B&W profiles on SE/Discrepancy with preview and final im

[TimW]

A couple of questions that I'm hoping someone here can help me with.

Firstly, does anyone have any ideas on whether any of the film profiles in Silverfast SE come close to matching up to Pan-X, which is not listed? I shot a lot of Pan-X and Tri-X back in the 80's, and have been trying my best to scan them with my new Coolscan V, with mixed results. A profile does exist for Tri-X, but not for the other.

Secondly, can anyone explain to me why I keep having the same issue time and time again of the preview image not matching the final output to Photoshop? With color negs the preview images are always quite light while the finished result comes up correctly exposed, which is fine by me - I prefer to do all my touch ups in PS, as I'm on more familiar and comfortable territory there. When it comes to B & W work though I get the opposite problem. The preview image matches up with my prints and negatives, while the final product comes out looking very washed out, so much so that I need to do heavy duty compensation in PS to bring it back to acceptable levels. I have played around with everything and anything i could think of to fix it up, but nothing works, at least at the level I'm trying to operate on.

I prefer working on B & W via HDR color, as it allows me to perform certain tasks in PS that greyscale scanning won't permit. I thought this might have been the problem, yet when I tried working in HDR greyscale the same problem cropped up. The only time everything fell into place (for both color negs and B & W work) was when I stepped out of HDR scanning and over to other levels. As some others have pointed out as well, I have no problems with SE when I switch over to negative direct, aside from the fact that the results come out grainier.

I'm still new to both the Coolscan V and Silverfast SE (I'm using the trial version to see if it's worth purchasing) so perhaps it's just me. I really don't know, aside from the fact I've been playing with the damn thing for two days without solving the problem. It would make life infinately easier if I knew that the preview images in front of me are going to produce matching results at the end of the process.

I would point out that I have tried one or two other suggestions I have seen posted to other people with similar problems, such as deleting the preferences folder, but nothing has worked to date.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.......Tim

[LSI_Noack]

Dear Tim

what's wrong with using grey/bw film presets of NegaFix and/or scanning in "16 bits of grey" mode?

For some cases, setting > Options > Spezial > Limit Gamma Slope can help.

Best regards
Sonny Noack
- Manager Technical Support, LaserSoft Imaging AG -