Digital BW, The Print

Vuescan is not the most intuitive scanning sw I've used, but it is 
easily the most powerful. I'd advise you to read through the help 
section extensively and repeatedly, then experiment with incremental 
adjustments of variables one at a time until you have a good handle 
on the features and exactly how you are manipulating the rgb pixel 
values. You can have vuescan save both a raw scan and an adjusted 
file. You should also be able to apply settings consistently to other 
shots in the same roll, with tweaking to account for exposure 
inconsitancies (as well as different subjects, lighting conditions 
etc). 

The extent to which you are willing to work on each individual shot 
will determine the degree of success you have in extracting all of 
its qualities. If you want to 'set it and forget it', then you will 
have to accept compromises. In that case you may be better off with 
software provided with your scanner that is intended to more easily 
satisfy 'average' consumers, without too much effort. 

I'm having this problem with a friend who I helped build a website to 
sell products. This person wants to be able to make their own scans, 
but lacks experience, and expertise in photoshop, and can barely 
manage the very simple oem scanning package. This person is 
frustrated because their raw, 10-minute scans don't begin to approach 
the quality I can extract from Vuescan + Photoshop in an hour. Go 
figure.


--- In 
DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, "peter_in_seattle" 
<lists@g...> wrote:
> Stan,
> 
> Can you please explain how you set Vuescan to capture all the tonal 
range of the 
> image? Also, if it's not too complicated, how do you adjust the 
curves in Photoshop?
> 
> I use Vuescan with a Polaroid SS4000, and I've been about ready to 
give up on 
> Vuescan lately, because I do get very inconsistent scans, 
especially with color slides 
> (media type set to Image). I get one nearly perfect one, then 
> one too yellow, too green, or much too contrasty, or more than one 
of those. I can't 
> figure out how to tweak what I see in the histograms, other than 
changing the 
> selected Image Curve on the Color tab. The various Brightness and 
Black & White 
> Point adjustments are a mystery to me.
> 
> I thought maybe the problem was a scanner calibration issue... I 
was thinking of 
> going back to Silverfast, which came with an IT-8 calibration 
slide. The problems 
> have really made me frustrated with the whole process of scanning. 
And the 
> inconsistency seems to mean that I can't really do batch scans, 
even from the same 
> roll of film.
> 
> Peter
> 
> 
> --- In DigitalBlackandWhiteThePrint@yahoogroups.com, Stan McQueen 
<stan@s...> 
> wrote:
> > I use Vuescan almost 100% of the time because I have found I get 
> > better scans with it than with almost anything else on virtually 
all of my 
> > images. Maybe you're expecting the scan to look great as it comes 
in from 
> > the scanner. Rather than that, I set Vuescan to capture all of 
the tonal 
> > range of the image, which makes the image somewhat low contrast 
initially, 
> > then I make curve adjustments in Photoshop. This way, I know I'm 
getting 
> > all the image has to offer. Other software I have used made the 
initial 
> > scan look better than Vuescan, but I found that usually one or 
the other or 
> > both ends of the tonal range were getting clipped, so I wasn't 
getting all 
> > the information. I also do no sharpening or filtering in the 
scanning 
> > software. I do all this in Photoshop.
> > 
> > Stan