Nikon Coolscan V ED and Black&White negatives

I'm busy scanning my black&white negatives and I'm looking for some
pointers to get the best results. Digital ICE seems to make a mess of
it so I switched that off, but I also wonder whether I should scan in
greyscale or Calibrated RGB. I believe the latter gives me more
greyscales than the standard greyscales option, but I might be
completely mistaken.
Any other suggestion regarding black and white scanning?
Thanks!

"Hoshisato" wrote:
I'm busy scanning my black&white negatives and I'm looking for some
pointers to get the best results. Digital ICE seems to make a mess of
it so I switched that off, but I also wonder whether I should scan in
greyscale or Calibrated RGB. I believe the latter gives me more
greyscales than the standard greyscales option, but I might be
completely mistaken.

Yes. Digital ICE uses IR. Since color film dyes are transparent to IR, it
allows the scanner to "see" the dust, which isn't. This doesn't work for
IR-opaque silver. Sigh. (It works nicely for XP-2 Super and similar films,
though.)

Any other suggestion regarding black and white scanning?

Another thing to try is to scan it as a positive (as though it were a slide)
and then inverting in Photoshop.

This can have the advantage that it is sometimes easier to get a scan that
matches the exposure range on the film to the histogram in the scan (i.e.
creating a scan with a histogram that runs from black to white and doesn't
overshoot (clip)), thus maximizing information capture and minimize
aggravation of noise when you make adjustments to the black and white
points.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

David J. Littleboy wrote:
(..)

Any other suggestion regarding black and white scanning?

Another thing to try is to scan it as a positive (as though it were a slide)
and then inverting in Photoshop.

Thanks, the problem with scanning it as a positive is that the scanner
doesn't seem to recognize correctly where the negative starts on the
strip of film and scans half of one and half of the one next to it.
Never had this problem with this scanner when scanning them as
negatives.

"Hoshisato" wrote:
David J. Littleboy wrote:

Another thing to try is to scan it as a positive (as though it were a
slide)
and then inverting in Photoshop.

Thanks, the problem with scanning it as a positive is that the scanner
doesn't seem to recognize correctly where the negative starts on the
strip of film and scans half of one and half of the one next to it.
Never had this problem with this scanner when scanning them as
negatives.

Right. It confuses the automagic cropping. On the 8000, I usually can
manually reset the crop, although it's a pain.

Some people like Vuescan, which tends to give more manual control. I used it
years ago, but found NikonScan easier with the 8000.

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

wrote in message news:
...
SNIP
Thanks, the problem with scanning it as a positive is that the scanner
doesn't seem to recognize correctly where the negative starts on the
strip of film and scans half of one and half of the one next to it.
Never had this problem with this scanner when scanning them as
negatives.

Right. It confuses the automagic cropping. On the 8000, I usually can
manually reset the crop, although it's a pain.

The problem is not automatic cropping but Vuescan. The Vuescan
cropping bug has been there for years.

Some people like Vuescan, which tends to give more manual control. I used it
years ago, but found NikonScan easier with the 8000.

Yes, NikonScan is far superior as is Silverfast (www.silverfast.com).
Not surprising because those are professional products unlike Vuescan
which is really just a little amateur program. So it's not a fair
comparison.

Bart

"Bart van der Wolf" wrote:
wrote:
SNIP
Thanks, the problem with scanning it as a positive is that the scanner
doesn't seem to recognize correctly where the negative starts on the
strip of film and scans half of one and half of the one next to it.
Never had this problem with this scanner when scanning them as
negatives.

Right. It confuses the automagic cropping. On the 8000, I usually can
manually reset the crop, although it's a pain.

The problem is not automatic cropping but Vuescan. The Vuescan
cropping bug has been there for years.

The writer of this message (a) isn't Bart, and (b) doesn't know what he's
talking about.

In particular, no software succeeds in using its _color slide_ cropping
algorithm to crop _negatives_.

Some people like Vuescan, which tends to give more manual control. I used
it
years ago, but found NikonScan easier with the 8000.

Yes, NikonScan is far superior as is Silverfast (www.silverfast.com).
Not surprising because those are professional products unlike Vuescan
which is really just a little amateur program. So it's not a fair
comparison.

Stupid troll.

(For the benefit of people reading this on rec.photo.digital,
comp.periphs.scanners is having problems with a stupid troll who fakes
message headers.)

David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan

"David J. Littleboy" wrote:

"Bart van der Wolf" wrote:
SNIP
The Vuescan cropping bug has been there for years.

Stupid troll.

You're right. This Bart person is quite some character.

A quick Google search for his full name shows he's been at it for a
few years. Some people, eh?

Rick

Automatic cropping works wonderfully in VueScan. I recommend
everyone download it. You can download it from:

http://www.hamrick.com/

Don

"Bart van der Wolf" wrote in message
...

wrote in message news:
...
SNIP
Thanks, the problem with scanning it as a positive is that the scanner
doesn't seem to recognize correctly where the negative starts on the
strip of film and scans half of one and half of the one next to it.
Never had this problem with this scanner when scanning them as
negatives.

Right. It confuses the automagic cropping. On the 8000, I usually can
manually reset the crop, although it's a pain.

The problem is not automatic cropping but Vuescan. The Vuescan
cropping bug has been there for years.

Some people like Vuescan, which tends to give more manual control. I used
it
years ago, but found NikonScan easier with the 8000.

Yes, NikonScan is far superior as is Silverfast (www.silverfast.com).
Not surprising because those are professional products unlike Vuescan
which is really just a little amateur program. So it's not a fair
comparison.

Bart

And another google search will show that Bart doesn't
post from supernews, only the troll (i.e. me) does.

Rick Hamed is also a forged posting from me.

Don

"Rick Hamed" wrote in message
...
"David J. Littleboy" wrote:

"Bart van der Wolf" wrote:
SNIP
The Vuescan cropping bug has been there for years.

Stupid troll.

You're right. This Bart person is quite some character.

A quick Google search for his full name shows he's been at it for a
few years. Some people, eh?

Rick

Hoshisato wrote:

Thanks, the problem with scanning it as a positive is that the scanner
doesn't seem to recognize correctly where the negative starts on the
strip of film and scans half of one and half of the one next to it.

The negative strip frame finding/cropping problem is NOT really a
VueScan bug it is just that Ed Hamrick can't or doesn't want to
implement the same method used in NikonScan -- that is doing a low
level scan of the entire strip and then looking for the interframe
areas that define the image frames. VueScan bases its frame
finding/cropping on the sprocket holes. This technique is quite
understandable from Ed's point of view. Note: the users manual gives
guidance. It suggests selecting the second frame and then using the
frame offset controls to center the frame, then scan the strip starting
from frame 1. This proceedure (although clunky) usually works for me
on my LS4000. Your experience may vary.

A bug it is not -- just a feature that is not as elegant as the
original (although I've had occassional problems with NikonScan not
finding the frames as well).

Jeff Randall