[filmscanners] Re: Fuji Superia in Vuescan

["Ralf Schmode" <rschmode@gmx.net>]

Alex Zabrovsky schrieb:

> I became proud owner of Nikon IV ED a few weeks ago and gained some
> measurable scanning experience with this fine instrument.
> Generally, quite satisfied results, although sometimes in really dense
> slides the dark details are blocked completely (well those areas are
indeed
> almost black, although under loupe some fine details can be resolved).

Hi, Alex,

is this with Vuescan or Nikon Scan? I have been using Vuescan with my LS-40
right from the start, and I have yet to find a slide with shadows too dense
for the scanner, very much opposed to my prior LS-30 which used to produce a
histogram with "jaggies" on the left (shadow) side.

> I downloaded the trial version of Vuescan to give it a try and was
> disappointed by the terrible results scanning negatives (Fuji Superia
400).
> I know the Vuescan is distinguished by negative film profiles for many
> common emulsion existing on the market, but unfortunately
> no Superia's 400 profile is available.

As far as I have tried, the Vuescan color negative film profiles *generally*
are a PITA, those for slides are somewhat better but not much. My workflow,
since using Vuescan, has been to use the Vuescan output "as-is" and do almost
all the color correction via a six-segment gamma curve per color channel in
my image editing application. It takes one or two days to learn but once you
have got used to it, you'll feel much more comfortable because you have one
.ini file for *all* slides, one for *all* negatives and do not change any
other setting in Vuescan apart from the crop borders.

> Perhaps that was the reason for
> inability to get acceptable results from this film, although I tried
almost
> all ISO 400 profiles available - nothing helped.

Quite what I found out - you'll find it even worse when you use other
negative film speeds and brands, plus, maybe, older negatives that may have 
faded
over the years. You have the choice of spending 15 minutes going through all
the film profiles and white/black point settings (and find out that none of
them gives satisfactory results, anyway) and 5 minutes for post-scan editing
the gamma curve and, maybe, finally adjust highlights and shadows.

> On the other hand NikonScan (ver. 3.1.2) gives very good results even from
> such complex emulsion as Superia (due to additional layer) from the first
> time without any fiddling with settings. That was really impressive, given
> the fact that they have no special profiles per negative film.

My perception with Nikon Scan 3.x was that its results *look* good on first
sight but be sure to check the left (shadow) side of the histogram when doing
negative scans - NS 3.x has a mean tendency of clipping shadows, not at a
value of 0 but at a value between 10 and 20% of brightness where you will most
likely see the histogram to be "cut". If that is the case, you'll inexorably
lose shadow detail. This is why I started using Vuescan though its color
casts are tougher to correct.

> Is something wrong in my Vuescan processing of Superia or this is
> unfortunately the reality of Vuescan not being able to handle Sueria
> emulsion ?

The latter. And, in my opinion, it applies to many, if not all, negative
emulsions. I have seen those problems with Konica Centuria 400, Kodak Gold of
different speeds, Fuji Superia 100 and 400. Slides are a bit "friendlier" in
that respect, especially Kodak Elitechrome 100 which I consider the best
transparency film for LS-40 scanning.

BTW, if you're scanning 400° color negative film you'll most likely need
Vuescan's grain reduction (set to "light") and infrared correction (set to
"medium") to even out the very sharp grain that the LS-40 will produce.

Greets -

Ralf


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