Would IT8 Calibration help me?

[nathan118]

I have a Plustek 7500i with Silverfast SE (Plus?) at home. This summer I'm going to do a ton of negative and slide scanning, but I want to make sure I'm getting the best quality possible.

I have lots of slides and negatives from the 60's-90's, and I'm trying to decide if upgrading to Silverfast Ai and buying some IT8 targets would be useful or not.

So for example, I have lots of Kodak film that just says "Safety Film" on the side with a number. And in my negafix profiles, it only lists things like Kodak Gold and other films, but not this "safety film."

So my question is, would IT8 targets help with this problem, and if so, how do I know what IT8 targets to buy? I also have old kodachrome slides, do I need IT8 targets for that also?

So how do I know what IT8 targets I need? Thanks so much.

[LSI_Morales]

Dear Nathan,

While SilverFast Ai IT8 can offer you more control over your work, especially when it comes to color management. I would recommend you to compare between the SE Plus version and the demo version of SilverFast Ai Studio to see which fits you need better.

The IT8 calibration can only be performed for positives. It would not help much in the case of Negatives, however the Ai and Ai Studio will allow you to modify existing NegaFix profiles to fit those emulsions not included in the NegaFix selection. That option is not included in SilverFast SE.

For the slides, you'd require a 35 mm IT8 target (either Kodak or Fuji) and another IT8 target for the Kodachromes (this second target must be a Kodachrome target).

Cheers

[nathan118]

Thanks Alejandro. You have a link for how Ai or Ai Studio will let me change negafix profiles? Like what exactly will it let me change that SE Plus won't? I have a bunch of kodak negatives that don't have negafix profiles, so being able to change them and hopefully find something that works better than the presets would be good.

[nathan118]

Ai lets you modify existing negafix profiles....in what way? There are actual options not available to you in SE Plus? You have a link that shows some of that? Thank you!

[LSI_Ketelhohn]

you can read about creating your own NegaFix Profiles in our Manual in Chapter 6:
https://www.silverfast.com/download/docu/ch6specialfunctions,completechapter_en_2006-11-27.pdf