HowTo Automate Multiple Scans of same slide for HDR?

[jlisius]

I've searched the forum & played with SilverFast and still can't figure out how to do this:

I want to scan the same slide (after setting Focus, Dust&Scratch, 16-pass, ...) for underexposed (EV=-2 or3), correctly exposed (EV=0), and overexposed (EV=2 or 3) scans and have all three (or 5) files saved automatically by pushing one button. Does this capability exist currently?

The batch scanning module appears to be for a flatbed with multiple images, and I couldn't get it to recognize repeat scans with different exposures? Did I miss something?

Why? -- I'm doing this to generate HDR images from three to five scans using PhotoMatix. I see this as a 3-5 scan version of "MultiExposure." And a 16-pass scan at 4000 dpi with Dust&Scratch post-processing takes at least 20 minutes -- so if I can write the script or program that combines the scans that would mean I wouldn't have to be around to fiddle every half hour. Multiexposure is great but I love the control of tone mapping and compositing within PhotoMatix (and you can tell really care about these images). In a perfect world, if I could live with autofocus then I could use a slide loader and check back at the end of the weekend to reload 25 wet mounted slides and replace the 1TB hard drive of completed scans.


Thanks (in advance) for any suggestions,

[LSI_Morales]

Dear Jlisius

I want to scan the same slide (after setting Focus, Dust&Scratch, 16-pass, ...) for underexposed (EV=-2 or3), correctly exposed (EV=0), and overexposed (EV=2 or 3) scans and have all three (or 5) files saved automatically by pushing one button. Does this capability exist currently?

The batch scanning module appears to be for a flatbed with multiple images, and I couldn't get it to recognize repeat scans with different exposures? Did I miss something?

You do not need any of those steps, if you want to capture the entire dynamic range of your film, you might want to use Multi-Exposure and produce a raw file in 48 bits HDR which you can use later for your tone mapping.

Cheers