Problems Scanning Slides

[sgspencer]

Hello,

I purchased the Microtek i700/Silverfast to scan a few hundred slides. The results I get are extremely dark with no shawdow detail at all. The originals are slightly underexposed but the detail is clearly in the original and nonexistant in the scan. Does anyone have any suggestions on getting better results? I realize the scanner is on the lower end but I do expect it preform well with decent originals.

Any advice would be helpful. FYI, the film is Kodak and I haven't tried calibrating the scanner yet.

Sean

[LSI_Noack]

Dear Sean

three points come to my mind:
(1) IT8 calibration does yield no effect on negative material.
(2) To work with shadow details only, AACO is the tool you might want to use.
(3) I guess the whole problem is caused by scanning in HDR mode with a gamma gradation set to 1.0 and opening that images straight in Photoshop. If so, this can be easily remedied by either (a) not using the HDR mode, or at least (b) telling SilverFast in the "Options Dialogue" on the "General Tab" to use the given gamma gradation value for HDR scans, too.

Kind regards
Sonny Noack
- tech support, LSI AG -