RE: filmscanners: Nikonscan and dual processors

["Jawed Ashraf" <Jawed@cupidity.force9.co.uk>]

{Bear in mind: I only scan negatives - I've never shot a slide film in my
life)

I concur with Bob.  I'm licensed for Vuescan, too.  Originally I purchased
it because there was strong support for the idea that "once mastered, its
results are superior".

I can't master it.  I can't batch scan.  I can't get consistent crops.  When
Vuescan doesn't know the film I'm scanning, it's a disaster.

Also, I had an epiphany, some time ago.  "Flat scans" of the type that
Vuescan excels at producing are all very well in a technical sense, but I
find that Levels/Curves cannot fix the vast majority of the "flat" images
that Vuescan produces so that they have a comparable "vitality" to that
shown by images produced by Nikon Scan.

By vitality I don't merely mean contrast/black-point/white-point.  I also
mean the nature of the tonality of the image.  Something related to the
question of "gamma" and also the inherent S-shaped response that all films
have (so far as I know).  So, all the effort I put into obtaining the full
tonal range in a negative (in the form of a flat scan) is wasted because I
get distinctly more pleasing images from Nikon Scan.

I honestly wish I hadn't chased the tail of "flat scans" for so long.  They
are not all they're cracked up to be.  I realised that Nikon Scan was
choosing, if it had to "clip", the clip I would have chosen to do.  The vast
majority of my images scanned from negatives don't, in fact, need to be
clipped.

So, nowadays I reserve Vuescan for occasional use to give me an alternative
point of view on a "difficult" image.  This happens once in, erm, a few
hundred images.  I have a shot of the moon which it rescued - terrible
picture but of academic interest.

I'm disappointed with Vuescan.  Sometimes I give my opinion a reality check
(e.g. with an upgrade of Vuescan) but I just can't get results I like.

I think Vuescan is for the forensic photographers.  I like that concept.

Jawed

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
> [mailto:owner-filmscanners@halftone.co.uk]On Behalf Of Bob Kehl -
> Kvernstoen, Kehl & Assoc.
> Sent: 06 October 2001 15:46
> To: filmscanners@halftone.co.uk
> Subject: Re: filmscanners: Nikonscan and dual processors
>
>
> NikonScan's GUI is amazingly simple, especially for full roll
> scanning.  It
> gives a full roll prescan of thumbnails which allows you to select and
> rotate frames you want to scan.  It's much less hassle than
> manually typing
> in Vuescan frame numbers, frame offset, orientations, etc....all of which
> need to be done while viewing your full roll of film on a
> lightbox!?!.  Not
> all that practical.
>
> I'm a registered user of Vuescan, but I use NikonScan 3.1.  Even
> if I deduct
> the crash and recovery time of NikonScan 3.1, it is faster and more hassle
> free to use than Vuescan.
> (sorry, Ed)
>
> Bob Kehl