to the same conclusion about the emulsion.

[geoff....]

Vuescan has the ability to scan a piece of overexposed transpancy, work out the colour characteristic then lock in that setting, suggested for use with each roll of film but, haven't tried it, it may be good enough to use the all shots done with Velvia... etc..

[margaret_s.]

Stanley, funny you mention this. I just scanned a couple of Ektachrome E100VS slides and the color/brightness were near perfect compared to the Velvia 50 slides. Both slides were slightly underexposed intentionally when shot, so I can only presume that there are huge variances in the film's emulsion. Yet I don't want to give up Velvia in favor of less headache in the scanning process. I have heard good things about Provia though and will give that a try.

[StanleyBeck]

Margaret,

 

I haven't worked with Velvia or Provia yet, but I'm planning to, soon. I wouldn't give up a favorite film just for this.

 

But I do find this curious. In fact, I would have thought that Minolta would have calibrated their system around Fuji rather than Kodak.

 

It would be helpful if those who review and evaluate these scanners would report on the performance on various films. I'd like to know this before I buy.

 

Also, are do slower film emulsions have greater density?

[margaret_s.]

Stanley, I really can't answer the question about density as I am not an expert on this. However I can relate the following in my (short) experience of scanning with the Minolta. The Kodak Ektachrome E100VS scanned fairly close to original. ALL Fujichrome Velvia 50 slides scanned <i><B>much much</b></i> darker than the original. I had to make many adjustments but I found that the scanner seems to have trouble picking up the subtleties in the darker (denser?) areas of the exposed slide. I am losing detail in the shadows but more than anything, I seem to be losing the "brilliance" of the original slide. I can't quite get the perfect contrast ratios without either blowing out the whites or losing detail in the darker areas. For certain high contrast images, I've actually scanned the image twice at 2 different settings and then composited the properly exposed portions in Photoshop in an attempt to get around this problem. Now this could very well be due to my lack of expertise in using the scanner but it's a frustrating situation nonetheless. On the other hand, it might be impossible to exactly reproduce the image on the slide because I'm working with 2 different mediums. The other thing I found was that the reds don't reproduce well. My Velvia slides have this gorgeous deep intense bluish reds and the scan (at best) comes out with a rather boring shade of red and no amount of tweaking can get it to that exact shade on the original. Then there's the issue of sharpness. My slides are tack sharp and the scans are very soft even with spot focusing. I wish I knew how other folks manage to get such sharp images from their scanners. I can only presume I'm not doing something right.<P>I've decided to follow Leif's suggestion of creating my own scanner profile (see his thread above) to see if this improves the scanning results. I'll post feedback on this once I've tried it out. Bear in mind too that monitors will vary and I've literally recalibrated my monitor a few times in the last 2 months to get better results. All in all, this is a much more tedious process than I had anticipated but then again patience is not my forte ;-) Not to discourage you of course. As with anything else of this nature, there's a learning curve involved.

[dave_harrison]

I wonder if this is because the exposure area setting is npt done right in your preview. I don't have this scanner, but an older Elite. Hold down the shift key, will show up the area selected for exposure calibarion, instead of the crop area. What I usually do is set to exposure area to 80-90% of the image area to keep away from the edges. The other thing is to go through all levels, curves, color adjustment setting menus, press reset.

[dave_cheng1]

The Minolta software should have a setup manual in which you can

choose a color space that you want to scan your images into. If you

choose sRGB you will get darker images. I think by default that's

the color space to be scanned into. the sRGB has limited gamut to

make the images darker.

 

Also check out your monitor to see if it has the brightness/contrast

dynamics to handle slides like velvia. I have used many many monitors

including those at work. Every single one of them did poorly to show

the dynamics of images from slides. The only monitor that works good

is a 17" Sony Trinitron Multimedia monitor made in Japan costed me

$600 4 years ago. It is the only monitor, and I have used a dozen,

that makes my scan look good. If your monitor is not known to be

great make sure you turn up brightness/contrast and view it in a

dark environment.

 

However, the resolution of a good monitor is never good enough to show

the exact sharpness of your images. No matter how sharp your images

are they will all look softer on the CRT.

[vincent_cleij]

Margaret,

 

I am using a Nikon LS30 but I have the same problems as you with Fuji Velvia 50 slides. The point is that these problems only occur in the latest versions of VueScan (I downloaded version 7.6.82 recently) but NOT in a much older version (I used version 7.5.47 for a long time). Before version 7.6.16 VueScan contains an option

"Image/Slide/Negative curve" but this option is removed because the same could be done with the Brightness options. But my experience is that this is not the case.

With the new VueScan version (without Slide curve option) my Velvia scans are very dark and if I try to increase the brightness the image become blue, loses a lot of red and has much lower contrast. Another thing is that some images contain a lot more yellow than the one I scanned with the older version of VueScan. I am now using version 7.5.47 to scan my Velvia slides.

 

To get better results in the dark areas I use the "Long exposure pass" option. It does the same thing as you did with 2 scans and making a composite image. However using this option could produce some artifacts (see Help-file). I noticed this in a few cases.

 

I see that this question is posted quite a long time ago!<div></div>