I have no idea how to describe this...

[wesclavey]

I use SI with an Epson 4990 to scan black and white negatives. This morning, I successfully scanned and printed a negative just like always. This evening - without changing any settings or anything on the scanner - I am unable to scan. The prescan image of the negative is noisy. When I use the marquee tool to crop the image, nothing appears - it is only black. Scanning the image as a positive seems to work.

If I make the marquee selection smaller and move the selected area away from what I actually want to select, I can see an image, but it looks terrible and is blown out.

Uninstalling and reinstalling didn't work. Rebooting the mac didn't work. Rebooting the scanner didn't work. Using SI standalone and in photoshop produces the same results.

I have attached screenshots. I think they speak for themselves. I have no idea what to do or what is happening here.

<a href="http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m149/wclavey/?action=view&current=Picture1.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m149/wclavey/Picture1.png" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m149/wclavey/?action=view&current=Picture2.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m149/wclavey/Picture2.png" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m149/wclavey/?action=view&current=Picture3.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m149/wclavey/Picture3.png" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

<a href="http://s103.photobucket.com/albums/m149/wclavey/?action=view&current=Picture4.png" target="_blank"><img src="http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m149/wclavey/Picture4.png" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

Help!
Wes

[degrub]

try swapping out the cable.
check that the calibration area ( under the leading edge where the scan head starts a scan) is clear and fairly clean.
Check the power to the scanner.

[LSI_Muenier]

Dear Wes,

is your problem solved?

Best regards
Martin

[wesclavey]

I tried most things I could think of, including uninstalling and reinstalling all the scanning software, in case it had become corrupted - - and nothing seemed to help. But then I upgraded to a new version of Silverfast and everything worked fine. I like the newer version, so in the end, I'm happy with the solution, even though I generally dislike not being able to understand why something that was working stopped... Thanks for asking.